A final report to the Desert Healthcare District says nearly 2,900 homes advanced during a three-year grant, while capital, infrastructure and health-linked housing goals were not fully met.
A three-year, $900,000 grant to Lift to Rise ended with a larger Coachella Valley affordable housing pipeline, more projects classified as moving toward development, and a public record showing several important goals were not achieved.
The final grant report submitted recently to the Desert Healthcare District says the regional pipeline grew from slightly more than 7,000 homes to more than 10,130 between June 1, 2023, and May 31, 2026. Lift to Rise says approximately 2,900 homes moved from its planned category into what it calls under development.
Those figures describe substantial activity, but they require careful interpretation. The report is a self-evaluation by the grantee, not an independent audit. Its use of pipeline and under development does not establish that every listed project has closed financing, received a building permit or started construction.
A regional pipeline grows
Lift to Rise has spent years building a coalition around affordable housing, fair wages and economic mobility. Its public Affordable Housing Pipeline Portal is a substantive project-level resource, not merely a regional total.
As of Sept. 11, 2026, the interactive map contained 93 project records. A reader can click on a development and see its name, developer, community, address, affordable-unit count, development phase, tenure and construction type. The map distinguishes preliminary and predevelopment concepts from entitled projects, developments expected to start construction soon, projects under construction, completed developments and canceled proposals.
That deserves explicit credit. Lift to Rise already does much of the basic disclosure a project schedule would provide, and its 2022-24 impact report says the organization monitors more than 90 projects. The three-year grant report was not necessarily intended to reproduce a live project database.
The portal nevertheless has limitations for evaluating this particular grant. It presents a current snapshot rather than a historical record of what changed between June 1, 2023, and May 31, 2026. It does not display project-level Catalyst Fund amounts, financing close dates, permit dates, construction starts, completion dates or occupancy dates.
The public-facing figures also need updating or reconciliation. The portal page describes more than 9,300 affordable units and labels its stage totals as of April 2025. The underlying project layer was last edited Oct. 20, 2025. Its 93 records total 7,850 affordable units when the published unit field is summed, including canceled projects. Neither figure matches the 10,130-home pipeline in the final grant report.
Those differences may reflect timing, project additions, changing unit counts or different definitions. They do not prove the grant report is wrong. But the website does not currently give readers enough information to reconcile the figures on their own.
Capital moved, but targets were missed
The grant required Lift to Rise to do more than count units. It also set goals for attracting capital and advancing infrastructure.
Lift to Rise reports securing more than $20 million in direct capital and more than $40 million when matches from community development financial institutions are included. The respective grant goals were $30 million and $60 million.
Eight lending actions were described as helping catalyze approximately 858 homes. Catalyzed is the organization’s term. The grant report does not identify, in one place, the eight lending actions, the amount committed or disbursed to each development, repayment terms or present construction status. The portal supplies project names and stages but not the financial detail needed to connect those actions to the 858 homes.
The result is meaningful but incomplete. More than $20 million of direct capital is a large pool in a market where early loans can keep a project alive. The report also shows that the organization reached roughly two-thirds of its direct capital goal and roughly two-thirds of its target when institutional matches are included.
Infrastructure and health goals show the harder work
The weakest results appear in two areas that can determine whether a housing proposal ever becomes a construction site. Lift to Rise says five infrastructure strategies advanced, but none closed a catalytic investment or unlocked housing during the grant period.
A separate objective called for leveraging $10 million for housing connected to health care or early childhood education. The final report attributes no capital to that goal during the three years.
Those outcomes do not mean the work had no value in regard to health care. Infrastructure planning often takes longer than a grant cycle, and housing finance can turn on state awards that arrive on their own schedules. They do show why future reporting should separate activity from delivery. Meetings, strategies and applications are different from executed loans, installed infrastructure and occupied homes.
The next test is project by project
The Desert Healthcare District funded the work because stable housing affects physical and mental health. That connection gives the district a legitimate reason to ask what its $900,000 helped produce and how to verify the results.
Lift to Rise has built a regional platform large enough to influence which affordable housing projects survive the most difficult stages. Its website shows more project-level transparency than the grant report alone suggests. What remains missing is a consistent bridge between the portal, the Catalyst Fund’s money and the 10,130-home outcome claimed for the three-year grant.
