Assistant General Counsel

Urban Homesteading Assistance U-HAB Inc, New York, NY, US

Salary Range: $ To $ Annually

Assistant General Counsel

Urban Homesteading Assistance Board

The Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) is seeking a mission-driven Assistant General Counsel to join our General Counsel's office. Reporting to the General Counsel, you will handle a broad mix of transactional, compliance, and governance work supporting UHAB's affordable housing programs and our CDFI lending arm, Home Ownership Lending.

UHAB empowers low- to moderate-income residents to take control of their housing and enhance communities by creating strong tenant associations and lasting affordable co-ops. Since 1973, UHAB has helped form hundreds of tenant associations and transformed troubled rental buildings into 1,200 affordable co-ops, providing home ownership opportunities for over 25,000 families. With democratic community control at the core of our mission, we work to sustain this thriving affordable housing community for this generation and those to come.

We organize residents to be active participants and decision-makers in shaping their neighborhoods. UHAB's programs address a full spectrum of affordable housing needs: from building resident power and organizing tenants as community leaders, to developing thousands of units of affordable housing across the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, to making loans to first-time homeowners, to preserving affordable co-ops through training, education, and technical assistance.

UHAB's programs address the needs of future generations through long-term solutions: developing new affordable co-ops, increasing energy efficiency and introducing renewable technologies, and strengthening housing policy.

At UHAB, we're more than a housing nonprofit—we're a movement for economic justice and community empowerment. We offer a supportive, values
-driven workplace where your work makes a tangible impact on people's lives.

The Office of the General Counsel is UHAB's in-house legal team. Led by the General Counsel, the office serves as legal advisor to UHAB's executive team, Board of Directors, program staff, and affiliated entities, including Home Ownership Lending, our CDFI. Its work spans nonprofit, real estate, lending, regulatory, and corporate law.

The office's work falls into five areas:

• Transactions: structuring, documenting, and closing real estate deals, including the acquisition, financing, rehabilitation, and conversion of distressed rental properties into affordable cooperatives, and negotiating the contracts, grant agreements, and loan documents that support UHAB's programs
• Compliance: managing compliance with the federal, state, and local laws that govern housing cooperatives, nonprofits, and CDFIs
• Governance and risk management: supporting the Board of Directors on bylaws, resolutions, and governance matters, developing organizational policies with the Executive Director, People & Culture, and program areas, leading internal legal trainings and risk assessments, and managing contractual risk by ensuring UHAB's agreements include appropriate indemnification and insurance protections
• CDFI legal support: advising Home Ownership Lending on loan compliance, underwriting, licenses and certifications, funding agreements, and lending policies
• Intellectual property: protecting UHAB's name, logo, and other trademarks, and the copyrights in its training curricula, publications, and educational materials; reviewing licenses and permissions for others' use of UHAB's materials; and ensuring that contracts with consultants, vendors, and partners properly address ownership of work product

The office also manages UHAB's relationships with outside counsel and reviews their work, including overseeing the outside counsel who handle litigation for the organization.

As Assistant General Counsel, you will work under the direction of the General Counsel to deliver day-to-day legal support to UHAB's program teams, finance and lending staff, and affiliated entities, including Home Ownership Lending, our CDFI. You will draft and review transaction documents, help move real estate and loan closings to completion, track compliance obligations, and support board governance.

This is a hands-on role for an attorney who wants to build broad expertise in affordable housing, cooperative, and community development finance law, with increasing responsibility for your own matters over time.