Texas Borderlands 2009: Housing Challenges Along the Border
August 7, 2008
Every biennium, our office studies issues critical to Texas and the Borderlands, and publishes a report on the findings. In the year leading up the legislative session, we publish a new chapter every month. This month, our office is releasing "Texas Borderlands 2009: Housing Challenges Along the Border."
Written by Senator Eliot Shapleigh, www.shapleigh.org
There is a housing crisis in Texas which affects the growing number of families across the Border region. The lack of affordable housing has been an problem faced by working families for years. With the majority of jobs along the border paying minimum wage, access to affordable housing must be a priority.
Every biennium, our office studies issues critical to Texas and the Borderlands, and publishes a report on the findings. In the year leading up the legislative session, we publish a new chapter every month. This month, our office is releasing Texas Borderlands 2009: Housing Challenges Along the Border. You can read it by clicking here or clicking on "Reporting to You."
Our state and nation, are experiencing a severe number of home foreclosures. This is mostly due to the increase of subprime adjustable rate mortgage loans (ARMs) supplied by hungry lenders. Texas foreclosures increased to .06 percent in the third quarter of 2007, slightly below the U.S. rate of .08 percent. The number of delinquencies for subprime ARMs reached 6.5 percent, this was higher than the U.S. rate of 5.3 percent.
Over 40 percent of the loans originated in 2006 in Laredo, Mc Allen-Edinburg-Mission, and Brownsville-Harlingen were higher-priced loans—at least 3 percentage points above the prevailing mortgage rate. As households struggle to maintain their homes, they are also faced with trying to afford rising food and gas prices.
Texas households have less disposable income to pay for their other living expenses, as they are increasingly burdened with paying greater than 50 percent of their income on housing costs. The households experiencing the greatest housing affordability problems are the Extremely Low-Income (ELI) households. There are only 33 affordable and available units for every 100 ELI households.
Texas' housing availability is not keeping pace with the population growth of the state. The Border makes up 10 percent of the state's population, and faces some of the worst affordability issues because of their lower per capita incomes. Poverty along the Border is at 23 percent compared to 14 percent statewide.
So, housing affordability and availability along the Border is a priority. We must see more leadership in housing credits, and innovative financing so that Texans can realize the American Dream.
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