April Kusters

Community Development Law Center

I spent my summer working in Portland at the Community Development Law Center, which specializes in doing legal work for community development corporations. Before working at the CDLC I had an interest in affordable housing and I had volunteered at the Community Alliance of Tenants so working for the CDLC seemed to be an easy transition.

I loved working at the CDLC. My main project was to work on preserving Oregon government subsidized multifamily housing, such as the USDA Rural Development

515 program. I began my summer clerkship by researching the RD 515 program. I completed 1 page fact sheets that give brief overviews of the program. Next I researched all the owners of RD multifamily housing in Oregon, called all of them, and completed a spreadsheet with that information. My RD research is the only one of its kind for this state if not the entire country. I discovered the condition of RD properties, if the owners’ intentions were to sell the property or to keep it for affordable housing and began to work on finding potential nonprofit purchasers to preserve the affordable housing.

In addition to the affordable housing project, I completed various legal work for the CDLC’s clients such as dissolutions, applying for tax-exempt status, drafting bylaws and researching property taxes, condos and homeowners’ associations.

PILP allowed to have such a great job and I am extremely grateful.