CDP collaborates with a number of its partner organizations to advocate with federal, state and local elected officials for legislative and policy changes to benefit New York City's low-income communities and improve low-income New Yorkers' quality of life. Examples of this work include:

The Language Access Coalition

This coalition of immigrant and housing rights advocates, including CDP, Asian Americans for Equality, CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities, Make the Road by Walking, the New York Immigration Coalition and University Settlement House, works with City Council members and city government officials to ensure that the housing services provided by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to immigrant and limited English proficient New Yorkers are offered in multiple languages. The coalition recently released a report entitled Hear This!: the Need for Multilingual Housing Services in New York City, for which CDP's Research and Policy Initiative provided extensive research and writing support.
(Read the report.) The coalition has also drafted legislation that was introduced in the New York City Council in June 2007 as the Equal Access to Housing Services Act. Click here to sign on as an endorser. For more information about the coalition, click here.

Beyond Ground Zero Network

This network, known as BGZ, was formed in the wake of September 11th by low-income, working immigrants and people of color living in Chinatown and the Lower East Side to address the health impact of 9/11 on under-served communities in Lower Manhattan. In addition to organizing and operating a groundbreaking partnership with Bellevue Hospital to provide screening, treatment and monitoring to low-income, uninsured residents suffering from 9/11-related health problems, BGZ has also conducted wide-scale surveys of low-income residents of these neighborhoods from 2002 to the present, revealing that thousands of residents and workers are still coping with severe 9/11-related illnesses without access to health care or assistance of any kind. Currently, BGZ is using the data from these surveys to advocate with federal, state and local officials to include residents in 9/11 health-related services offered through the federal government, which are currently restricted to rescue and cleanup workers. BGZ is also advocating for government funds to provide screening and treatment for low-income residents affected by 9/11, as well as extensive research into the long-term health effects that exposed residents are likely to face.