All the road names in this colonia contain the word, "Colonia. View photos of the houses along Colonia Tierra Drive. All the houses have access to electricity; some houses are substantial while others are very simple. Collecting and re-using materials for house construction and fences are common. Do-it-yourself house construction is the norm where incomes are low and unemployment is high. Colonias can be found in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California, but Texas has both the largest number of colonias and the largest colonia population.
Approximately , Texans live in colonias. Overall, the colonia population is predominately Hispanic, essentially Mexican; 65 percent of all colonia residents and 85 percent of those residents under 18 were born in the United States. There are more than 2, Texas colonias, located primarily along the state's 1, mile border with Mexico. Colonias in Texas in California. The term "colonia" in Spanish means a community or neighborhood.
Overall, the colonia population is predominately Hispanic; There are more than 2, Texas colonias, located primarily along the state's 1,mile border with Mexico. The development of Texas colonias dates back to at least the s. Using agriculturally worthless land—land that lay in floodplains or other rural properties—developers created unincorporated subdivisions. They divided the land into small lots, put in little or no infrastructure, then sold them to low-income individuals seeking affordable housing.
Colonia residents generally have very low incomes. A limited supply of adequate, affordable housing in cities and rural areas along the Texas- Mexico border—coupled with the rising need for such housing—has contributed to the development of new colonias and the expansion of existing ones.
People with low incomes often buy the lots through a contract for deed, a property financing method whereby developers typically offer a low down payment and low monthly payments but no title to the property until the final payment is made. Houses in colonias are generally constructed in phases by their owners and may lack electricity, plumbing, and other basic amenities.
Colonia residents build homes as they can afford materials. The colonias' growth has challenged residents, as well as county, state and federal governments, and others, to seek ways to provide basic water and sewer services and to improve the quality of life in the colonias. Local public funds and other resources are often limited and unable to provide service to the current and growing colonia population.
Hidalgo County, which has the most colonias and the largest number of colonia residents in Texas, is typical of many border counties. For basic health and human services, environmental services and capital improvements, colonia residents must rely on an often confusing combination of local, state and federal programs, many of which come and go, depending on the political and economic climate.
Common Topics. Working mostly in low-income fields such as agriculture, manual labour and the service industry, Almost 55 percent of colonia residents do not graduate from high school, while the national average of people with an education level less than a high school diploma is Only 5.
Low education rates can be partly explained by the difficulty of accessing schools for youngsters, who are bussed to the closest city — sometimes a half-hour drive or more from their homes. And with family incomes already meagre, many youths have to abandon their studies to start working full-time to help support their families at a young age.
In some underdeveloped colonias, more than 38, people do not have access to safe drinking water, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas report. Many still do not have potable water, electricity, septic or sewer systems, paved roads and safe housing.
As generation after generation of children have been born in the colonias, the rate of those holding US citizenship has surpassed the number of those without documents. Nearly three-quarters of all residents hold US citizenship, but more than 94 percent of children are documented, according to the report. Being separated from her sisters by the heavily militarised border between the US and Mexico has always been difficult.
But in it became doubly challenging when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Eva and her family spent a year jumping through bureaucratic hoops to obtain access to chemotherapy treatment. To make matters worse, her father, who now works in a hotel, has in the past struggled with work, finding himself vulnerable to exploitation.
In one instance, a few years before Eva moved to the US, she says her father was hired by a man who needed home repairs. After he had completed the job, he asked for payment. He was deported to Mexico and was only able to make it back to his family by entering the US irregularly.
Located just 17 kilometres outside the border town of Mission, the Mi Sueno colonia is a single, pothole-ridden street lined with wooden and concrete houses, trailers, crumbling shacks and car parks. Sheets of shiny tinfoil blanket the windows of residences along the sole road, put there by locals who need respite from the blazing southern Texas heat but lack the money to insulate their homes. Small rays of light shoot from the foil back into the neighbourhood when the sun hits at the right angle.
Some structures resemble the one- or two-bedroom homes that characterise working-class neighbourhoods across the Rio Grande Valley region, while others are tumbledown formations patched together with scrap wood, cinderblocks and tarps. There are no drains, no sewage system and no regular rubbish pickup; residents endure flood damage, rely on septic tanks and haul their own rubbish to a landfill nearly a half-hour drive away.
The women and their daughters sit at picnic tables with hand-drawn sheets for bingo, while a handful of boys kick a football back and forth beyond a rusted grey sedan that sits on cinderblocks.
Yolanda sits down to smoke a cigarette during a break from the game, swatting at mosquitos as she explains that she lives with her husband and son in the small wooden home behind her. After decades of living in the dark, residents of Mi Sueno were given their first streetlight earlier this year after a five-year campaign during which they protested and lobbied public officials. Olivia Zarate, who raised her children in Mi Sueno, recalls deciding to act after hearing a story about a child who was run over by a school bus in a nearby colonia.
Because most residents survive on low incomes and many live below the poverty line, they find themselves in a cycle of spending their money on temporary repairs each time cars or homes are damaged by the weather, Flor says.
She explains that the most prevalent public health concerns in colonias and similar low-income communities are diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and obesity. The whole Rio Grande Valley is like this, but a colonia is just like that on steroids.
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