19-02-2025
Low-income loan program in Texas celebrates 25th anniversary
AUSTIN (KXAN) — A loan program designed to help low-income residents achieve homeownership is celebrating an anniversary.
Today, the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) is recognizing 25 years of their Texas Bootstrap Loan Program (Bootstrap), one of the state's most successful, cost-effective programs, according to a press release.
'We're honored to celebrate our amazing Bootstrap administrators and dedicated, hard-working Texas families who prove that having a home—a safe, livable home—can be a reality,' said Bobby Wilkinson, TSHCA Executive Director.
The funding for Bootstrap comes from the state's Housing Trust Fund.
Today, a majority of the loan repayments made by prior Bootstrap loan recipients help fund loans for future Bootstrap loans, thus affording a self-sustaining funding source for the program and overall savings to the state, said the same release.
Throughout Texas, 2,200 homes with more than $68 million in home loans are directly linked to the Bootstrap.
Two program requirement options for the borrower:
Provide at least 65% of the labor necessary to build or rehabilitate the proposed housing.
Provide an amount of labor equivalent to the required amount by working through a state-certified owner-builder housing program.
The loans provided to low-income families, or those making up to 80% of the area median family income, cannot exceed $45,000 per house and can be combined with other funding sources such as those from private lending institutions, local government, nonprofits, or any other sources, according to the release.
As for requirements for the TDHCA, they must set aside at least two-thirds of the annual available finds for owner-builders whose property is in a census tract that has a median household income that is not greater than 75% of the median state household income for the most recent year for which statistics are available.
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