PALM SPRINGS — Along the main thoroughfare of this desert city, just a block from a vibey, adults-only hotel and a gastropub serving boozy brunches, a new apartment building with a butterfly-wing roof inspired by Midcentury Modern design is nearing completion.
The property, called Aloe Palm Canyon, features 71 one-bedroom units with tall windows offering natural light and sweeping views of Mt. San Jacinto, plus a fitness room and laundry facilities. When it opens this summer, serving lower-income seniors over age 55, the complex will become the latest addition to the Coachella Valley’s growing stock of affordable housing.
A decade ago, this desert region known for its winter resorts, lush golf courses and annual music festivals produced just 38 units of affordable housing a year, while the low-wage workers powering the valley’s lavish service industry faced soaring housing costs and food insecurity. Fast-forward to this year, and affordable housing units are planned or under construction in all nine Coachella Valley cities, including the most exclusive, and in many unincorporated areas.
Aloe Palm Canyon, geared toward low-income seniors, will feature affordable one-bedroom units with sweeping views of Mt. San Jacinto and an airy communal room.
At least some of that momentum can be credited to a Palm Desert-based nonprofit organization that in 2018 set an ambitious 10-year goal to reduce rent burden — or the number of people spending more than 30% of their income on housing costs — by nearly a third. Lift to Rise aimed to do this by adding nearly 10,000 units of affordable housing in the Coachella Valley by 2028.
Some seven years into its decade-long push, Lift to Rise appears well on its way to that goal. It counts 9,300 affordable housing units in the pipeline as of April. That figure includes those in the early planning stages, as well as 940 units starting construction soon, 990 under construction and 1,405 affordable housing units completed.
It is notable progress in a state where the dire shortage of low-income housing can seem an intractable problem. Now, some officials and elected leaders say Lift to Rise may offer a path forward that could be replicated in other regions.
The Coachella Valley, in Riverside County, stretches from the San Gorgonio Pass to the north shores of the Salton Sea. Its major employment sectors — leisure and hospitality, retail and agriculture — generally produce the area’s lowest-paid jobs, putting the cost of renting or buying a home out of reach for many.
Coastal areas have a reputation for being unaffordable, but the desert region has a higher share of rent-burdened households than Riverside County as a whole, the state or nation, according to American Community Survey data compiled by Lift to Rise.
Addressing the situation comes with its own complications.
Lift to Rise helped create a loan program to smooth the flow of funding for affordable housing, including the Vista Sunrise II complex in Palm Springs.
Many California housing and climate policies tend to support the development of affordable housing in dense, pedestrian-friendly communities with easy access to public transportation, said Ian Gabriel, Lift to Rise’s director of collective impact. Such adaptations are difficult in the Coachella Valley, where suburban-style neighborhoods, limited public transportation and months of triple-digit heat have lent themselves to a car-centric lifestyle, he said.
And although state policy — and funding priorities — often focus on alleviating chronic homelessness in major urban areas, he said, the Coachella Valley also needs housing for low-wage farmworkers who aren’t homeless but are living in dilapidated, financially untenable conditions.
All of that makes it harder for the region to compete for state affordable housing dollars, he said.
“We’re not saying other folks in coastal areas shouldn’t be getting money,” Gabriel said. “We’re saying we need more equitable distribution and a path forward that isn’t just a one-size-fits-all, because it’s not fitting for our region.”
Lift to Rise has built a network of more than 70 people and organizations — among them residents, county officials, funders and developers — with a shared goal of increasing affordable housing in the region.
One of the group’s early steps was to create an affordable housing portal to track developments in the pipeline and, maybe more important, determine what factors are holding projects back.
In assessing those bottlenecks, Lift to Rise identified a need for stronger advocacy, both at the local level and in the policy sphere. So it has launched an effort, Committees by Cities, to help residents develop leadership skills and advocate for affordable housing at public meetings.
The Vista Sunrise II complex, located on a DAP Health campus, offers affordable housing for low-income people who are HIV-positive or living with AIDS.
Modesta Rodriguez is a member of the Indio chapter, attending city council hearings and passing along information to her neighbors. Although she and her family have lived in a development specifically for farmworkers for a decade, she wants to ensure her four children — the oldest of whom graduated from San Diego State University this month — can find housing in the eastern Coachella Valley.
“It’s not as if they are going to begin their careers making a lot of money,” Rodriguez said, seated in the kitchen of her tidy three-bedroom apartment. “For us, these projects are very good, because I know at least they will help my daughter.”
Mike Walsh, assistant director of Riverside County’s Department of Housing and Workforce Solutions, said Lift to Rise and its army of advocates should get credit for helping to change the narrative around affordable housing in the Coachella Valley.
“When affordable housing projects pop up, they have a built-in network to turn folks out and support those projects, where in the rest of the county, there’s not that same sort of ease of turning people out,” Walsh said.
Walsh recalled that a teacher, a farmworker and a social worker — essentially a cross-section of local residents — spoke up at a recent county meeting. “It drowns out NIMBYism,” said Heidi Marshall, director of the county’s housing and workforce solutions department.
Lift to Rise aims to spark wider conversations about the need for affordable housing in the Coachella Valley with billboards along the 10 Freeway.
The organization aims to spark wider conversation about the fight for affordable housing and living wages through eye-catching billboards that the nonprofit buys along the 10 Freeway during spring music festival season in the Coachella Valley. “Born too late to afford a home, and too early to colonize Mars” is among their slogans.
And when an analysis revealed low-income housing developers were having trouble getting predevelopment financing, Lift to Rise set out to create a funding mechanism to help get projects off the ground.
The result is a revolving loan fund known as We Lift: The Coachella Valley’s Housing Catalyst Fund. The $44-million fund, supported by public and philanthropic dollars, is intended to bridge financing gaps and accelerate development.
Solar panels rise above a parking lot at the Aloe Palm Canyon complex in Palm Springs.
The developer behind the Aloe Palm Canyon complex in Palm Springs, the West Hollywood Community Housing Corp., benefited from three loans from the fund totaling more than $11 million. It has already paid back two of those loans.
“I don’t know any other regions in California that are doing this at this level of support,” Anup Nitin Patel, the corporation’s director of real estate development, said during a toasty morning tour of the construction site.
Another Palm Springs project — a partnership between the Coachella Valley Housing Coalition and DAP Health, a local healthcare provider — received a $750,000 predevelopment loan that was repaid at the start of construction.
“It’s going to be something I can sustain, a game-changer for me,” Sean Johnson said of his new home in DAP Health’s Vista Sunrise II development in Palm Springs.
Last June, Sean Johnson moved into that development, which is for low-income people who are HIV-positive or living with AIDS. After struggling to find stable housing, he said it’s a relief to pay a monthly rent of $718 for a studio apartment.
“It’s going to be something I can sustain, a game-changer for me,” he said.
Lift to Rise is seeking a $20-million allocation in the next state budget to scale up its work. As part of that request, it is asking for a one-time $10-million investment into the Catalyst Fund to expand lending capacity across Riverside County.
Sen. Steve Padilla (D-Chula Vista) and Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa) submitted a budget request on the organization’s behalf. Padilla said it’s a worthy expenditure, especially as California faces a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall.
In lean budget situations, Padilla said, the state should focus its investments on programs that are having meaningful impact and have the data to prove it.
“In tough budget times, you have to be very strategic,” he said. “And this is a good example of [an effort] that’s proven some pretty impressive results.”
This article is part of The Times’ equity reporting initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to address California’s economic divide.
