Jim Barrett at The Gudger House in Montford
By Emma Castleberry
Pisgah Legal Services (PLS) is a vital legal aid nonprofit that serves 18 counties in Western North Carolina, and its remarkable achievements cannot be traced back to any one individual. That said, PLS benefits from a devoted team of staff and volunteers, and one of them is wrapping up a long, fruitful career driving the nonprofit’s mission and impacting literally thousands of lives.
Jim Barrett has retired after serving PLS for more than 40 years, starting his career as a housing attorney when the nonprofit was headquartered out of the historic Gudger House in Montford, and serving as executive director for the final 31 years of his tenure. His early work gave him intimate familiarity with the needs of PLS clients, allowing him to be a more effective leader when he came into the role of executive director.
“Our existence deters many bad actors from taking advantage of vulnerable people,” Jim says of PLS. “I also learned to manage having too many challenges and opportunities at once. I learned to try multiple strategies simultaneously because some of them will fail and others will succeed.
Then as executive director, I saw how important it is to hire committed, capable staff. I saw how continuity of staff was necessary to build community relationships, a track record of problem-solving, good stewardship of the funds entrusted to us and trust in the communities we serve.”
Under Jim’s leadership, PLS grew from serving just six counties and assisting fewer than 1,000 people annually to a robust nonprofit staff of 130 that served more than 23,500 people in our region last year. “We now have 19 office locations to be more accessible to the 200,000+ people who are eligible for our free services because of their very low incomes,” Jim says.
Jim’s career is peppered with impressive highlights, including successful advocacy for the first minimum housing code in Buncombe County after two of his client’s children died in a fire because their mobile home didn’t have a smoke detector. He also maintained the independence of PLS as a community nonprofit by rejecting a statewide merger and federal funding that would limit its ability to serve more people in WNC. His work has had a ripple effect far beyond the scope of PLS’s direct work: during his career, PLS provided legal expertise to support the establishment of more than 40 other nonprofit organizations that serve our region, including Homeward Bound, MANNA FoodBank, Mountain Housing Opportunities, Western NC Community Health Services, Rutherford Housing Partnership, Community Housing Coalition of Madison County, The Free Clinics of Henderson County, and the Asheville-Buncombe Community Land Trust.
As a leader, Jim’s devotion has had a great impact on his colleagues and team. “In the almost two decades that I’ve worked with Jim, I’ve seen his tenacity, tireless work and his clear message to everyone that he encounters that all of our neighbors deserve to have basic needs met—adequate income, safe housing, healthcare, freedom from abuse and violence, and that we must each do our part to make this a reality,” says Katie Russell Miller, managing director of community engagement at PLS.
A career with such meaning is certainly worth memorializing, and as such, PLS has established The Jim Barrett Fund for Justice, a permanent fund within the Pisgah Legal Services Endowment to ensure it can continue Jim’s legacy. More than $250,000 has already been raised for this fund in his honor. “Endowment earnings can be used annually as a predictable income stream to sustain critically needed services,” says Ally Donlan Wilson, chief development officer for PLS. “By supporting the Jim Barrett Fund for Justice, people can honor Jim’s long tenure of standing for justice while supporting the work of Pisgah Legal Services, now and in the future.”
As far as plans for retirement, Jim won’t languish—his plans for the immediate future include volunteering in the election, tending his sizable garden, taking more naps and reading more books. “Then I will consider what I feel called to do in the next phase of life,” he says. “My mother is a good role model—active in her nineties!”
He also feels confident about the future of the organization in his absence. Jaclyn Kiger, who has been an attorney with PLS since 2010, will take the helm as the new executive director. “Pisgah Legal Services is poised to be recognized and funded as an excellent model for providing holistic services to reduce poverty, especially child poverty,” Jim says. “The addition of social workers, Medicaid ombudsmen, volunteer and staff tax preparers to secure tax credits that our clients do not know about, and health insurance assisters to our legal staff is helping our clients escape poverty more and more often, not just cope with poverty.”
Learn more and donate at PisgahLegal.org.
