Our Mission: The Community Development Project (CDP) provides legal assistance, education, advocacy, and other support for grassroots community development in Upper Manhattan, the Bronx, and in cases of special merit, in other low-income areas in New York City, to strengthen community infrastructure, expand the supply of affordable housing, promote entrepreneurship, and resist displacement.

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What is the Community Development Project?

History:

The Legal Aid Society’s Harlem Community Law Offices (HCLO) provides quality legal services to assist neighborhood groups and low-income residents in upper Manhattan unable to afford legal representation in civil matters. Community Development Project services are available to qualified individuals and organizations financially unable to obtain assistance from a private attorney. HCLO offers bilingual services, in Spanish, and offices are accessible to persons with disabilities.

The largest provider of civil legal services to low-income residents of East Harlem, Harlem and Washington Heights, major practice areas include eviction prevention, tenant group representation, family law, legal problems of people living with HIV/AIDS, government benefits, a low-income taxpayers clinic, and assistance to non-profit organizations, micro-entrepreneurs, and low-income housing cooperatives. HCLO has remained a grassroots neighborhood law office, reflected in its location at 106^th street in the heart of East Harlem, its relationship to its client communities, and the services it provides.

What Do We Do?

The Society's Harlem Community Law Office ("HCLO"), located in East Harlem, formed the Community Development Project ("CDP") in October, 2000 to address the previously unmet community development needs of Upper Manhattan. In 2003, we expanded our services to the Bronx. In cases of exceptional merit, we provide legal services to clients who live outside of these areas. With our bilingual capacity and extensive ties to low-income and immigrant communities, CDP assists community groups and low-income entrepreneurs that otherwise would not receive legal services.

CDP strengthens the infrastructure of low-income communities by fostering grassroots economic development for low-income clients, supporting the creation and growth of community-based organizations and small businesses by low-income clients, and expanding the supply of tenant-controlled affordable housing.

With assistance from our pro bono partners, our nonprofit clients receive a full range of legal services including incorporation, tax exemption, corporate governance and intellectual property. The organizations that are created by this work then provide essential services to the neediest New Yorkers in the arts, child care, education, health care, immigrant advocacy, housing, substance abuse treatment, employment, and recreation.

The CDP collaborates with community-based partners. We partner with community organizations to provide training and entrepreneurial opportunities for immigrants and we present workshops and provide legal representation to clients of community development financial institutions.