Serving the Underserved in El Paso
We spent two days in El Paso with El Paso Affordable Housing which is led by Larry Garcia. Larry explained that twenty eight percent of families and 42 percent of children live in poverty in El Paso, Texas. Many families do not have access to credit because of low income, no savings and lack of knowledge of the credit system. Families get easy access to fringe and predatory lenders. But once they are indebted they find that they are trapped at very high cost debt service which prevents them from being able to save or to purchase a home.
Eight El Paso credit unions served their mission to serve the underserved by forming El Paso Affordable Housing. They are GECU, El Paso Area Teachers FCU, El Paso Employees FCU, One Source FCU, First Light FCU, Security Services FCU, Golden Key FCU and Mountain Star FCU.
“We are about asset accumulation”, Larry explained, “We take a holistic approach with financial education, credit management, tax preparation assistance, development of family asset development strategies and home ownership. We get them on a credit union savings program and in a home through credit union financing.”
We drove through the high desert to the Colonias subdivisions, located outside the city limits so that developers did not have to follow the city building codes. We drove through Colonia Sparks and then down through the rich green cotton fields of the Rio Grande valley to Colonia Tornillo.
In the Colonias families start out by buying a plot of land. They put a home trailer on the land and work to pay off the loan from the developer. They do not receive the title until they have made full payment for the land. If they miss one payment they lose the land and all equity paid in.
El Paso Affordable Housing helps them build a financial future and family assets. They help families replace the trailers with a home. The program hires builders or engages the Community College vocational students to build the homes. Credit unions or El Paso Affordable Housing provide the mortgages. As some families build their homes others start to improve their homes as well, sometimes building one room at a time. “Part of the requirement is that they get rid of their trailer and clean up the junk off their lot”, Larry explained. At one end of the Colonia, we saw the home built with one family. At the other end of the Colonia, Larry showed me the trailer which the first family then sold to a new family starting out on their own plot. As more homes are built the city came in and paved the once dirt roads through the Colonia. More homes popped up. Families found that it was cheaper to pay off their fringe loans with a credit union mortgage for a new home. They took more pride and ownership of the communities. Homes received new coats of paint, lots were cleaned up and community centers were built.
We continued south through the pecan groves to the agricultural community of San Elizario established in 1528 and moved to its present location in 1775. We visited more homes built through the program; neat angles and fresh paint in the Texas sun. On the way out of town back to El Paso we passed the town jail which Billy the Kid broke out of.
Back in the Lower Dyer neighborhood of El Paso, the city had razed vacant lots, abandoned homes and dilapidated repossessions. Partnering with the city, El Paso Affordable Housing hired contractors to rebuild simple clean energy efficient duplexes to sell to low income families, again with credit union mortgages. As more and more such attractive homes appear in the neighborhood, neighbors start to fix up and rebuild their own homes as well, revitalizing the neighborhood.
“Asset accumulation...”, Larry explained, “We empower families of El Paso to realize the American dream of family wealth, family asset development, home ownership and quality of life.”









