Mexico housing program to help migrant families

A new housing program in Mexico aims to help migrants living in the United States build a home to return to in the communities they left behind.

The program targets the tens of millions of Mexicans who fled poverty in rural Mexico by emigrating to the U.S. in search of work, offering them access to credit and subsidies, and even to build the homes.

Dubbed "Build in your land," the plan expects to help at least 200,000 such families a year who are ineligible for traditional home-building loans since they live and work abroad.

Minister of Agrarian Development and Urban Planning (Sedatu), Rosario Robles, told foreign correspondents on Wednesday, the program takes advantage of the fact that some 35 million migrants residing in the U.S. send money back to their relatives in Mexico each year.

Earlier this year, Mexico's central bank reported that for the first time remittances surpassed oil to become the country's leading source of foreign revenue, bringing in nearly 24.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2015.

"We have calculated that our migrants would pay two dollars (on average) a day over 5 years to be able to have access to this decent housing," said Robles.

Those families currently spend 30 percent of their remittances to build or improve their houses in their hometowns, but the process can take many years, said Paloma Silva, director of the National Housing Commission (Conavi), adding these houses will take no more than four months to build.

"This year we are going to launch a pilot program for 5,000 homes," said Silva, noting the scheme "has the potential (to build) up to 300,000 homes a year."

Those eligible would have to have their own land, earn no more than 11,172 pesos (598 U.S. dollars) a month, have enough savings to pay 5 percent of the financing as a deposit, and not have previously received any federal housing subsidies.

The average total cost of building each two-bedroom home is calculated to be about 140,000 pesos (about 7,500 dollars), with the government contributing 64,000 pesos (3,442 dollars) in subsidies.

In addition, residents of Mexican states with high migrant rates, including Puebla, State of Mexico and Guanajuato, may be eligible for state subsidies.

Migrants can sign up for the program at Mexican consulates in the U.S., and so far 545 migrant families have done so since the program was first unveiled a month ago in the southern state of Arizona.

"The migrant is going to continue to send his remittances as usual, and a relative in Mexico is going to be paying the financing," said Silva. Enditem