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Patricia Montejano, a working mother and student at El Paso Community College learned the hard way about predatory lenders when she bought her house two years ago.
"I got into something that said, 'here are the keys (to a house). You're going to get a really small loan,' and I was very excited because it was about $400 a month and I'm a single mom," Montejano said. "I got my keys and went on from there. After two years, I found out the interest was really high and realized what it means for interest to be at 16 percent. I was able to understand what I was doing after getting help."
Montejano, now an employee for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), was a guest speaker at a press conference held to educate the public about the Don't Borrow Trouble Campaign (DBT).
DBT is a social marketing campaign dedicated to fighting predatory lending practices in El Paso. They provide information and educate consumers, homeowners and college students about making the right decisions on their finances and lending options. They provide a toll-free referral hotline operated by the El Paso City County Health and Environment District.
People can dial 2-1-1 at any time of the week, and an operator will give referrals to DBT campaign associates that can meet their needs.
DBT also provides free monthly legal clinics designed to answer questions on mortgages, foreclosures, loans, credit cards and bankruptcy. The clinics are held at the Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid Office, 1331 Texas Ave., during office hours.
"When I saw the progress that they have made, I was really excited because they brought together 11 organizations," Mayor John Cook said.
American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), ACORN and City of El Paso Community Development Housing programs are a few of the organizations that provide such services to consumers.
Susie Byrd, district 2 city representative and president of the El Paso Housing Finance Corporation, started the campaign.
"I know that everyday that you and I work very hard to make things happen in this community, we're looking at really changing our economy, growing wealth, creating jobs, getting folks into homes," Byrd said. "We also know that our families in the community worked very hard every day to bring home money for their families to provide a great education for their children to make a great place to live in the world. We also know that there are great forces that get in our way to be able to provide these things, which is predatory lending and we aim to stop that."
Von Iron, national director of Housing and Community Investment for Freddie Mac was one of the guest speakers at the press conference held last week at City Hall. He helped Byrd sponsor the DBT and has been working on it for about a year.
"This is a very unique initiative and opportunity when you talk about predatory lending because it is so timely. When you look at the newspaper and hear what's happening across the country today, there are several communities who have been forced into the situation without having a strategy to do anything about it," Iron said. "We all know that foreclosures are an issue not just here but elsewhere in the country. We've gone from a country, about a year ago, that had an average foreclosure rate of about one home for every 1,000 to 1,100 families, to today. The average foreclosure rate in the United States is one home for every 598 households in a year. That's amazing."
The DBT campaign raises awareness on local questionable lending practices and provided outreach education to the community so that they know when to walk away from a predatory lender, said Maureen Hankins, director of the YWCA Consumers Credit Counseling Service.
Hankins is one partner in the DBT campaign that would like to increase awareness of predatory lending and see successful economic growth in El Paso. Other companies can become a partner by submitting a request the DBT partners. For more information, visit www.elpasotexas.gov/DBT.
Natalie Hinojos may be reached at prospector@utep.edu.
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