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News, Press, Events
At Monarch Apartment Homes in Palm Springs, California, senior residents gather in the community room for a monthly birthday celebration. More than 20 residents came together for the celebration to recognize their neighbors’ birthdays. Slices of birthday cake made their way around the room alongside stories, jokes, and the shared experience of living at Monarch Apartment Homes. During the hottest months of the year, gatherings like this serve another purpose: They give residents a chance to stay connected while escaping the extreme heat outside.
Every Friday morning in July, families walk through the doors of the Mary Pickford Theater for the Cathedral City’s Summer Movie Series. Local council members attend personally and help serve refreshments, like popcorn and water, to the kids, while parents greet one another and catch up before the show begins. The Free Kids Summer Movie Series is just one of the many accessible community programming events, classes, and services that Cathedral City puts on throughout the year…
“We have decades of institutional experience built into this organization,” says Feliciano Vera. As the Vice President of Real Estate Finance, Vera is setting the course ahead for Community Housing Opportunities Corporation's growth as one of California's leading affordable housing developers. “My job is to make sure we're actually using that experience — drawing on it so we can move faster to get solutions into the communities we serve…”
On June 24, 2026, Architectural Digest — one of the most widely read and respected publications in the country — turned to CHOC Community Impact's Chief Strategy Officer, Joy Silver, for expert commentary on the 21st-Century ROAD to Housing Act, the first major piece of housing legislation to pass Congress in over 30 years. In her piece, Eleni N. Gage covers the bill's uncertain path to becoming law and sought out Joy as a trusted voice on what the stakes mean for America's most underserved communities. Joy's commentary speaks with both urgency and authority: affordable housing is not a political issue — it’s a human one.
On June 11, 2026, CHOC Community Impact's Vice President of Community Impact, Terri Smyth Canillo, MSW, authored a guest column in the Coachella Valley Independent making a compelling case for investing in on-site resident services beyond the minimum compliance threshold. Terri illustrates how deeper staffing commitments lead to measurably better outcomes for residents, communities, and property owners alike.
On May 13, 2026, CHOC Chief Strategy Officer Joy Silver was featured in Multi-Housing News with a timely and thought-provoking viewpoint piece. In "How Europe Offers a Way Forward on Housing," Joy examines how the United States has drifted from its own historic vision of housing as a public good — and what it will take to reclaim it.
(Coachella, CA) - It’s the beginning of a new chapter for Placita Dolores Huerta’s working resident families, one that CHOC CEO Manuela Silva called "a miracle.” The complex’s 56 apartments are already fully occupied. Named in honor of the legendary labor activist, a driving force behind America’s largest farmworker movement, Placita Dolores Huerta broke ground in 2022, at a ceremony attended by the now 94-year-old Dolores Huerta; this community aims to create a sustainable, safe, and high-quality resident experience, inspired by Ms. Huerta’s lifelong work supporting farmworker and other, marginalized communities…
The Monarch Apartment Homes grand opening was everything we’d hoped it would be - for our organization, our residents, our partners and attendees. But, there was a beautiful, quiet moment right before our celebration began: the sight of a single Monarch butterfly floating through the agave, succulents, and desert plants now growing in the newly-constructed reflection garden.
Join us in celebrating the historic groundbreaking of the new Coachella affordable housing community, Placita Dolores Huerta, in honor of the globally-recognized social justice icon and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient.