Coachella Valley Housing Coalition
Indio, Calif.
Represented by John Mealey
Description of Contribution
In the early 1980s, John Mealey joined a group of community-minded leaders and individuals looking for solutions to the drastic need for decent affordable housing for the farm worker and low-income residents of the Coachella Valley in Eastern Riverside County. A community known for its expensive winter homes and upscale golf courses, the Coachella Valley is also home to some of the nation’s poorest permanent and migrant farm workers, the majority immigrants from Mexico. Mr. Mealey’s greatest achievement in bringing positive change to minority homeownership was to accept the challenge of forming the Coachella Valley Housing Coalition as its executive director and molding the organization into one of the strongest nonprofit home builders in the nation. The sole employee for several years, Mr. Mealey took the challenge because he believed that decent affordable housing was a right of all people despite economic, social, language and racial differences. Mr. Mealey never took no for an answer, exploring all possible funding sources to develop a home rehabilitation program, and build new farmworker apartment complexes and single-family homes throughout Riverside and Imperial counties.
Mr. Mealey challenged the norms in affordable housing construction by pooling his resources, calling on old and new friends, and campaigning for new and existing funding to be utilized in the Coachella Valley for affordable housing. At local, state and national affordable housing forums, Mr. Mealey raised the awareness of the dire need for affordable housing in the Coachella Valley and throughout the state. Never one to shrink away from opposition, Mr. Mealey continues to work tirelessly to end a community’s “Not In My Back Yard” (NIMBY) attitude toward affordable housing by coordinating resident advisory meetings, encouraging dialogue among future residents and existing residents, and challenging the stereotypes of affordable housing design. Today, Mr. Mealey is asked to speak at housing conferences throughout the nation and in Mexico, sharing his expertise and mentoring a new generation of community-minded leaders. Working with the valley’s political leaders, Mr. Mealey also helps simplify housing programs and develop new programs that meet the needs of low-income families.
In addition, Mr. Mealey’s dreams for the organization do not stop at the border. He has established a partnership with the Mexican government and a Mexican university to create a housing program for working families in Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico.
Impact
The drastic need for decent affordable housing for farm workers and their families in the Coachella Valley in the early 1980s was witnessed by Mr. Mealey and other community leaders through the makeshift cardboard shacks and rundown trailers hundreds of farm workers and their families called home. The farm labor camps were illegal, but basically ignored by most individuals with authority. Mr. Mealey and other community members challenged that status quo with the creation of the Coachella Valley Housing Coalition. Today, Mr. Mealey oversees an accomplished and dedicated staff of 50. A hands-on leader, Mr. Mealey works closely with staff to not only provide housing through both multi-family and single-family home construction and development, but also to create a diverse community services program for those living within and near CVHC housing.
John Mealey’s first efforts produced a farmworker apartment complex and a housing rehabilitation program. More than 800 people applied to live in Pueblo Nuevo (50 units), CVHC first farmworker housing, built in Coachella, CA. Pueblo Nuevo proved to be Mr. Mealey’s first major hurdle, as city and county leaders did their best to derail construction. Mr. Mealey worked closely with the community and those families hoping to one day live in the complex to prove to the city and the county that the housing complex was in great need. Pueblo Nuevo was completed in 1986. In 1987, Mr. Mealey applied for and was awarded CVHC’s first U.S. Department of Agriculture-Rural Development (than known as Farmers Home Administration) Mutual Self Help Program Technical Assistance grant. In 1989, CVHC’s first Self Help homes (15 in total) were completed in Coachella, CA. To date, CVHC has built 892 Self Help homes, 50 contractor-built homes, and 22 apartment complexes (1,513 units); and rehabilitated 90 single-family homes. Also under Mr. Mealey’s leadership, CVHC extended its services beyond housing in 1993 with the completion of a water delivery system that supplied safe drinking water to more than 200 households in Indio, CA., and the implementation of apartment-based child-care centers at two CVHC apartment complexes. Today, CVHC offers its residents seven child-care centers, six after-school programs, free bilingual computer classes, free mariachi band classes, discount swim passes, a tennis camp, and other community services programs and activities.
CVHC builds homes and apartments across several cities throughout Riverside and Imperial counties in Southern California, including Mecca, CA., a community well documented by national and international media for the dire housing conditions of permanent and migrant farmworkers. A two-part segment produced by National Public Radio in June 2003 described the annual pilgrimage of more than 15,000 migrant farm workers to the community of Mecca. The segment offering through interviews with Spanish-speaking migrant farmers, detailed descriptions and sound exactly what a farm worker experiences at harvest time in California. Sharing a one-room trailer with 20 other men, sleeping in a dirt parking lot in between cars, and enduring the 115 plus degree temperatures of the desert, migrant farm workers have few options for decent, safe housing in Mecca. Mr. Mealey is featured throughout the two-part segment describing CVHC’s 128-bed migrant farm worker housing facility and the extreme need for more funding for similar projects.
Through his efforts in the United States and in Mexico, Mr. Mealey is asked to participate in several U.S. and Mexico based housing events including Housing California, the Southern California Association of Non Profit Housing’s annual conference, the Partnership for Prosperity 2004 Entrepreneurial Workshop and Housing Roundtable in Guadalajara, the National Association of Home Builder’s International Trade Mission in Guadalajara and the 2nd International Housing Conference of the Americas in Mexico City.
Innovation
Mr. Mealey realized early in his career with CVHC that in order to truly reach the low-income, primarily Spanish-speaking community the organization set out to help, he and his staff would have to be willing and able to go out into the community, into the dilapidated homes and shacks, speak the language and help the neediest families understand their newly expanded housing options. To this end, Mr. Mealey sought Spanish-speaking, Coachella Valley natives and individuals truly sympathetic to the plight of minority, low-income families. Today, eight of the nine skilled construction supervisors employed by CVHC are homeowners through CVHC’s Self Help program, as well as an employee in the Asset Management Department.
Mr. Mealey has an innate ability to dissect a challenge or roadblock faced in the pursuit of new affordable housing, to uncover the solution. One prime example is his idea of developing a housing counseling program to help more families prepare themselves for home ownership. In the past, when families applied to participate in CVHC’s housing counseling program they were put on a waiting list. After about a year, the families were called up to be processed for a home. At that time, a family’s credit history and rating would be determined to assess their qualifying for a mortgage loan through U.S. Department of Agriculture. If there was negative, false or insufficient credit, families were unable to qualify for a loan. Mr. Mealey devised a plan to ensure families waiting to be called up for prequalification for a loan, were taking that year to year in a half to prepare themselves for homeownership. Today, when a family is put on the Self Help waiting list, their credit history is assessed and if issues arise, they are referred to CVHC’s housing counselor, who helps them take the necessary steps to improve their credit. Also, families are given the opportunity to participate in counseling programs to help prevent getting into credit problems before, during and after they participate in the Self Help program.
Minority Focus
Mr. Mealey has garnered support from the minority community through the programs offered to Coachella Valley residents. The minority, low-income community has come to rely on CVHC for its housing needs as is proven by the more than 5,000 families on CVHC’s active waiting list and more than 10,000 families on CVHC’s long-term waiting list activated when the organization began in 1982.
CVHC’s work also has allowed for low-income Hispanics to become integral in the operation of the organization. Two members of CVHC’s Board of Directors are Self-Help Home Builders under the Single-Family Self-Help program and 8 out of 9 of CVHC’s construction supervisors have built their own Self-Help Homes. CVHC has earned the trust of the community it serves and through the Self-Help program has built positive relationships with low-income homeowners and empowered communities.