TDHCA Press Room

Office of Colonia Initiatives: Long-term Commitment to Texas Colonias

Colonias are substandard neighborhoods most of which are located within 150 miles of the Texas-Mexico border.  They are home to individuals and families primarily who have a very low income, live in substandard and hazardous housing conditions, and often without even basic utilities or infrastructure. 

TDHCA's Office of Colonia Initiatives ("OCI") serves as one of the state's long-standing resources to colonia residents who seek to improve their own quality of life by being engaged in the process of building or repairing their homes and getting technical guidance and training to solve community problems.

OCI administers the Department's Texas Bootstrap Loan Program, a self-help housing program that promotes homeownership through "sweat equity." Participants – known as "Owner-Builders" – provide at least 65 percent of the labor to construct or rehabilitate their own and their neighbors' homes. 

TDHCA, in turn, provides the construction costs and land financing. The Bootstrap Program is administered locally by Nonprofit Owner-Building Housing Providers certified to operate a self-help housing program. 

OCI also cooperates with units of local government to run seven Colonia Self-Help Centers ("CSHCs") in Cameron/Willacy, El Paso, Hidalgo, Maverick, Starr, Val Verde, and Webb counties.

CSHCs provide intensive on-site technical assistance to colonia residents for housing repair and infrastructure improvement, in addition to providing classes on homeownership, construction techniques, financial literacy and the use of technology.   CSHCs also offer construction funding to repair existing homes or build new affordable homes in designated colonias.

For more than 20 years, OCI has administered Border Field Offices in El Paso, Laredo, and Pharr which serve as liaisons between state and local organizations and provide support to other community-based organizations along the Texas-Mexico border.

TDHCA, through the OCI, supports colonia residents as they work to build a better future.