Local funding milestone advances 110-home affordable community honoring the late education leader Don Shalvey, bringing new homes, a teen center, and a Head Start classroom to a long-vacant Stockton DMV site
Visionary Home Builders of California, Inc. (VHB) announced today that it has received a $3,000,000 Construction/Permanent Loan Commitment from the San Joaquin Regional Housing Fund, Inc. (SJRHF) for The Don Shalvey Apartments, a planned 110-home affordable housing community on a long-vacant, former State of California DMV parcel in Stockton. The commitment, approved by the SJRHF Board on August 24, 2026, marks a major step forward in fully financing the development.
SJRHF is a joint powers program of the San Joaquin Council of Governments (SJCOG), whose member agencies include the cities of Escalon, Lathrop, Lodi, Manteca, Mountain House, Ripon, Stockton, and Tracy, along with the County of San Joaquin.
“This commitment from the San Joaquin Regional Housing Fund is a vote of confidence in The Don Shalvey Apartments and in the families across Stockton who need it,” said Annette Sanchez, Interim CEO of Visionary Home Builders of California. “Don Shalvey spent his life fighting for kids in this community to have a real shot at opportunity, and we’re honored to carry his name into a project that will do the same for more than a hundred families for generations to come.”
“SJRHF has been an incredible local partner throughout this process,” said Stephanie Rodriguez, Chief Real Estate Development Officer at Visionary Home Builders. “Their support helps us keep moving The Shalvey forward — from a vacant, underused state parcel into 110 new homes, a Head Start classroom, and a teen center that this neighborhood has been waiting for.”
About The Don Shalvey Apartments
The 1.46-acre site — a formerly vacant State of California DMV parcel at the corner of North American Avenue and Park Street — is being converted to affordable housing under Governor Gavin Newsom’s Executive Order N-06-19, which directs excess state-owned land toward housing development. Designed by NJA Architecture, The Shalvey will be a five-story building with ground-floor parking and commercial space topped by four stories of residential units, offering 110 total homes — 68 two-bedroom and 42 three-bedroom units, including two on-site manager units — with 92 on-site parking spaces.
Homes will serve a range of income levels: 29 units at 30% Area Median Income (AMI), 24 at 40% AMI, 14 at 50% AMI, 28 at 60% AMI, and 13 at 80% AMI.
On-site community amenities will include:
- Leasing office (1,000 SF)
- Teen center (1,500 SF)
- Community center (1,500 SF)
- Head Start classroom space (2,000 SF)
- Ground-floor community/commercial space (6,500 SF)
The Shalvey is being co-developed with The Grupe Company, and is part of an estimated $86.8 million total development plan drawing on a mix of public and private financing, including this SJRHF commitment, low-income housing tax credit equity, and tax-exempt bond financing. Ground breaking and estimated completion dates will be announced as the project advances through remaining entitlements and financing.
Community Impact
Once complete, The Don Shalvey Apartments will bring 110 new, deeply affordable homes to a site that has sat vacant for years, giving more than a hundred San Joaquin County families and individuals — spanning extremely low- to moderate-income households — a stable, affordable place to live. The project’s on-site teen center, Head Start early childhood classroom, and community and leasing spaces are designed to give residents, especially children and youth, direct access to services and programming rather than requiring them to travel elsewhere for support. The development also returns a long-dormant, formerly state-owned parcel to productive use, converting underutilized land into new housing supply in the heart of Stockton without displacing existing residents.
Honoring Don Shalvey
The development is named in honor of Don Shalvey (1945–2024), a pioneering figure in California education with deep San Joaquin County roots. Shalvey founded Aspire Public Schools in Stockton in 1999 — the state’s first multischool charter network — after earlier founding California’s first-ever charter school, the San Carlos Charter Learning Center, in 1994. He helped lead passage of the state law lifting California’s charter school cap in 1998 and Proposition 39 in 2000, which guaranteed charter schools access to district facilities. He later served as deputy director of K-12 education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and led San Joaquin A+ in his final years. Naming the development after him reflects VHB’s mission of pairing affordable housing with educational opportunity — embodied in the project’s on-site Head Start classroom and teen center. Don Shalvey’s family has formally authorized VHB’s use of his name in connection with the development.
For further information, contact Visionary Home Builders of California, Inc. at (209) 466-6811
