Proyecto Azteca is the model program for a statewide effort to provide help to colonia resident in building their own homes. At the center of Proyecto Azteca's work is its Self-Help New Construction Program. Through the program qualifying families - all low income earners (ranging from $4500 to $13,500) acquire valuable life long skills in home construction and financing.
Proyecto Azteca secures mortgage loans to pay off colonia lot purchase balances (up to $6,000) then families use exclusively their own labor to build quality homes. The houses are all built not on the family's lot in the colonia, but at Proyecto Azteca's San Juan, Texas building site. After the homes are finished they are moved onto the families' lots in the colonias.
Participating families work at Proyecto Azteca's building site on a daily basis, use house plans developed for Proyecto Azteca by volunteer architects, borrow from the tool library, share bulk purchasing of building materials, and, most importantly, assist each other in construction efforts.
Proyecto Azteca is an acronym:
A semblea de
Z onas de
T rabajadores con
E qualidad para
C asas con
A mistad
Proyecto Azteca secures mortgage loans to pay off colonia lot purchase balances (up to $6,000) then families use exclusively their own labor to build quality homes. The houses are all built not on the family's lot in the colonia, but at Proyecto Azteca's San Juan, Texas building site. After the homes are finished they are moved onto the families' lots in the colonias.
Participating families work at Proyecto Azteca's building site on a daily basis, use house plans developed for Proyecto Azteca by volunteer architects, borrow from the tool library, share bulk purchasing of building materials, and, most importantly, assist each other in construction efforts.
In addition, several professional trainers (all of whom are former Proyecto Azteca homebuilders themselves) oversee construction, provide safety tips and provide formal homebuilding instruction.
At the end of four months of hard work each family has built for themselves an 816-square-foot three bedroom, one bathroom wooden frame house which meets all building codes and standards.
Proyecto Azteca's work includes much more than new home construction. Home rehabilitation, pre-construction and home ownership classes, contract-for-deed conversion, and an extensive tool lending library are part of Proyecto Azteca's comprehensive approach to improve Hidalgo County colonias.
Since 1992 Proyecto Azteca has impacted the lives of families living in Hidalgo County colonias in a way that no other housing program ever has. The participating families, the majority of whom are migrant farm workers, are part of a program which allows them the opportunity of living in dignity with decent and affordable housing they provide themselves with their own efforts. Proyecto Azteca is not based on charity but on opportunity.
A Proyecto Azteca Owner-Homebuilder pauses for a photograph with her daughters during final cleanup of their new home before it is moved onto her lot in a colonia.
Proyecto Azteca is the model Self-Help Center for the effort to establish Self-Help Centers operating all along the Texas-Mexico border. The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs selected Proyecto Azteca to operate the Hidalgo County Colonia Self Help Center which will cooperate with families in five targeted colonias (including Colonia Jessups) to completely rebuild their communities.
A key factor that contributes to Proyecto Azteca's success is that it is an organization controlled by a Board of Directors comprised of 13 low income farm workers and colonia residents. The voice of the colonias resounds in every Proyecto Azteca activity. This grassroots approach to management means that colonia residents themselves will continue to perpetuate visible and lasting change in the living conditions of their families and neighbors.