U.S., Mexico announce joint effort to boost housing options

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U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Mel Martinez and Mexican Secretary for Social Development Josefina Vzquez Mota signed a Memorandum of Cooperation Nov. 25 that formalized the neighboring countries' mutual commitment to improve housing, urban and social development conditions for their respective citizens.|ret||ret||tab|

"The Bush Administration is committed to working in partnership with our Mexican neighbors to share information on ways to improve housing and urban conditions in both countries," said Martinez, who earlier joined Vzquez in touring parts of the Yucatn Peninsula affected by Hurricane Isidore. "I am proud to join Secretary Vzquez here today to sign this Memorandum of Cooperation." |ret||ret||tab|

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Benefits|ret||ret||tab|

Examples of the benefits of the memorandum include a bilingual dictionary of housing and urban development terms to be released in the spring of 2003 that will help facilitate communication on a variety of cooperative efforts by both governmental and nongovernmental organizations; a proposed bilateral study that will identify the conditions for the development and operation of a financial literacy training program in order to increase the number of immigrants who access the banking system, build a credit history and thus obtain access to homeownership; and a proposed symposium on housing finance.|ret||ret||tab|

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Technical cooperation|ret||ret||tab|

Martinez and Vzquez also highlighted a technical cooperation agreement between HUD, the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Census, Mexican Social Development and the Mexican National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics. This agreement facilitates an exchange of information to assist projects relating to cross-border urban planning.|ret||ret||tab|

The agreement demonstrates the use of affordable Geographic Information System technology to improve housing and community development programs along the 2,000-mile, U.S.-Mexico border region. The participating agencies also will work closely with state and local communities in both countries to manage cross-border planning issues and to improve housing and living conditions. |ret||ret||tab|

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