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Seeing our clients achieve key milestones is what drives our work at BCL of Texas. From startups that have expanded to multi-employee businesses to families buying their first homes, our success all comes down to you.
Jamie and Ricky had always rented, and when the idea of homeownership came up they weren’t sure where to start. Jamie approached Daniel Garcia at BCL of Texas, who answered some of her initial questions and recommended they take the 8-hour Homebuyer Education course at the BCL of Texas HomeOwnership Center.
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BCL is known for our small business lending programs, but did you know we also work with partners like city and local governments to help them reach small businesses for grants like covid-19 relief packages? Since the start of the pandemic, we have distributed over $11.5 million in grant relief funding to over 300 businesses.
When she began to get serious about buying her first house, Rose Perez sought out BCL of Texas to find out about programs available to help her get there.
“I wanted to have a safe environment for my kids, something that we could call our own, and to have a neighborhood that reflected who we are as well,” says Rose. She began to work one-on-one with HomeOwnership Center Manager Merecia Smith to start working toward that goal.
For Karen Enderlin, managing her family’s Holiday Inn Express & Suites in Fredericksburg, the SBA 504 program made all the difference in coming out of covid closures and keeping the family business strong.
Before covid-19 hit, veteran-owned business Eagle Pride Supply was going strong - growing their business revenue 24-fold over just a couple of years. As an essential business providing supplies for government contracts and more, owner Patrick Myers was ready to weather the storm. But as smaller businesses shut down, suppliers tightened credit, and the consumer spending slowed, the effects of the prolonged shutdown began to affect his business too.
The Community Loan Center (CLC) of Austin offers an alternative to payday loans for people facing unexpected bills. With a simple application process, loans up to $1,000 can be obtained with low interest rates and manageable repayment plans automatically deducted from paychecks. Don Molden, a satisfied customer, encourages others to consider CLC to avoid financial hardship.
Being a social entrepreneur is a little like running a business and a non-profit at the same time, in that you’re focused on both the bottom line and your social mission. It’s a big vision, and requires a lot of work. Yet, if there’s any entrepreneur in Austin equipped for the job, it’s Fuerte Fitness owner Romy Parzick.
Ruth and Arnold Guerra were born and raised in Gonzales, Texas, where they have opened hotels, restaurants, and built homes to meet their community’s needs. “We started with nothing,” Ruth said. Now, they have built over 100 homes in their community of 7,000 people.
I visited the Guerras and we drove around the town, as Ruth pointed out both homes she and her husband had worked on, as well as other neighborhoods of older homes in states of disrepair. Gonzales has not had new home construction in a long time. “Big builders are not going to come into this town,” Ruth said. In a previous subdivision, a builder constructed about 5 homes and then left town, the work unfinished. We drove past a 17-home affordable subdivision of 3-bedroom homes the Guerras built in 2009.
Now, they are building Angel Oaks, a 6-home development for median income families, featuring 3-bedroom ranch-style homes with yards. A longtime customer of BCL, having worked with us in the past for an SBA 504 loan, the Guerra family is now working with BCL’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Texas Community Builders for our new pre-development loan product.
The demand for median-priced new housing in Gonzales is apparent, as five of the Angel Oaks homes have already been purchased, just as groundbreaking has barely begun. Most of the buyers are people of color, and all are first-time homeowners. “People are getting out of renting and into their first homes,” Ruth said.
And as with their hotels, their construction business is a family venture. They’ve taught their two daughters skills in construction, management, and project administration. “In the big city, you get a job and you learn one thing,” Ruth said. She said her daughters are now prepared with a wide range of skills to take on all kinds of jobs.
“I’m really glad that Texas Community Builders is investing in small developers,” Ruth said. “I appreciate that they saw that we have projects that will benefit individuals that probably never would have been able to buy a home. Without Texas Community Builders, we would not have been able to do this project.”
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