By Lauren Schenkman
February 5, 2018
美国民主党在全美50个州和80多个国家都有成员.C. 酒吧的会员聚光灯定期介绍组成我们社区的人. 阅读你的同龄人，他们的生活，他们在世界各地的工作.
当美国小企业管理局(SBA)的澳门赌场官网兼狂热的环球旅行家卡塔琳娜·马丁内斯谈起最近的一次旅行时, her voice fills with enthusiasm. “It was amazing,” she gushes. “I’m very, very lucky to have been able to do that.”
Martinez, 谁是小企业管理局华盛顿都会区办事处的地区法律顾问, hails from Cartagena, Colombia, and has set foot in a jaw-dropping 43 countries. But this time she isn’t talking about, say, 去年，她去了一个偏远的印尼小岛潜水. She’s talking about Miami, Florida.
When Hurricane Irma struck the southeastern U.S. and the Caribbean in the fall of 2017, the SBA put out a call for employees, particularly Spanish speakers, 愿意去佛罗里达帮助人们申请低息贷款, long-term loans to replace destroyed property. So from late September to late November, 马丁内斯放弃了她在华盛顿的办公桌，每天在迈阿密一所大学校园里的临时办公室工作9到14个小时. 她说，对飓风厄玛和飓风玛丽亚的受害者来说，需求是如此之大, which struck Puerto Rico soon after Irma, began lining up outside the office at 2 a.m.
“很多次我不得不休息一下，出去哭，因为故事太悲伤了,” says Martinez. 她很难说哪个故事对她影响最大. Was it the 22-year-old cancer patient who lost $20,他的化疗药物因为无法冷藏而损失了5000万美元? The family with the young baby that, 当时他们在波多黎各的高层公寓停电了, had to walk up and down 24 flights of stairs to find food?
One day a woman drove up from the Florida Keys, 她把她那破旧的活动房屋和她所有的东西都留在了哪里. All she had been able to save were her dog and a few photos. Yet the woman was resilient, Martinez says. “She was like, ‘They’re just things . . . You know what, we’ll move on.’”
Although the hours were long and the stories heartbreaking, 当马丁内斯看到人们“带着一丝希望离开”时，她感到精神振奋.她说，她所做的就是“用他们的语言和他们说话，听他们说话。.”
It’s no surprise that Martinez finds service so fulfilling; pro bono work is what first piqued her interest in the law. 马丁内斯一直梦想着为哥伦比亚外交部门工作, 但由于暴力和政治动荡，她的家人于1999年逃离了这个国家. 毕业于佛罗里达国际大学，获得国际关系和经济学学位, 马丁内斯以一个朋友为榜样，开始在马里兰州做澳门赌场官网助理.C.
At first, it was just a job. Then she got to help an attorney on a pro bono case. As gentrification transformed the city, 房东们想把公寓腾空，让更有钱的房客住进来，他们试图用一切可能的手段赶走低收入居民——其中一些是移民, including hiring people to impersonate immigration officers. 通过无偿代理，帮助她的雇主改变租户的生活, Martinez felt “inspired.她进入了法学院，2009年从美国大学华盛顿法学院毕业.
Service is a big part of Martinez’s day to day as a lawyer. 她负责协调小企业管理局的公益项目*，并每年两次在华盛顿特区做志愿者.C. Bar Pro Bono Center’s Advice & Referral Clinic. Since 2009, she has worked on 11 pro bono cases, 其中有几个住房案件是通过该中心的倡导安排给她的 & Justice Clinic. “我喜欢能够代表那些不相信自己有发言权的人，”她说.
她看到那些感到无能为力的租户忍受着令人震惊的条件, from rats and roaches to missing windows and lack of heat. 马丁内斯代理的一名女性因房东拒绝解决一系列违反住房法规的问题而被驱逐，原因是她没有支付房租, including mold and mildew, vermin, and leaking roof and pipes, among others. 马丁内斯帮助向房东提出了反诉，房东被要求修理公寓. 这位女士在搬进公寓之前已经无家可归一年了，她很高兴.
在拜访另一个租户时，马丁内斯走进了一个污水泛滥的地下室. “I think I threw away those shoes,” she says wryly. But she says it’s essential to visit clients in their homes. “如果你看到他们被迫生活的条件，你真的能感受到他们正在经历什么.”
Martinez’s latest case was through the Housing Right to Counsel Project在那里，她与公益中心(Pro Bono Center)合作担任指导. 一名残疾老年妇女被驱逐，因为她的补贴提供者D.C. Housing Authority (DCHA), 因为违反住房法规而停止支付房租, including bedbugs, a broken lock on the front door, and insufficient heat. 马丁内斯设法让房东把公寓修好了，这样DCHA就能继续付钱了, and the elderly woman was freed from paying the back rent. 现在马丁内斯正在超越一切，帮助她找到一个更好的住处.
Despite a full-time job and her pro bono cases, 马丁内斯期待着2018年在她的名单上增加更多的国家. 但她真正的决心是帮助其他澳门赌场官网发现无偿工作的回报. 澳门赌场官网们可能会担心他们会在一个他们没有经验的领域接到一个案子, but Martinez points out that the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center pairs lawyers with an expert mentor, as well as a back-up expert mentor from the Center. 她说，即使你不是专家，你也可以产生很大的影响. “Whatever you do, as little as it may seem, it may mean . . . 街头生活和避难所生活的区别，”她说. “We [lawyers] have so much power to help.”
As for the extra hours? “I don’t see it as more work,” she says. “I truly enjoy it.”
