About Us
The Coachella Valley Housing Coalition (CVHC) is an award-winning non-profit housing development corporation dedicated to helping low- and very low-income families improve their living conditions through advocacy, research, construction, and operation of housing and community development projects. CVHC has constructed nearly 3,000 homes and apartments for low-income households in Riverside County and Imperial County. In addition, CVHC has developed a variety of resident services for its tenants and the surrounding community.
CVHC was formed in 1982 when local community activists, business leaders, and other individuals came together to do something about the lack of decent housing for farmworkers, and low-income families and individuals in the Coachella Valley. An initial grant of $10,000 from The Aetna Foundation was obtained, and CVHC’s first employee and current Executive Director John F. Mealey was hired.
Today, CVHC has built 26 multi-family developments (totaling 1,713 units), including two migrant farmworker facilities, 21 rental homes, and the state’s only affordable housing complex built for retired farmworkers. CVHC also has built three special needs complexes, two of which provide independent living for seniors and individuals with mental disabilities, and the third built for persons with HIV/AIDS and other chronic illnesses.
CVHC has built more than 1,200 Mutual Self-Help homes. In response to the displacement of families in unpermitted mobile home parks in the Eastern Coachella Valley, CVHC joined forces with the County of Riverside to develop Cachanillas in Coachella, CA. A 48 home contractor-built development for very-low income families, Cachanillas was completed in June 2004. CVHC is also taking its successful Self-Help home building model international with plans to develop 20 single-family homes in the city of Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico. CVHC has formed a consortium of forward-thinking Mexican and American organizations committed to improving housing conditions of low-income families in Mexico through its Self-Help Housing Across Borders program.
Early in its history, CVHC recognized the need for and benefit of continued project-based community support services. To that end, CVHC sponsors eight childcare centers, five after-school tutoring programs, six computer technology centers, community gardens, discounted swim passes, an annual summer tennis camp, mariachi music lessons, ballet folklorico, English as a Second Language and Citizenship classes, and various other community service programs and activities.