accomplishments timeline

Improving living conditions in the colonias (“Colonias“” are unincorporated developments lacking basic public services that pervade the Texas-Mexico border.)

1989: The Texas Legislature sets up the Economically Distressed Areas Program (EDAP) to assist local governments in providing much-needed water and sewer facilities to colonias. EDAP assure that water and sewer facilities in new residential developments meet minimum state standards.

1993: Colonia residents, nonprofit leaders, and others develop the Border Coalition’s solution-oriented plan: the “Border Housing and Community Development Partnership Plan”. This plan becomes a successful blueprint for improving basic living standards in the colonias and in urban low-income border communities. The plan covers:

• access to affordable and decent housing,
• water,
• wastewater,
• infrastructure,
• public services and
• basic employment opportunities.

1994: Border Coalition leaders work with HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros to get $100 million in funds for colonia infrastructure and housing. Congress, ultimately, does not appropriate these funds.

1995: The Legislature adopts a BLIHC proposal to establish a Colonia Advisory Committee (CRAC) that advises the state on the needs of colonia residents, activities to be provided and programs to be undertaken in the colonias. Each county selects two colonia residents to serve on the committee.

Also in 1995, the BLIHC works with Texas lawmakers to tighten the standards and create stronger rules for colonia development, known as the “Model Subdivision Rules”. The new rules require water and sewer hookups, electrical connections and subdivision blueprints for border communities. Developers are prohibited from selling residential lots without water and sewer hookups, roads and drainage.

1997: The Border Coalition continues in the next session of the Texas Legislature (the Texas Legislature convenes only in odd-numbered years) with an initiative to help colonia residents get electric service.

2001: The state’s housing agency suffers serious management problems: two grand juries investigate the agency; one agency board member is sentenced to federal prison for self-dealing; and an investigation finds agency funds being directed towards the middle class instead of colonia residents and other poor Texans.

For the first time in Texas, advocacy organizations such as the Border Low Income Housing Coalition come together with industry trade associations and reach a consensus. The result is one of the most wide-ranging and progressive packages of housing reform in the nation. For the Border Coalition’s complete 2001 agenda see: http://www.bordercoalition.org/ourrecs2001/index.html.

2005: The Texas Legislature expands the Economically Distressed Areas Program (EDAP), allowing the program to reach beyond the border and include counties statewide. Distressed regions throughout Texas are given the chance to obtain state funding in the form of no interest loans and grants for water and sewer services in impoverished communities.

Stopping “contracts-for-deed” (A “contract-for-deed” is a predatory home financing mechanism whereby the seller keeps the deed in their name until the buyer makes the final payment. Contracts for deed are largely responsible for creating thousands of colonias)

1995: Colonia leaders and other BLIHC members appear several times before the Texas Legislature to testify for and support key programs in the BLIHC plan. The Legislature passes landmark contract-for-deed reform legislation strengthening the rights of colonia residents. Known as the "Fair Land Sales Act", this bill provides basic consumer protections to people purchasing land in border counties under contract-for-deed. Protections include:

• The disclosure of property conditions:
• A requirement that if the contract was negotiated in Spanish the buyer has the right to get copies of all written information in Spanish;
• The establishment of buyer default and foreclosure rights;
• The creation of a consumer education program to educate consumers about the new provisional rights and to protect them from dishonest sellers.

(To view a video of former Governor George W. Bush signing this landmark legislation into law, click here: )

2001: The BLIHC successfully advocates a legislative directive to extend 1995’s contract-for-deed homebuyer protections statewide. This legislation dramatically reduces the number of properties sold under contract-for-deed in Texas, but don’t eliminate the abuses altogether.

2005: TxLIHIS and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) design solutions to the persisting contract-for-deed and rent-to-own schemes plaguing Texas’ low-income families. These solutions, incorporated into a bill during the 79th session of the Texas Legislature, include new protections for buyers under rent-to-own and contract-for-deed arrangements.

This law ends the worst abuses such as excessive late fees and sudden termination of the “option to buy” in rent-to-own programs. It also gives buyers the right to convert their contracts-for-deed into traditional mortgages.

Promoting self-help housing (Self-help housing centers provide construction assistance to colonia residents so they may build their own homes.)

1990: The Lower Valley Housing Corporation is founded. This nonprofit corporation has since helped low-income families build over 400 new homes in El Paso County through “mutual self-help construction”.

1992: Proyecto Azteca is founded (http://www.bordercoalition.org/Proyecto%20Azteca/). Proyecto Azteca is the model Self-Help Center for the effort to establish Self-Help Centers operating all along the Texas-Mexico border.

1993: The La Gloria Community Development Corporation (http://www.texashousing.org/txlihis/livingcrisis/livingcrisis/Laredo-lagloria/) is founded. Since 1993, La Gloria has built 13 homes and more than 40 bathrooms and kitchens for homes lacking indoor facilities in colonia El Cenizo.

1995: The Legislature passes the Border Coalition’s proposal to create five housing self-help centers to work with the BLIHC, functioning as one-stop shops for financial aid and technical assistance to families to build a home. Proyecto Azteca is designated as one of the self-help centers (See: http://www.huduser.org/periodicals/fieldworks/0601/fworks1.html).

1995 – 1998: The Border Coalition partners with the University of Texas at Austin to implement the BLIHC BorderNet project and the El Cenizo Youth Web Project.

The BorderNet project was sponsored and overseen by the La Gloria Development Corporation, a nonprofit organization of El Cenizo residents. The project included a computer lab for colonia youth, a youth-published community newsletter, and developing data for use in community organizations’ work.

A graduate student providing training for the La Gloria staff and board also carried out an innovative project, which came to be called the El Cenizo Youth Web Project. The purpose of the El Cenizo Youth Web Project was to let the young people of El Cenizo (ages 8 to 18) speak out about how they see their colonia, their lives and community issues.

1999: One of the Border Coalition’s most notable accomplishments is the formation of the Bootstrap mortgage program. This program, established by the Texas Legislature in 1999, matches colonia resident self-help efforts with financing, construction guidance, and pooled labor to build homes decent homes.

The 1999 legislation provided $5.6 million in low interest home mortgage loans of up to $25,000 to low-income Texas families. Two-thirds of the funds are set aside for residents of border colonias and communities build new, better homes.

2001: The Border Coalition secures a 10-year appropriation for Bootstrap self-help mortgage funds. Funding is guaranteed through 2010 at the rate of $3 million a year. Additionally, the maximum loan amount is increased from $25,000 to $30,000. Local grassroots organizations are also given the opportunity to originate and service loans directly under the program.

2005: Border Coalition members, as well as other social justice and housing organizations such as Habitat for Humanity Texas, come together to successfully halt legislation that would eliminate the Bootstrap Program altogether.

TxLIHIS, Habitat for Humanity Texas, ADAPT, and the Texas Association of Community Development Corporations (TACDC) organize a “Stand Up For Housing” rally on the steps of the Texas Capitol.