Our Mission
The Community Development Project (CDP) at the Urban Justice Center strengthens the impact of grassroots organizations in New York City’s low-income and other excluded communities. We partner with community organizations to win legal cases, publish community-driven research reports, assist with the formation of new organizations and cooperatives, and provide technical assistance in support of their work towards social justice.
Our issue areas include:
- fair housing and anti-displacement
- workers’ rights
- consumer justice
- economic development
- civic participation
- access to affordable health care
- environmental justice
Click here to subscribe to CDP's email newsletter, Community Development Update.
Our Services
Community Lawyering
CDP’s team of experienced attorneys provides a wide range of legal assistance to help advance community groups’ campaigns for social and economic justice. CDP’s litigation arises out of the issues facing the groups' low-income constituents and members. For more information and examples CDP’s litigation, click here. CDP's attorneys also offer legal advice and assistance to grassroots organizations in topics including incorporation and tax exemption, complying with non-profit, employment and tax laws, and real estate and lease issues. To learn more, click here.
Research and Policy
CDP's Research and Policy Initiative partners with grassroots community organizations to develop, design and implement participatory research initiatives that support and strengthen our partner’s organizing and advocacy work. For more information on the Research and Policy Initiative and how it has supported community organizing and social change, click here.
Technical and Capacity Building Assistance
CDP's technical assistance work offers grassroots community groups training and assistance related to their formation and operation as not-for-profit entities. The goals of such efforts are to build these groups' capacity for effective organizational management and support their organizing and advocacy efforts in the communities they serve. For more information and examples, click here.
Our Theory of Change
CDP adheres to a theory of change where short-term and individual successes help build the capacity and power of our community partners, who in turn can have longer-term impact on policies, laws and systems that affect their communities.
We leverage short-term successes such as winning cases and publishing reports to build the capacity of our partner organizations, increase public awareness of the issues they are organizing around, and help achieve victories for their organizing campaigns.
This enables our community partners to create systemic change through law and policy reform, increase political power in low-income and excluded communities, and change abusive and exploitative practices affecting their communities.
Our Approach
- We believe that social change is created through building power, developing leaders and increasing civic participation in communities that are traditionally excluded from political processes;
- The priorities and goals for our work are guided by and responsive to the communities that we serve;
- Our legal, research, policy and technical assistance has greater impact because it is done in connection with organizing, building power, and leadership development;
- By developing equal partnerships with community-based organizations, we challenge and transform traditional power dynamics between service providers and low-income and excluded communities.
News and Events
CDP's Work in Review
CDP is pleased to announce the release of a new report providing an overview of our work in support of social justice: our mission, our community partners, our issue areas, and select media coverage. Many people who interact with CDP know us primarily through a single component of our services; this report offers the chance to explore the breadth of our work and victories in support of community organizing.
"The Community Development Project: Strengthening NYC Community Organizations Since 2001,"
January 2012
CDP 2012 Summer Web/Communication Internships
Details at this page.
Community Development Project with VOCAL-NY Releases "Beyond Methodone" Report
On October 6th, the Community Development Project in partnership with VOCAL-NY released a new report, "Beyond Methadone: Improving Health and Empowering Patients in Opioid Treatment Programs." The report examines one of New York's most stigmatized and marginalized populations and evaluates the performance of methadone programs in meeting the needs of their patients. The report, which is based on over 500 surveys and five focus groups with methadone patients across 29 methadone programs in New York City, found a range of unmet health needs and challenges for methadone patients. According to the report, prevention and treatment of Hepatitis C and drug overdose are two of the most critical health needs being overlooked by methadone programs. The report was released at a policy briefing with VOCAL-NY, advocates, New York Assemblymembers Richard Gottfried, Chair of the Assembly Health Committee and Steven Cymbrowitz, Chair of the Assembly Alcoholism and Drug Abuse committees.
For more information about this report and others by the Community Development Project, please visit this page.
Community Development Project Supports Efforts to Organize Domestic Workers
The article linked below, "Organizing to Transform Ourselves and Our Laws: The New York Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Campaign," appearing in the March-April 2011 issue of Clearinghouse Review, combines anecdotal and analytical approaches to tell the story of a six-plus-year grassroots effort to organize domestic workers and move historic legislation through the New York State Legislature. Community Development Project (CDP) Staff Attorney E. Tammy Kim writes in collaboration with Ai-Jen Poo, former Director of Domestic Workers United and current Director of National Domestic Workers Alliance. Over the past six years, CDP has provided legal, research and policy support to DWU in their successful effort to pass the Bill of Rights. CDP continues to support DWU through legal clinics, litigation, research and other technical support.
PDF posted here with the generous permission of Clearinghouse Review: Journal of Poverty Law and Policy, whose copyright is held by the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law.
CDP Research and Policy Update Fall 2010 - Spring 2011
This update from the Research and Policy Initiative of the Community Development Project (CDP) highlights four new reports released by CDP from the fall of 2010 through the present. The reports cover topics such as domestic workers and collective bargaining, green jobs in the South Bronx, and a needs assessment of the Southeast Asian community in the South Bronx. Each report utilized a participatory action research model and was designed, executed and released in partnership with a community based organization, directly connecting the research to organizing campaigns for social justice. The update also includes a review of projects that CDP is currently working on with organizations such as FIERCE, Teachers Unite, New Immigrants for Community Empowerment (NICE) and VOCAL-NY. We also preview the upcoming release of the "Research for Organizing Toolkit," a set of popular education tools and activities for partner organizations to use when designing and conducting research.
"CDP Research and Policy Update Fall 2010 - Spring 2011,"
April, 2011
South Bronx Residents' Solution on Greening Our 'Hood:
Report by Mothers on the Move and the Urban Justice Center's
Community Development Project
Mothers on the Move (MOM) in collaboration with CDP's Research and Policy Initiative released a report documenting three intersecting issues affecting residents of the South Bronx; high unemployment rates, deteriorating housing conditions, and poor health. "South Bronx Residents' Solution on Greening Our 'Hood" summarizes the findings of surveys and focus groups conducted by MOM members, who are also residents of the South Bronx. The report also includes the community's solution for addressing all three issues: a green jobs program that would train and place public housing residents in jobs focused on retrofitting and greening existing New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) developments. This timely report highlights the voices of public housing residents, whose opinions will help inform the larger green jobs policy debate, particularly within the NYCHA community.
"South Bronx Residents' Solution on Greening Our 'Hood,"
a report by Mothers on the Move and the Community Development Project
"Informe Destaca Problemas en el Sur del Bronx,"
El Diario,
April 15, 2011
"New report says hiring NYCHA tenants for green jobs, repairs would lower unemployment, save money,"
New York Daily News,
April 20, 2011
"South Bronx Greening,"
BronxTalk,
April 25, 2011
Collective Bargaining for Domestic Workers
Report from CDP and Domestic Workers United
In partnership with Domestic Workers United and the National Domestic Workers Alliance, CDP's Research and Policy Initiative and workers' rights legal team collaborated to produce a report entitled Domestic Workers and Collective Bargaining: A Proposal for the Immediate Inclusion of Domestic Workers in the New York State Labor Relations Act. Following the historic passage of New York State's Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, this report analyzes the groundbreaking possibility of collective organization and bargaining among privately employed domestic workers in New York State, and recommends eliminating the unjust exclusion of domestic workers from the New York State Labor Relations Act. The report bases its conclusions on the results of extensive survey and interview data, as well as legal research and analysis, about the particular challenges domestic workers face in their workplaces—namely, their employers' homes.
"Domestic Workers and Collective Bargaining"
"Domestic Workers and Collective Bargaining"
"Time to Bargain, Say New York's Domestic Workers,"
Labor Notes.org
CDP Research and Policy Initiative Update Winter/Spring 2010
We are pleased to share this new update from the Research and Policy Initiative at the Community Development Project. After releasing eight community-based research reports last year, we have kept up the momentum in 2010 and have released four new reports with our grassroots community partners. In addition, we continue to coordinate and support the development of several citywide and national campaigns to fight for justice for low-income people. This newsletter will provide brief descriptions of the new reports we have released in 2010 and some of the press attention our reports have received. The update also includes some of the projects we are currently working on that are soon to be complete. For more information about our reports or current projects, please contact Alexa Kasdan, Director of Research and Policy at akasdan@urbanjustice.org.
Deceptive Debt Collection Practices by Debt Buyers
New Report from CDP and Several Legal Services Organizations
The Community Development
Project – together with the
Legal Aid Society,
MFY Legal Services and
NEDAP – has released a new
report on May 24, 2010 entitled, Debt Deception: How Debt Buyers Abuse
the Legal System to Prey on Lower-Income New Yorkers. The
groundbreaking report is a follow up to our 2007 report
Debt Weight
and further examines the astounding growth of the debt buying industry and its
profound impact on debt collection practices in New York and upon the
lives of lower-income New Yorkers. The report finds that the 26 debt
buyers who filed the most cases in NYC Civil Court from January 2006
through June 2008 were awarded over $1 billion dollars in judgments
and settlements despite the fact that these debt buyers often failed
to notify people of lawsuits against them and filed lawsuits with no
proof of their claims. The report highlights findings from 2 data
sets, provides quantitative and qualitative data analysis of the debt
buyer business model, debt buyer lawsuits and collection methods and
the impact of these activities on lower-income New Yorkers and
communities of color. The report also recommends several policy and
legislative reforms and calls on local, state and Federal lawmakers to
take action against abusive debt buyer lawsuits and collection
activity.
"Debt Deception: How Debt Buyers Abuse the Legal System to Prey on Lower-Income New Yorkers,"
UJC Press Release
"Debt Deception: How Debt Buyers Abuse the Legal System to Prey on Lower-Income New Yorkers"
We Call These Projects Home: Solving the Housing Crisis from the Ground Up
CDP's New Ground Breaking National Report in Partnership with the Right to the City Alliance
In partnership with the Right to the City Alliance and the Advancement Project, the Community Development Project (CDP) of the Urban Justice Center released a new report on May 18, 2010, We Call These Projects Home: Solving the Housing Crisis from the Ground Up. The report was released in Washington, D.C. at a congressional briefing co-sponsored by Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Representative Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY). The report represents the voices of public housing residents across seven cities and includes quantitative and qualitative data analysis from Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York City, Oakland, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. The report also includes various policy recommendations calling on Congress and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to strengthen and expand public housing.
"We Call These Projects Home: Solving the Housing Crisis from the Ground Up,"
A Right to the City Alliance Report on Public Housing
"We Call These Projects Home: Executive Summary"
"We Call These Projects Home: Executive Summary (Spanish)"
"We Call These Projects Home,"
UJC Press Release
"We Call These Projects Home," Huffington Post
"We Call These Projects Home,"
Right to the City
"Report: Public Housing Works, When You Invest In It," RaceWire
"The State of Public Housing (audio),"
The Brian Lehrer Show,
Direct link to MP3 of show.
Consumer Debt Legal Clinic
The Community Development Project and attorneys from the law firm, Linklaters LLP provide free legal advice at our monthly Consumer Debt Legal Clinic. The clinics are free and open to the public. Sessions are 20-30 minutes long. Attorneys are available to help New York consumers who are having problems with creditors, such as being harassed by debt collectors, sued in New York City Civil Court, or experiencing the hardship of a frozen bank account or garnished wages as a result of consumer debt judgments.
For more details, see our this page.
Most Recent Press
"Tenants at Mount Eden building in Bronô€› sue landlord, protest lack of cooking gas before,"
New York Daily News,
December 22, 2011
"Absentee slumlord in the Bronx forced to cede control of Fordham building in big victory for tenants,"
New York Daily News,
December 15, 2011
"Bronx tenants battle absentee slumlord due in court to post $50,000 to keep control of building,"
New York Daily News,
December 14, 2011
"New group hopes to enlist immigrants into Occupy Wall Street movement,"
New York Daily News,
December 10, 2011
"Cool Arrives in a Slice of Chinatown,"
Wall Street Journal,
December 1, 2011
