Brownsville CDC director discusses recent changes in border low-income housing and colonias

• Homebuyers buying new houses through a CDC in Brownsville, Texas have an average income of $19,000.

• Low-income border families, who a decade ago would have bought lots and built homes through their own labor in a colonia, have lately been buying homes from many of the former colonia developers. Lately, these former colonia developers have been selling low-income families a lot and a house with financing through an exploitative subprime loan.

• The subprime lending problem on the Texas-Mexico border has led to a very large number of home foreclosures among lower-income families.

These are three things that stand out from an interview I conducted with Nick Mitchell-Bennett, Executive Director of the Brownsville Community Development Corporation. In the interview we talked about about the CDC’s work over the past 35 years in providing housing to low income families on the Texas-Mexico border.

Watch the video interview…