Longtime affordable housing champion and community leader Alfred Diaz-Infante dies at 60.

For decades, Alfred Diaz-Infante was synonymous with affordable housing in Monterey County. As the president and CEO of CHISPA (Community Housing Improvement Systems and Planning Association, Inc.) for close to 24 years of the nonprofit's 31-year existence, he led the development of thousands of units of housing and also persistently spoke up on matters of housing policy. 

Diaz-Infante died on Monday night, Aug. 9. He was 60 years old.

Not only was Diaz-Infante a giant in the affordable housing world, he was also committed to community service throughout the worlds of education, faith, the farmworker community, government, health and economic development. He was a leader who seemed to know everyone wherever he went, and he was relentlessly optimistic about empowering the people of Salinas to make their own city thrive. 

“We just can’t let things happen the way they’ve been happening,” he told the Weekly in 2010 in the wake of a spate of gang violence. “We have to have hope. There has to be optimism that we can change for the better.”

Diaz-Infante served in various roles toward furthering that goal. Among them, he was a public official, serving as a Monterey County planning commissioner from 1993-1998 and a board member of the Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare District from 2017-2018.

He also served in various nonprofit and advocacy leadership roles on the board of various organizations including the Community Foundation for Monterey County, Monterey Bay Economic Partnership, Big Sur Land Trust and Hartnell College Foundation. He was involved through his church, Sacred Heart, as a leader of COPA, Communities Organized for Relational Power in Action.  

In 2015, he was recognized as the Salinas Valley Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year, and in 2003 received CSU Monterey Bay's Distinguished Fellow award for community and public service.

In 2018, after his 10-year board service ended at the Hartnell College Foundation, the Hartnell foundation honored him with its outstanding leadership award. “Alfred is always enthusiastic to help our community. Hartnell College, its students and future generations will reap the benefits of his dedication, service and advocacy,” his SVMH board colleague, Margaret D'Arrigo Martin, said in an announcement about the recognition at the time. 

Diaz-Infante was himself a Hartnell graduate. He transferred to CSU Sacramento where he earned his bachelor's degree, and then earned a master's degree in business at UC Berkeley in 1989. 

He created a scholarship at Hartnell in honor of his immigrant farmworker parents, Luis and Evelia, who made their home in the Salinas Valley in 1961. "They instilled in their children and grandchildren the importance of higher education," according to a scholarship description. 

Berkley Brannon, who has served on the CHISPA board for six years, describes Diaz-Infante as "a great leader."

"It's really just a tremendous loss for the community. Alfred worked his whole life to better our community," Brannon says. "He was just a sensitive, caring, intelligent man.

"He had a cause that he believed in, which was affordable housing, and he understood politics—he knew how to get things done."

Indeed Diaz-Infante understood the complex regulatory environment of California affordable housing development. One recent example of jumping through hoops to pursue a goal on behalf of CHISPA homeowners was lobbying the California Coastal Commission to lift deed restrictions on 175 units at the Moro Cojo housing development in Castroville (a battle that CHISPA lost at the Coastal Commission). 

Diaz-Infante was the son of farmworkers, and was raised in Salinas. His personal journey influenced his work in the realm of affordable housing. Well into adulthood he had a clear memory of the first house his parents bought, in 1971 for $12,500, because they held onto it, and Diaz-Infante and his wife lived there as renters when they were first married.

He saw their story as reminiscent of a time gone by: “Shortly after they bought, we had the first wave of huge price increases. Those times are gone,” he told the Weekly in 2015. “I don’t think we’re ever going to get back to the time when working families are able to buy homes.

“They were able to build equity. My sister is a doctor, and I got a master’s in business administration. I see what equity does. It helps create more opportunities.” 

Diaz-Infante died as a result of a solo vehicle collision. He was driving a Honda CRV northbound on Davis Road near Rossi Street when it appears he lost control of the car and struck a border on the side of the road; Salinas police found the vehicle on its side. Diaz-Infante was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced deceased. 

The crash is still under investigation, but Salinas Police Department spokesperson Miguel Cabrera says it is not believed that alcohol or drugs were a factor. 

He is survived by his wife, Elvira; three children—daughters Karina Nava and Alexis Diaz-Infante and son Marcos Diaz-Infante; and his mother, Evelia.

There are no plans yet announced for a public memorial service; the family is planning a private memorial at this time due to Covid-19 precautions.