Doug Smith

  • Hosted by Public Counsel
  • Sponsored by The Ottinger Family Foundation
  • Service location Los Angeles, California
  • Law school University of California, Los Angeles School of Law
  • Issue area Community Economic Development/Microfinance and Related Transactional Legal Projects
  • Fellowship class year 2013
  • Program Design-Your-Own Fellowship

The Project

Doug equipped community-based organizations and low-income entrepreneurs with legal tools and strategies to capitalize on planned transit investment in order to enhance economic opportunities in Los Angeles’ low-income communities.

An unprecedented expansion of the regional transportation system is fundamentally changing the urban landscape of Los Angeles. As planning and investment in new transit-oriented development intensifies, the impacts are being felt most acutely in the low-income neighborhoods that surround many of the city’s current and future transit corridors. This new investment could create opportunities for economic mobility in neighborhoods facing high levels of poverty and unemployment. But without meaningful input and participation, irreversible community destabilization and displacement could result instead. This project provides legal advocacy and policy support to community groups and low-income entrepreneurs working to create a sustainable framework for inclusive economic growth.

Fellowship Highlights

During their Fellowship, Doug has:

  • Helped a coalition of community-based organizations achieve a comprehensive and precedent-setting Community Benefits Agreement providing deep affordable housing, good jobs for local low-income residents, and incubator space for low-income entrepreneurs near transit
  • Drafted legislation and helped successfully advocate for new local and state laws that preserve and expand affordable housing near transit
  • Helped achieve important changes to rules governing development of publicly owned land to prioritize affordable housing near transit and increase meaningful community input
  • Assisted nonprofit organizations in building affordable mixed-use development and creating new programming to increase capital and technical support for low-income entrepreneurs
  • Provided key legal analysis, public education, and policy strategy to support a campaign to establish a legal pathway for low-income street vendors to enter the formal economy
  • Provided legal and policy support to coalition groups working to improve land use and financing tools to create and preserve opportunities in low-income neighborhoods impacted by new public investment

 

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Host: The Sustainable Economies Law Center

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Jordan Chisolm

Host: Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc.

Sponsor: Greenberg Traurig, LLP, The Florida Bar Foundation