SAN ANTONIO – An effort is underway in the historic West Side to ensure that neighborhood improvements benefit those who live there.
The Esperanza Community Land Trust, a nonprofit, buys properties and helps families pay for improvements so they aren’t forced to move because of repairs or taxes they can’t afford.
In a recent KSAT town hall, neighbors told KSAT developers have been eyeing homes on the West Side because of their low property values and need for repairs.
Jazmine Herrera knows that need well.
“It was around COVID when I had lost my job, and there was a winter storm and a lot of fixtures needed to be done on the plumbing. It cost me a lot of money,” Herrera said. “So I kept falling behind payments on the house, and I didn’t know what else to do.”
Herrera, who lives in the home once owned by her grandparents, then found out about the Esperanza Community Land Trust through the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center.
“It’s important that the people who have lived here be the people who get to benefit from any improvement coming in, right? That’s the problem that we’ve seen on the East Side,” said Leticia Sanchez, an organizer of the land trust. “A lot of development has taken place, rehabs and things like that. But the people who grew up there, a lot of them can’t afford the housing.”
A community land trust, allowed by state law, exists to develop and preserve affordable housing.
The Esperanza Land Trust works in one of two ways.
The trust buys homes and pays for repairs, opening the door for a West Side family to live there one day. Or, in Herrera’s case, the trust pays off the homeowner’s mortgage and helps pay for needed improvements.
The trust owns the land on which her home sits.
Herrera is responsible for paying the taxes on the improvements, but the city cuts property taxes in half for homeowners who are part of the trust, according to Sanchez.
The money to fund the trust comes from Bexar County, the San Antonio Housing Trust and a federal grant through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Neighbors who are part of the trust also pay into it, like Herrera.
“I want my family to be able to stay generations beyond that here on the West Side, where we’re happy, and we can be around family and community,” she said.
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