(Roberto and Elsa Trevino by Rita Zenzen Heck)
Here is another story from the Lavaca neighborhood (what is it about this 'hood?). It is about Roberto and Elsa Trevino family, who began buying property in the neighborhood back in the 1960s.
Today, the Trevinos and their children own more than a dozen houses in the Lavaca historic district. Many of them are rentals, but the Trevinos still live in the neighborhood. The Trevinos said they had no idea the neighborhood would take off the way it has now, where homes sell for as much as $1 million or more.
In 1963, the couple moved from a small village in Mexico to Victoria Courts, a subsidized living project formerly on Durango and Refugio streets. It was redeveloped in 2004 as Victoria Commons.
Roberto Trevino worked at several menial jobs around the area to save money for his dream: to own real estate. A few years later, the Trevino family, then numbering six children, moved into their first stand-alone home, a duplex on Barrera Street, down the street from Victoria Courts.
"The place was very small for eight people, but we rented out the other half to get money for Dad's dream," son Hector Trevino said. "In 1967, just in time for HemisFair, we moved to a bigger house on Lavaca where our parents still live and rented out the entire Barrera duplex. At the time, Dad thought that HemisFair would spill over to our property and buy everything. But that never happened." - Story by Rita Zenzen Heck for The Southside Reporter
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