Measuring self-help home improvements in Texas colonias: A ten year snapshot

Article, Refereed Journal
Urban Studies 51.10 (2014): 2143-2159.
Noah J. Durst

pThis paper builds on an earlier (2004) Urban Studies paper that presented data from a major household survey in 2002 comprising a form of ldquo;natural experimentrdquo; on the impact of title regularization intervention among low-income homeowners in ten colonias in Starr County, Texas. In 2011 the research team returned to those same low-income households oversampling more than half of them in order to compare and analyze: the extent and nature of housing improvement; levels of overcrowding and access to home amenities; and the methods of financing for home improvement and extension. Significant improvements and investments are observed totaling an average of almost $9,000, mostly financed out of income and savings, although an increasing trend to seek loans from the formal market was observed. Correlation and case-study analysis explore the ways in which the self-help and self-managed dwelling environments are adapted to the family and household dynamics over the life course.nbsp;/p

Research Topic
Economic and Social Development