Self-Help Enterprises (SHE) Resident Services is proud to partner with the Active Transportation Grant Program via The County of Tulare Resource Management Agency. It is a statewide grant program that encourages active modes of transportation within communities, specifically walking and biking, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by vehicles.  

The County of Tulare Resource Management Agency and the City of Visalia are working together to apply for the Active Transportation Program's “Goshen-Visalia Corridor Connection” project. This specific project aims to develop improvements along Goshen Avenue in the City of Visalia and toward the community of Goshen in Tulare County. It would extend along Effie Drive and Camp Drive, connecting to Avenue 308 in Goshen. Potential improvements include curb ramps, lane narrowing, at-grade railroad crossing, and Class IV bike lanes. 

As a first step in this endeavor, they are putting together a series of outreach and engagement events hosted at SHE's Goshen Village II community room. Surrounding community members and Goshen Village I and II residents are coming together to learn about the program and get involved in pushing this initiative forward to improve their community! 

Self-Help Enterprises’ Community Engagement and Planning Team has launched the educational website www.MyCommunityDependsOnWater.com. This website serves as a hub of information for community residents where they can access the following information and resources: 

• Groundwater challenges, including impacts due to climate change and overpumping 
• Educational resources, including steps to participate in a meeting, glossaries, and water data resources 
• Dry well resources offered through Self-Help Enterprises’ Emergency Services program 
• How to get involved, including serving on boards and committees, and information about SHE’s Leadership Institute 
• Board & committee seats, the first-of-its-kind comprehensive list of opportunities for residents to serve on local and state boards and committees 
• Testimonials from the communities of Fairmead and Allensworth, as well as Kern County resident Sandy McElhenney 

The website is accessible in Spanish by clicking on the globe icon on the top right of the homepage and selecting Spanish. Additionally, all of the educational resources are available in Spanish at www.MiComunidadDependeDelAgua.com. 

Funding for this website was made available through the Sierra Health Foundation. 

We're happy to share that construction on a drinking water consolidation project is underway in Visalia! Six homes within Visalia city limits endured a dry well that required an emergency fire hose connection to Cal Water/Visalia to supply household water. Our Emergency Services team immediately provided hand-delivered bottled water and has kept residents supplied with bottled water ever since. At the same time, our Community Development team began collaborating with the Department of Water Resources (DWR), the City of Visalia, and Cal Water to fund, design, and build a new water main extension to serve the six homes, plus the neighboring parcel with five homes, for a total of 11 connections. Thanks to funding from DWR and three years of collaboration, on February 20th, 2024, the construction crew began cutting pavement, trenching, and laying pipe. The project is scheduled to be completed in the first week of April. 

"We're very excited to see this wonderful project break ground and we look forward to the results of the improved infrastructure right here in our home base of Visalia," said Jessi Snyder, Director of Community Development at SHE. "Once complete, we will have expanded access to clean drinking water for previously underserved residents of Visalia—a community that, as a whole, enjoys reliable, high quality, affordable drinking water.” 

A few weeks back we lost a great friend and respected former staff member in Joanna Nugent, who passed away with family at her side. Joanna came to SHE in 1981 to help run our growing housing rehabilitation program, and stayed for the next 25 years before a well deserved retirement. Peter Carey, who ran the department at the time, made an impressive steal from the City of Visalia, where Joanna had worked on housing programs previously.  

Joanna immediately brought a level of professionalism to the SHE team, with a gift for cultivating relationships both inside and outside of SHE. Deftly managing the multiple personalities at dozens of cities and counties with whom SHE had contracts, she taught us all the importance of listening and being responsive to those who had decided to put their faith in our work. Internally, Joanna excelled at mentoring and coaching staff, especially those early career folks who had no clue how to behave, including yours truly. She also undoubtedly raised the standard of dress and professional decorum with a scruffy bunch of ex-hippies, and not to our detriment.  

In our sixtieth year we are reminded of all of the dedicated and impactful staff at SHE who have made contributions to the communities we serve, and have blessed us with a legacy of hard work and commitment. Joanna Nugent is one to be honored in this great tradition. We grieve with her family as we celebrate her life and work.  



-Tom Collishaw

The housing crisis in America, most severely felt in California, has many facets. Income inequality, stagnant wage growth, rising rents and home prices, paltry housing production, and high-interest rates locking homeowners into existing homes all contribute to the problem. Homelessness and housing instability, cost-burdened renters, and lack of opportunity to buy a first home are symptoms in both urban and rural markets.

In this environment, it is tempting to take a triage approach to the crisis, focusing on the most dramatic needs first. This means the homeless and extremely low-income renters. SHE focuses a significant portion of its current housing efforts on this exact population, so we get it. But solely directing resources to this need, however well intentioned, is nearsighted.

Self-Help Enterprises was born of an effort to provide an equitable opportunity for Latino farmworkers to achieve the dream of homeownership. This was the right thing to do back then and continues to be a core activity for the organization today. Read More

To commemorate SHE’s 60th Anniversary, we are continuing our historical series highlighting the journey we’ve been on as an organization since 1965. While our roots were firmly planted in self-help housing for low-income farmworkers, the evolving needs of rural communities in the 1970s led us to expand our focus. In working with communities, it became apparent to SHE that many families lacked access to clean drinking water and adequate sewer. SHE began addressing rural community water and sewer needs in 1974, which allows for comprehensive approaches to address the basic and essential needs of rural communities.

In the early 1970s, although various SHE staff members were involved in “community development” activities outside of the organization, SHE had not formally become a provider of com­munity development services until 1974. Early in 1975, the Board approved a contract with the National Demonstration Water Project. Although the initial contract was small, supporting one staff member, this was the beginning of SHE’s massive effort to improve the unsafe water and wastewater systems seemingly indigenous to the rural areas of the San Joaquin Valley. Read more

Our team of 200+ people are joined with a shared mission of working with families to build and sustain healthy homes and communities. You can too!