Tell us about your internship! [Ellen]

This summer, Ellen interned with the City of Dublin's Community Development and Housing divisions. The City of Dublin is one of the only cities in the Bay Area that still has developable land. Furthermore, Dublin has an inclusionary zoning ordinance that requires the development of affordable housing for new construction projects. As such, Ellen worked on building a database of all of the affordable housing opportunities, partners, and clients in Homekeeper, the affordable housing platform of Salesforce. She analyzed these programs, policies, and opportunities, and delivered a needs assessment to the Assistant to the City Manager.

In addition to housing tasks, Ellen worked on orchestrating Dublin's first-annual children's health fair, which sought to provide medical services to low-income children in the City. She also participated in the administration of Dublin's Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and Affordable Housing funds that provide support to local human service non-profits.

While in Dublin, Ellen was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to prepare formal staff reports and make presentations to both City Council and the Human Services Commission regarding some of the projects she worked on. She also attended several professional development conferences, including that of the Municipal Management Association of Northern California (MMANC) and the International City/County Management Association (ICMA). If you are interested in Ellen's internship with the City of Dublin, you can email her at eekeatin@calpoly.edu.