- NPT reports.

Aging Matters.

(soft music) - Hi, I'm Heather Staggs.

I work for West Tennessee Legal Services in the Elder Abuse and Financial Exploitation Elder Justice Unit.

We are an organization that offers free legal aid to people that can't afford it.

So you will not pay for any of our services.

The only thing that you would ever pay for is anything that we file in court.

Anywhere in the state that you go, you will be able to find a legal aid organization that handles cases in the County that you are in.

- From West Tennessee Legal Services.

- My situation is I had a father and son company that I hired to redo my kitchen and I paid them the money, two checks, and they left, never finished the job.

When it first happened, I was so stressed out.

I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

I really didn't know what to do because I had never been in this situation.

This ceiling's not done.

- [Heather] A lot of times when people come into legal aid they aren't sure what the solution will be or where to turn.

Number one, I always let them know they're not alone when they're telling me their story but I also let them know about the different ways we can go about solving the problem.

Hopefully maximize your possibility of getting the money back.

- [Woman] I got Heather on my side and she's just been there if I need to talk to her, I call her.

Ms. Heather Staggs also referred me to another place that will help me called CREVAA - CREVAA, which is the collaborative response to elder and vulnerable adult abuse.

And they work with victims of crime to help solve whatever the consequences that you may have faced from that crime are.

And that could include anything from meal services, medication help, emergency housing, fixing a home repair that might've been part of an financial exploitation scheme.

They have a very wide and broad way of helping victims in a way that legal services alone could not do.

And that's the beauty of it.

There is a wide community of resources and tools out there that can provide exactly what it is that you're needing and legal services can work, help you work with those organizations to make sure that you're taken care of.

(soft music)