W. Side braces for newest bit of gentrification

The pitches arrive every week in postcards, letters, voice mails and texts. The message is always the same.

“Have you ever thought of selling your house?”

“As is?”

Housing, legal and financial experts from the University of Texas at San Antonio and the Mexican American Unity Council on the West Side gathered recently for a community workshop to answer the questions in unison.

“Be wary,” they said.

The advice comes as the West Side braces for the latest wave of gentrification spawned by San Antonio’s development boom and population growth.

Low-income homeowners, elected officials and neighborhood advocates aren’t just worried about potential cultural changes in the area, as scooters and coffeehouses begin to infiltrate.

They aren’t necessarily against business development or the expansion of UTSA’s Downtown Campus, if those changes benefit West Side residents, too, and they’re included in the conversation.

Displacement is their chief concern, because on the West Side, housing means low-income housing, distressed housing and multigenerational housing. It means inter-generational poverty, and for many people, alternative affordable housing will be hard to find.

In a series of workshops, MAUC’s Housing Center and Roger Enriquez of UTSA have helped homeowners establish clear title to their homes, advised them on how to challenge Bexar County property appraisals to lower their taxes, and showed them how to apply for all available property tax exemptions.

The project was initiated by District 5 City Councilwoman Shirley Gonzales.

Enriguez supervises undergraduates trained to assist homeowners. A licensed attorney, Enriquez is also associate professor and director of the Policy Studies Center at UTSA’s College of Public Policy.

The project has uncovered “overwhelming fractionalized ownership,” he says, which happens when homeowners die without wills or other documents that clearly pass title to heirs.

Enriquez says state law now gives homeowners more ways to transfer such assets, including Transfer on Death Deeds that don’t require a lawyer to draft.

The project has helped homeowners clear titles with affidavits of heirship, gift or warranty deeds and wills — all for free. More than 60 homeowners with average household annual incomes of $27,000 have preserved assets worth about $6 million, MAUC statistics show.

Sixty percent of them were retired or disabled homeowners in homes with an average value of $95,000. The great majority were Mexican American, but they included African Americans, whites, Native Americans and Asians, some from other parts of the city.

MAUC also has conducted workshops on home rehabilitation counseling, home-buyer education, estate planning and understanding credit, among other topics.

The group’s recent workshop featured realtor Rich Acosta of the nonprofit group Mi Ciudad Es Mi Casa, which offers free help to homeowners who want to protest their property appraisals.

Other West Side groups have been involved in addressing the effects of gentrification. Preservation advocates long ago surfaced in the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, which established a coalition named the Westside Preservation Alliance.

Esperanza also founded a neighborhood group called Mi Barrio No Se Vende, which invites West Siders to host home-based cafecitos, or coffee klatches, to better understand what lies ahead. The group’s name means “My Neighborhood Isn’t for Sale.”

West Side businessman Jaime Macias is doing his own bit. He has several properties near the West Commerce bridge and hopes West Side development will amount to more than just another taqueria or tire shop.

He’s torn between wanting that development and worrying about how gentrification will affect residents. He’s the messenger behind the small billboard near the bridge. It says, “Unbow Your Head.”

Macias says he means for West Siders to “look up, because change is coming with or without our involvement, and we may not like what comes.” eayala@express-news.net | @ElaineAyala