JOPLIN, Mo. — Clint and Wendy Gott’s home at 2205 S. Ozark Ave. was, like thousands of others in Joplin, severely damaged by the May 22 tornado.

“We had about $100,000 to $110,000 worth of damage,” Clint Gott said Thursday afternoon. “But because the tornado didn’t blow out an entire wall, it couldn’t be considered totaled.”

That meant hiring a contractor and working out payments between the insurance and mortgage companies to get the home rebuilt. But shoddy workmanship from the first contractor ended in Gott firing him.

Then, a second contractor’s habit of showing up late and leaving early ended the same way.

To date, Gott estimates that he and his wife have lost at least $11,000 in the bad deals. While living in a Federal Emergency Management Agency mobile home in the Country Acres Mobile Home Community, he’s using money the couple received for the home’s contents, along with whatever he can scrape together each week, to buy Sheetrock and siding so he can finish the remaining 50 percent of the job.

“We’ve gotten more done with the help of volunteers than anybody we’ve paid,” Gott said. For his legal battles, he needed a professional. He sought help from three Joplin-area natives who had themselves been affected by the tornado. That help is costing him nothing.

“We’re not sure yet of the end results, but we know that they are helping, and we appreciate that,” said Gott. “We’d advise others to look at getting help from them, too, if they have a similar situation.”

Personal investment

The three refer to themselves as the Tornado Team.

One member, Zach Tusinger, a 2003 Joplin High School graduate, captured images of the approaching storm from the roof of his downtown loft on Main Street.

With a degree from Saint Louis University School of Law, Tusinger had returned to Joplin to become an associate in civil litigation and defense work at the law firm of Blanchard, Robertson, Mitchell & Carter.

After the storm, he would learn that his aunt and uncle, Glenn and Lorie Holland, died in the tornado.

“For me personally, it was hard to go back to law as before,” Tusinger said. “I was — I think people were — looking for something more fulfilling after the tornado.”

Another member of the team, Jaime Rodriguez, graduated from McAuley Catholic High School in 2003 and was a fellow SLU grad of Tusinger’s. She was working in public interest law in Chicago, Ill., when she learned about the tornado that leveled a third of Joplin.

Her mother, Brenda Seidel, was a nurse practitioner at St. John’s Regional Medical Center and lived in the Cedar Ridge addition. Seidel’s workplace was destroyed, and her home was damaged.

The next week, Rodriguez returned to Joplin to help her mother, and she wondered what she could do to make a more lasting difference for the community.

She said she watched news of Joplin on CNN “all day, ever day,” and felt helpless.

“I wished I was a contractor who could do something,” Rodriguez said. “Then I realized, ‘I am a lawyer. I CAN do something.’”

A disaster unit that was dispatched to Joplin in the aftermath of the tornado quickly realized that residents would face legal issues, and set about establishing the national nonprofit Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Legal Fellowship Program at the Legal Aid of Western Missouri office in Joplin.

It was there that Tusinger and Rodriguez found their calling.

They applied for and accepted two-year fellowships that were created with the express purpose of helping those affected by the Joplin tornado. Tusinger took a pay cut to do so.

The third member of the team, Jaime Farrill-Blood, is a 1998 Carl Junction High School graduate who attended the University of Missouri-Columbia and Missouri Southern State University and earned a degree in criminal justice. On May 22, she was with a group of friends and family at a luau-themed college graduation pool party when the tornado bore down at 32nd Street and Monroe Avenue.

She remained there for 24 hours, making bandage packs and rounding up flashlights and supplies for those who went out into the dark to help victims.

Like Tusinger and Rodriguez, she lost friends in the storm. Her home at 28th Street and Missouri Avenue sustained significant damage — including blown-out windows, torn siding and uprooted trees. She and her family still are making repairs.

She brings that experience to a grant-funded paralegal position at Legal Aid, working with Tusinger and Rodriguez.

Farrill-Blood must drive through the tornado zone to and from work each day, reminding her of the need that exists. “I’m still picking up my own house, too, so I know what these people are going through,” she said.

Legal Aid

Legal Aid of Western Missouri has been providing services to low-income residents in Barton, Bates, Jasper, McDonald, Newton and Vernon counties since 1964. Staff attorneys, paralegals and volunteers assist more than 20,000 people each year with problems that affect their ability to provide for themselves and their families.

Priority is given to cases involving housing, employment, domestic abuse, immigration, consumer problems and public benefits.

Becky Brand, a spokeswoman with Equal Justice Works, said the program’s fellows stationed elsewhere in the nation help people with cases related to health care, public benefits, foreclosure prevention, veterans issues, education and more.

Among them:

• Victims of Hurricane Katrina. Fellows were deployed to help by providing free legal representation. The fellows still work in the area, helping those victims as well as those affected by the 2010 Gulf Coast oil disaster.

• Homeless veterans, who officials say make up more than one-quarter of the current homeless population, as well as an estimated 500,000 veterans who are at risk of becoming homeless.

• Those facing financial challenges as a result of the recession and the mortgage foreclosure crisis of 2009.

In Joplin, the two fellowship openings at Legal Aid generated 46 applicants from across the U.S., said Janice Franklin, managing attorney. She said Tusinger and Rodriguez stood out, primarily because they were local.

“I knew I wanted them,” Franklin said.

Tornado troubles

Legal teams in other communities devastated by tornadoes — including Tuscaloosa, Ala. — shared lists with Legal Aid that detailed the case issues to expect on a month-by-month basis.

In the weeks after the tornado, landlord-tenant issues were at the forefront, with residents facing challenges with getting security deposits back and cutting through red tape associated with rent-to-own residences and beneficiary claims.

Insurance companies have sometimes refused to pay for post-storm repairs, and fraudulent contractors have prowled neighborhoods and suckered the helpless into payments for faulty or inadequate work.

One of the biggest struggles that remains for many is finding adequate housing.

The legal team has seen numerous head-of-household challenges and issues pertaining to disability and Social Security; in most cases, necessary documents like death certificates and medical records cannot be provided.

“And that’s an issue — we have no documents,” Tusinger said. “They’re covered in mud and scattered from here to Springfield.”

“It takes persistence,” Rodriguez said. “It can be overwhelming for those going through it, and they already were traumatized.”

The team keeps the lines of communication open with other groups such as the Salvation Army, the Red Cross and Catholic Charities, all of which are serving as disaster case managers for storm victims.

“We know there are legal needs we’re not seeing,” Rodriguez said.

Added Tusinger: “A lot of people don’t realize their problems are legal problems, or are afraid of involving an attorney.”

“Some are wary of outsiders coming in to help, so we always try to emphasize that we are from here, we grew up here,” Rodriguez said.

On the horizon

The lawyers believe that in coming months, cases will involve restoration companies, evictions from FEMA trailers and more contractors like those the Gotts have dealt with.

“The challenge is our clients are low-income, so they’re living paycheck to paycheck and barely making it,” Rodriguez said. “This adds a great deal of stress to their lives.”

Part of that stress has taken a physical form: The domestic violence caseload at Legal Aid has increased 44 percent since May 22, officials say.

“People have had to move in with others, often into a small space, or they might be sharing a car, or their child’s day care got blown away,” Rodriguez said.

She said some clients have stayed with an abuser because post-storm relief is provided based on the residence affected, not the number of residents living in it.

“A lot of us are quickly becoming experts on things we never would have imagined,” Tusinger said. “We’re learning about child care, roof estimates and siding.”

Because transportation remains a barrier for many, the team hopes in coming months to further engage the community by staging “know your rights” seminars and conducting walk-in legal clinics for those displaced by the storm; the sessions would be held close to the FEMA mobile housing units.

Tusinger and Rodriguez also hope to coordinate with law schools throughout the region to provide law students with internships during spring break.

While cases can be emotionally draining, “We’re doing something positive for our community, and that feels rewarding,” Tusinger said.

But there are good days, Farrill-Blood said, when a case is resolved in a positive way. “That’s when I do a happy dance,” she said.

Getting help

Legal aid of Western Missouri, 302 S. Joplin Ave., is assisting victims of the tornado who meet certain income guidelines and who need legal help. Details: 417-782-1650.