Projecto Azteca
Allison Blocker Frank, housing specialist
P.O. Box 1014
San Juan, Texas 78589
(512) 787-2233

By any standard, the flat, dry land of the Rio Grande valley, with feathery mesquite trees shimmering silver under a huge, blue bowl of sky, houses some of the nation's poorest people. For the 60,000 Hispanic-American farm workers of Mexican descent who live in the region, the typical income is in the range of $5,000 or so a year.

Most of them live in one or another of 366 small settlements called "colonias." Established by primarily Anglo developers, colonias assemble small (50 by 100 foot lots) on open land, criss-crossed by neat streets that almost look suburban. But there the resemblance ends: Most of the colonias have no running water. None boast sewage collection systems. Urban services, from street paving and garbage collection to police protection, are limited at best. A scrub lot, with no services, sells for up to $12,000, leaving most families only enough resources to throw up a plywood or galvanized-iron hovel out of salvaged scraps.

Some change is coming to the valley, with community organizing efforts moving political power into Hispanic hands and equalizing the delivery of services. But the challenge of decent housing is still a difficult one when people have no resources.

Proyecto Azteca is a small but bold effort to start changing that.

An independent, non-profit organization, Proyecto Azteca was founded by the United Farm Workers and operates out of its white, concrete-block union hall on a dusty street corner in tiny San Juan.

Its model, briefly stated, is this: • Build small, inexpensive houses on lots in the colonias. The houses, which contain three small bedrooms, a large living room, a bath and kitchen in a 720-square-foot, one-story frame structure, typically cost $12,500 to build. With a lot cost of $6,000 and a zero percent loan, house payments range from $100 to $150 a month with a 15-year term. • Make the houses available to selected families (incomes between $300 and $800 per month), with the requirement that one family member participate as a worker in the crew that builds the house, gaining employable skills. • Using grants and state money as subsidies, provide zero percent financing, and pay off the "contract for deed" loan on the family's colonia lot to eliminate the burden of deb

The first seven houses were recently completed under this new program; financing is in place for a total of 26 new homes in the San Juan area, and 11 more rehabs in a similar program.

I visited the home of Isaac and Gloria Castillo, who live in a colonia that the neighbors call "Eldora" but that the bank calls "Barr No. 4," after the developer who sold it. In the front of the tiny lot, a small, rough-hewn wooden building, no larger than 10 by 12 feet, with an open-air patio under a galvanized iron roof alongside, is now home to the Castillos and their three children. Even a hopeful coat of startling blue paint and a formal door placque with religious figures and the family name don't hide the reality that this shack is barely habitable.

Behind it, however, workers were slapping bright turquoise and magenta paint on a trim frame house that will soon be the Castillos' new home. From the wrought-iron coach lamp beside the door to the shiny birch kitchen cabinets and modern plumbing (attached to a new septic system), this house, though small, is an order of magnitude from their former home.

As time goes by, Proyecto Azteca hopes to dot the valley's landscape with affordable homes, and in doing so, to spin off similar programs in other towns, other colonias.

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

Browse his book, Reinvesting In America, at Amazon.com.

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