Benjamin Beach 2003 Equal Justice Works Fellow Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA Sponsor(s): Equal Justice Works Primary Issue Area: Community Economic Development New York University School of Law, 2002

Ben Beach works with the Community Economic Development Unit of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA). His project helps low-income residents of Los Angeles and Long Beach hold economic development accountable to the needs of the community by engaging developers and government in a process that builds community power and achieves community goals. Ben’s work includes (1) developing a Los Angeles residents’ guide to accountable economic development; (2) educating residents’ groups about their ability to shape economic development in a way that benefits their communities; and (3) providing legal counsel to residents’ groups taking action in this arena. In addition to working with LAFLA, Ben collaborates with Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy and the National Economic Development and Law Center. Ben believes that this work responds to a fundamental, unaddressed problem. During the 1990s, even as the city of Los Angeles spent hundreds of millions of dollars each year on economic development, the number of working poor in the city substantially increased and only a fraction of the businesses receiving public subsidies were located in low-income neighborhoods. He believes that when developers, government and low-income residents come together to discuss how best to serve the community, it enables good use of everyone’s resources. Ben previously worked with legal organizations in central and northern California representing low-income workers of color and in Washington, DC, with federal workforce development, welfare-to-work and community development programs. While at NYU School of Law, he spent a year in the Community Outreach, Education and Organizing clinic and co-directed an after-school mentoring program in Manhattan’s lower east side. In the fall of 2001, he joined with LAFLA on work with low-income tenants in Long Beach that recently culminated in the first Community Benefits Agreement in the city’s history.