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What does this community need from private and public sector to make housing work? What are the housing programs which stand out as effective?
Nancy Hanson, Executive Director, Lower Valley Housing:
Ours. In order to get an economy of scale, we partnered with a private builder, Tropicana Homes. As a major builder, I believe he has always wanted to produce affordable housing but two factors inhibit his ability to do that.
The first is that buyers in this income range lack funds for a down payment. The second is that the monthly house payment is too high.
In our program, people earning as little as $9,000 have been able to qualify to own a home. Their monthly payment is around $180 to $290.
There is no doubt public funding goes only so far. Money to make housing affordable within cities are very limited compared to the need. We must combine our efforts so that banks and others in the private sector can participate.
The 140 lot partnership we did with Tropicana can be replicated all over the state.
John Henneberger (Moderator):
From a banker’s perspective, what’s working?
Don Melendez, Executive Vice President, Norwest Banks:
The El Paso Collaborative. This is a public-private partnership to increase capacity of
nonprofit community organizations. With stronger nonprofit capacity we can better
attract partners like banks. From a banker’s perspective, this makes it easier to get
financing. When I first started working on this issue, there were 100 units total --
multi-family, single-family, everything -- planned within this county to fill a 30,000
to 40,000 home gap in affordable housing.
The bank made commitments but the deals didn’t come through. Nonprofits couldn’t perform
when they had to be preoccupied by how to pay to keep the lights on. There are
about 20 collaboratives in the U.S. El Paso’s is the smallest.
It’s not for me to say what goes where, what kind of housing should be built. A neighborhood or community group can better determine that. How we do reach the point where the groups who should make the decisions about the houses are the ones who actually make the decisions? The best way I see to build is to build capacity so that they can build better neighborhoods. The beauty of Lower Valley’s program is that the neighbors all helped each other build their homes. We got 252 units in 1997-98 altogether; we leveraged $20 million. In 1999, we project 900 units going up from all sources. We’re very optimistic that the 900 units number is realistic. I have to give a lot of credit to the El Paso Community Foundation for helping to get this started and getting the Ford Foundation involved.
John Henneberger (Moderator):
How do we nurture and continue this unique effort in the long run?
Don Melendez, Executive Vice President, Norwest Banks:
The city, the county, the state haven’t participated like Ford and the private sector have. If Ford put up $1 million, the city, county and state should too.
John Henneberger (Moderator): (to audience)
What’s working to deal with the 30 to 40,000 unit gap?
Carmen Felix, Executive Director Southside Housing:
There are a lot of serious problems here -- layoffs at Asarco, just to name one -- that aren’t being taken into account. Many people won’t invest in neighborhoods when they’re being bombarded with warehouses or illegal zoning uses. A lot of people who came out for our last Easter event were people who were displaced by HOPE VI projects in public housing.
There are a lot of consultants jumping from one project to another, in the neighborhoods you have to stay where you’re at. Neighborhoods should get the funds to hire consultants who will stay. Why shouldn’t the Planning Department work directly with neighborhoods to address zoning issues?
Cindy Arnold, La Mujer Obrera:
El Paso Collaborative is critical, they believed in community groups when no one else would.
Housing should be looked at as part of a comprehensive planning effort involving the elements housing, economic development and human development. The state gave $5 million to do a planned community in the desert. That sort of planning needs to go on in the inner city.
Nancy Hanson, Executive Director, Lower Valley Housing:
Land is extremely expensive in El Paso because we have very little land which can be served by water and sewer. Water is going to drive development. Stacked families are not considered homeless because they’re multiple families in 2 and three bedroom single family houses. We need density, we need more multi-family but Lower Valley, to use the organization I work as an example, can’t get loans to build multi-family.
People need decent housing, so they’re not paying 50% of their income or even 65% of their income for housing, and where they are living isn’t even decent housing. We believe that the lack of affordable housing in this county will create even more problems. When families are stacked up in housing, gangs result. What do you expect if children have no place to study? If a man has no pride in his home, instead of going home after a work, he goes to a bar, which destroys family unity.
Lower Valley Housing was started by very low-income people who were concerned about the deterioration of what was once the ideal American town.
Bob Boling, Tropicana Homes:
Only with private sector participation will the production of low-income housing really go up. As a homebuilder, I can uniquely bring financing and the ability to build. The only way -- in any meaningful way -- is to involve the private sector, and the private sector will become involved if: 1, it is asked and 2, it can make a profit.
Carmen Felix, Executive Director Southside Housing:
A private developer can make a profit; a nonprofit can’t. We provide a community service. The city’s attitude should be that here’s a nonprofit and what can we do to help them. You’re expected to live there forever and just get a pat on the back. It's hard when you have 10 partners. The nonprofit has got to direct its own work.
El Puente:
Many inner city lots are contaminated which adds to the cost and creates a time lag.
Irma Perez, Sparks Housing:
For 20 years I’ve been a colonia resident. We (colonia residents) moved to there and built substandard houses because we didn’t make enough to buy a house in El Paso. Many of us even make less than the $9,000 it takes to qualify for programs we’ve heard about tonight. We’ve got lots of families making only $5,000.
My organization runs a rehabilitation program to bring houses in Sparks to standard. We had over 40 applications from people wanting to get loans or something. The banks rejected their applications. So many people bought mobile homes. Now if they qualify for financing for the mobile homes, why don’t they qualify with the banks? There are a lot of people in colonias who keep their homes, keep their cars; they need loans for $15,000 for housing.
Don Melendez, Executive Vice President, Norwest Banks:
There is not a one-idea solution, a one-entity solution.
Carmen Felix, Executive Director Southside Housing:
We have to recognize that wages are very low and employment is sporadic. The majority of our people in Southside and in colonias work.
Nancy Hanson, Executive Director, Lower Valley Housing:
We didn’t need 30,000 homes overnight, so the solution won’t come overnight. Keep the issue in the public eye, make people aware little by little. We will overcome the current lack of resources. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Without the initiative and without the money, we have no wheels.
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