Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed of being a builder. While my six sisters played with dolls, I was busy with my brother’s erector set. Even today, I can’t help but look at a piece of land and wonder, what can I build there? 

I founded Visionary 40 years ago as a one-woman operation in California’s Central Valley. I had met a group of farm workers from Japiro, a town in Michoacán, who aspired to the American Dream of home ownership.I wanted to be a builder, so we worked together. With a USDA grant, we built self-help homes—homes they helped construct with their own hands. And that was just the beginning.

Since then, we’ve built 28 multi-family communities, totaling 1,500 units, and we have another 400 that will go into development in May. We have also constructed 1,000 single-family homes and put first-time home buyers in them.  

UnidosUS and RDF have been invaluable partners throughout this journey. We go back a long way! As a small organization for much of our history, securing capital—especially the early funding needed to get projects started—was a significant challenge. But RDF has always stepped in to provide exactly that kind of support, offering opportunities we wouldn’t have had otherwise. Just last year, they provided $3 million in early investment for three projects, allowing us to leverage an additional $72 million to bring them to life. Their willingness to invest at the most critical stage is what has made all the difference. To me, that’s what a great partnership looks like.

Being a woman in a male-dominated industry has not been easy — especially in the Latino community. In the early years, some men would say “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be home making tortillas?” Literally, they said that to me! But RDF believed in us and supported our work. We deeply appreciate the investments they’ve made, and I hope they see how their support has helped our community grow and become more competitive. By helping us accomplish our mission, they’ve accomplished theirs.

Hacienda is Oregon’s largest Latino-led housing organization. We’ve built 605 units of affordable housing, and with $250 million in projects currently underway, that number is set to double in the next few years. 

I can honestly say we wouldn’t be where we are today without RDF.

I met RDF’s founding CEO, Tommy Espinoza, in 2005, back when I was an architect working on a project they were financing in Phoenix. We worked together on that project, and when I moved to Oregon in 2017 to become CEO of Hacienda, Tommy and the entire RDF team became an incredible resource for me. They provided not just financing but advice and mentorship. 

At the time, Hacienda was working in partnership with two other nonprofits to turn a former strip club across the street from our office into a 142-unit affordable housing development. When Hacienda needed to buy out those partners we didn’t have enough assets to secure the $3 million required to move forward. Banks and other CDFIs just said no. But RDF made it happen. They put their weight behind us, even though it was a risk. 

That development, Las Adelitas, has gone on to win countless awards and recognition because it’s about so much more than just housing. Las Adelitas transformed a site once known for illegal activity into a vibrant, community-centered space. The design process involved the voices of our community every step of the way, and the final development includes not just affordable apartments, but also a public plaza, a pedestrian-friendly streetscape, and even a classroom for Hacienda’s Portland Niños program to support families with young children. It’s truly a symbol of empowerment, honoring its namesake—the women soldiers of the Mexican Revolution.

That kind of impact goes beyond buildings. It’s about the people and the connections that make such transformations possible. And the truth is RDF has brought something even more valuable than money: they’ve brought relationships. It was through RDF that I began to work with the Chase Foundation and the Ford Foundation. They introduced me to key leaders, influential partners, and the broader landscape of the Latino agenda. RDF has been instrumental in supporting Hacienda, not just financially, but also in our work as social activists. We share the same goals, purpose and ideology, and I know they always have my back. 

We were RDF’s very first loan. And it changed everything for us. 

At YES Housing, we had been developing affordable housing in Albuquerque since 1990, but we wanted to do more than just add rooftops. We wanted to build communities. For us, that meant things like starting charter schools in the areas where we were building so kids would have a place nearby to go to school, and helping launch small business so our residents would have a neighborhood grocery store or a hair salon. 

When we took those ideas to the traditional lending banks, they didn’t understand the vision. They’d look at our financials and say ‘Sorry. See you later.” But RDF saw the big picture. They didn’t just look at our numbers — they looked at our mission. And they asked: “What’s the soul and role of this organization? And what can we do to help?” 

That first loan, for $50,000, helped us buy the land to build a charter school next to what is now called our Nuevo Atrisco apartment complex. Twenty-five years later, both the school and the apartments are still serving the community. Over the years we’ve added even more: a community meeting room for neighborhood groups, a library, a University of New Mexico medical clinic, a food park, and a kitchen where kids can learn culinary arts. What started out as just apartments is now a fully realized community.  

The concept has been so successful we’ve expanded it across New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. None of that would have been possible without RDF. They gave us the space to think outside the box because RDF itself thinks outside the box. Banks focus on analytics and take all the emotion out of their decisions. But RDF has a soul. They understand it’s not only about numbers — it’s about the people and the communities we are building.

For nearly 60 years, Self-Help Enterprises has been making homeownership a reality for farmworker families. We started in 1965 with a unique hands-on approach: mutual self-help housing. Families don’t just buy a home—they build it. Groups of ten families commit to putting in 40 hours of labor each week, working side by side to construct all ten homes. No one moves in until every home is complete. The result? Stronger communities, a deeper sense of ownership, and more than 6,600 families who have achieved homeownership through hard work and determination.

But in 2008, we ran into a serious obstacle. We’d set our sights on Lamont, California, a farming community southeast of Bakersfield with a critical need for affordable housing. We knew so many families were either living in overcrowded conditions or spending more than 50% of their income on rent. Lamont’s geography, though, posed a problem: it sits in a floodplain. As a result, flooding wasn’t just a minor inconvenience—it was severe and widespread. In most cases, the solution to this would be simple: build somewhere else. But in Lamont, there was no somewhere else—the entire area was in the flood zone.

Developing safe, affordable housing in Lamont meant buying land and elevating it above the floodplain. That entailed a costly process that made securing traditional bank financing nearly impossible. High interest rates, legal fees, and engineering approvals threatened the project before it could even begin. 

But RDF understood the stakes. They recognized homeownership is more than a roof over a family’s head—it’s a pathway to financial stability. With their support, Self-Help was able to move forward, developing 35 single-family self-help homes and even a multi-family rental project that would provide safe, affordable housing for dozens of families.

For many, owning a home is still the American Dream. But it’s also one of the most powerful tools for building generational wealth. Families who started with Self-Help have gone on to use their home equity to start businesses, send their children to college, and break the cycle of poverty. It takes vision, perseverance, and the right partners to make that possible. Thanks to RDF, that dream is now a reality for more families in Lamont—and for thousands more across the communities they serve.

At MAAC, we believe in building communities—not just buildings. And for nearly 60 years, that’s exactly what we’ve been doing.

In 1965, MAAC was founded to create economic opportunities for Mexican Americans in San Diego County. At the time, higher-level jobs were out of reach for many, and a lawsuit was filed to open new pathways for success. But we knew that real opportunity meant more than just jobs. It meant addressing the larger needs of our community—needs that couldn’t wait.

So we got to work. By the late 1970s, we expanded into early childhood education, launching a bilingual Head Start program that now serves thousands of children across 23 preschools. Then, we saw another major gap: affordable housing. Families were being priced out, and for-profit developers weren’t stepping up. So we did.

Today, MAAC owns and manages 1,200 affordable housing units, with another 1,000 in development—all part of our commitment to building stronger, healthier communities. 

Our growth hasn’t come without challenges.

RDF is an organization that doesn't respond with a no. They respond with ‘Let’s see how we can make it happen.’

In 2007, just four years after I started with the organization, MAAC needed to sell a building. But there was a problem: A loan tied to another property made the sale impossible unless we paid off part of that mortgage first. We had equity in our properties, but we didn’t have cash on hand to make it work.

That’s when RDF stepped in. They took a chance on us and provided the funding we needed. That loan allowed us to sell the building, pay down other debt, and get our finances back on solid ground for the future.

And RDF’s support didn’t stop there. Even when we weren’t looking for a loan, RDF provided strategic guidance that changed the way we operate. They showed us how we could purchase our own headquarters instead of continuing to lease—saving us $4.5 million over 15 years and giving us a permanent home for our preschool, child development programs, and park administration offices.

Now, MAAC and RDF are taking on their biggest project yet. In 2019, RDF provided a $10 million loan for the development of a 22-story, 400-unit affordable housing project in National City—one of the largest of its kind in the region.

When RDF says it specializes in non-conventional loans, that’s an understatement. The first five loans I secured with them weren’t just non-conventional—they were creative solutions that made seemingly projects a reality. RDF is an organization that doesn't respond with a no. They respond with “Let’s see how we can make it happen.” 

Because of that mindset, we’ve been able to dream bigger, build stronger, and serve more families than ever before.

In 2023, we found ourselves in a serious bind. For 15 years, MAUC had been the nonprofit partner in Stonehouse Apartment Homes, a 248-unit affordable housing development serving low-income families in San Antonio. When our investor partners were ready to sell the property. With rents rising across the city, we knew there was a real risk that the apartments would be sold to a private buyer and converted to market-rate housing, displacing the families who depended on this affordable option.

Fortunately, we had the right of first refusal—a legal option that allowed us to purchase the property at below-market value before it could be sold to anyone else. But there was one major obstacle. The property had been financed with special loans called bonds, which came with strict repayment rules. One of the bondholders refused to allow any new loan to take priority over theirs, making it impossible to secure traditional financing. That left us scrambling to find another way to come up with the $850,000 needed to buy out our investors.

It wasn’t a question of risk—MAUC had the financial strength and history to back the deal. Time was the real enemy. Traditional bank financing would have taken 24 months to secure, and we had just six months before our right of first refusal expired.

That’s when RDF stepped in. They understood not only the financial complexity of the situation but also what was at stake. They moved quickly, structuring a financing package that no other institution was even willing to consider. And they delivered: just days before the deadline expired, we closed the deal.

Our partnership with RDF isn’t just about the dollars. It’s about a mutual understanding that behind every unit of affordable housing is a family, a story, and a future worth fighting for.

For more than 55 years, MAUC has been dedicated to empowering Mexican American families in the San Antonio region through education, economic opportunities, and community development. As a founding affiliate of UnidosUS, we had known about RDF since day one, but we had never needed to work with them. The reason was simple: we were bankable. With strong assets, a healthy balance sheet, and solid relationships with traditional banks, we had always been able to secure financing through conventional means—until now.

It’s no exaggeration to say that RDF saved Stonehouse Apartment Homes. But our partnership with RDF isn’t just about the dollars. It’s about a mutual understanding that behind every unit of affordable housing is a family, a story, and a future worth fighting for. And that’s exactly what RDF helped us do.

In the 1970s, San Luis, Arizona, was a growing hub for agricultural labor, with thousands of farmworkers from Mexico crossing the border daily to work in the United States. When I hear the story of those early years, what strikes me most is the sheer grit and determination of the people who built this community. These workers endured two- to three-hour waits at the border just to get to their jobs, leaving them with little time for family or rest. It’s hard to imagine the toll that took, but what’s inspiring is how they responded—with a bold vision to change their lives.

In 1977, the farmworkers came together and decided to create a real community in San Luis where they could live closer to their jobs and give their families a chance at a better future. Back then, San Luis was little more than a rural outpost, but that didn’t stop them. They pooled their savings, formed a cooperative, and set out to purchase land and build affordable homes. By 1981, the cooperative officially became Comité de Bien Estar.

While we have since expanded to deliver social services and tackle broader community development, affordable housing remains at the heart of everything we do. Over the past 40 years, we’ve developed more than 4,000 homes and are responsible for approximately 60 percent of San Luis’s growth. Last year, the city processed around 520 building permits — 160 of those were ours! 

The partnership with RDF has been instrumental in making this work possible. For our Bienestar Estates 12 subdivision, RDF provided significant financing to develop 183 lots. The homes sold out quickly,  and we were able to repay the loan in less than two years. Recently, we launched Bienestar Estates 12B, adding another 173 lots to meet growing demand in the area. Infrastructure is one of the most complex parts of any subdivision project and it's something traditional banks typically won’t fund — but that’s precisely where RDF’s support makes all the difference. Their financing not only allows us to complete these projects, but also helps lower costs, making homes more affordable and accessible for families.

What sets RDF apart is that they understand our mission and their genuine commitment to seeing us succeed. Sharing a common goal — to provide affordable housing to those who need it most — shapes how we approach our work and deepens the impact we’re able to achieve. 

There’s a growing understanding that if we want to live healthier lives, we need to change the way we live—especially in the places we call home. In California, that shift is already happening. The City of Los Angeles has committed to decarbonizing all housing by replacing gas-powered heating systems and appliances with clean, electric alternatives—making homes safer, air cleaner, and communities healthier.

At East LA Community Corporation (ELACC), we knew we had to be part of that movement. We manage about 1,000 affordable housing apartments on the east side of Los Angeles, in vibrant, predominantly Latino neighborhoods. But this area is also one of the most polluted parts of the city, surrounded by five major freeways. The air quality here is among the worst in Los Angeles. If decarbonization is going to happen anywhere, it should start in the communities that need it most.

The challenge was funding. The government launched a program to cover the cost of decarbonizing buildings, but there was a catch: building owners had to front the costs themselves and wait for reimbursement. The price tag for just one building? $1 million. We knew that if we wanted to make this happen, we needed financial backing.

We approached several nonprofit lenders with a bold ask: "Would you lend us money to do something untested—decarbonizing an entire affordable housing complex—and then wait for us to be reimbursed by an incentive program that’s also brand new?" Many hesitated. 

But RDF said yes. They wanted to be part of the solution.

With RDF’s flexible, revolving loan, we could draw funds as needed, repay them, and then reinvest in the next building. That model allowed us to begin working through our entire housing portfolio, one building at a time.

And something amazing happened along the way. Decarbonization became just the beginning. After finishing the first building, we looked at an empty patch of dirt next to it and saw an opportunity. We transformed it into a community garden—because green spaces help absorb carbon and improve air quality. Then we brought in urban farming experts to teach residents how to grow their own fresh food. A chef came in to show families how to cook with the produce they harvested.

What started as a technical project—replacing gas appliances—became something more comprehensive: a holistic approach to environmental health, sustainability, and community empowerment. And it all began with RDF recognizing the importance of this work and having the courage to take a chance.