Tierra Madre Celebrates 10th Anniversary

September 25, 2005
A Border Ecotopia Turns Ten
A subdivision of nearly 20 acres located in Sunland Park, New Mexico, Tierra Madre gives low-income workers a chance of owning their homes for affordable prices. "Very comfortable, very cheap," is how Juan Ramirez, an employee for a road construction company, describes his family's 1,536 square foot, passive solar home built with straw bales. With four bedrooms and two bathrooms, the strikingly- furnished abode allows space for the Ramirez couple and their three growing children.
Tierra Madre was initiated by three nuns: Jean Miller, Joan Brown and Joan Durell. Constituted as a non-profit organization in 1995, the Tierra Madre Land Trust quickly attracted the interest of low-income families in the US- Mexico border communities of Sunland Park and El Paso. The name of the subdivision, which means Mother Earth in Spanish, aptly defines the vision of the land trust's founders. Besides affordable housing, Tierra Madre promotes environmentally- sustainable living and community togetherness.
After searching for land, the project’s founders obtained a 99-year lease from the State of New Mexico and organized the planned subdivision as a land trust. Residents make small monthly rental payments to the state. A community bulletin board sits next to the subdivision’s post office boxes, announcing meetings and English and math classes for both children and adults. Ten years after its formal inception as a planned community, more than 100 people call Tierra Madre home. Of 47 lots, 26 are occupied, 6 under construction and 15 others still empty.
On Saturday, September 24, Tierra Madre's staff, neighbors and friends gathered to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the project. A mariachi group entertained party-goers who dined on hamburgers and hot dogs as anxious children checked a solar cooker for the alluring chocolate chip cookies baking away.
Lother Fastje, Tierra Madre's housing coordinator, says construction costs are kept low- $50,000 dollars- for residences erected with straw bales and stuccoed walls. The houses boast solar hot water heaters. Energy efficient, the straw bales also have the advantage of not attracting rodents or termites. The highest monthly payment is $450 dollars for a 15-year mortgage, but lower payments are the norm under 30-year mortgages, according to Fastje. Private and government lenders finance the mortgages for qualified applicants. Eligible families must meet low-income guidelines but don't have to make a down payment. "They don't have to have a penny in their pocket to move in here," says Fastje.
The biggest savings to new homeowners come from the sweat equity they contribute. Groups of families, usually four to six in number, team together to build their homes during weekends and three evenings a week. A professional construction supervisor oversees and directs the project, which takes an average of three months to complete a home.
Best of all, no construction experience is required to take part in a Tierra Madre house-raising. For those willing to put in the sweat equity, Tierra Madre's construction supervisor Mike Cormier is there to help. Cormier says the land trust is addressing a critical but often overlooked aspect of affordable housing: energy costs.
" It costs less to save energy than to make it," contends Cormier. “If I can cut energy cost per house, it’s the same as taking a car off the road.” The "green housing" specialist details how Tierra Madre's homes are built with passive solar designs to maximize the use of the sun during the winter and minimize it during the summer.
Cormier is puzzled by the current energy production and consumption system in which fossil fuels are transported in energy-wasting trucks and local consumer dollars are funneled to big energy companies headquarted somewhere else. He adds that by utilizing easily produced materials like straw and drawing on the free energy of the sun, developments like Tierra Madre can point the way toward a new economy. “Use what you got. It makes no sense to export dollars. You don’t build an economy by exporting money,” insists Cormier,
On the 10th anniversary of the Tierra Madre Land Trust, word of the project is getting around the border region and beyond. Emily Webb, a university student from Portland, Oregon, majoring in sociology, is getting credit from her school, Lewis and Clark College, for spending 10-15 hours per week this semester helping with construction and organizational chores. Getting a first-hand glimpse of border life, Webb says the process of community-building requires more hard work than people anticipate.
Tierra Madre Land Trust staffer Lupe Bahena has seen more than her share of that hard work. Among the first volunteers, Bahena says residents are discussing the possibility of buying the land they lease from the State of New Mexico. According to Lother Fastje, another new project possibility being contemplated is to use some of the remaining lots to build multi-family rental housing as a source of income for Tierra Madre.
Bahena says there is a great demand to live in Tierra Madre, but she is disappointed when individuals, possessing the will to donate their time and labor to transform a home ownership dream into a reality, are turned down for a mortgage by a lender. “We have a lot of people who apply, but unfortunately a lot of them don’t qualify,” Bahena says.

Kent Paterson

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

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