Fort Worth Housing Solutions: News for our Clients

January 2021 | News for our Clients

Dear FWHS Community,

I hope that 2021 finds you healthy and well and ready to help us make this the best year yet!

The New Year brings our agency new opportunities to serve you and the entire Fort Worth community. In 2021, we will continue to expand availability of affordable housing as we complete new, mixed-income residential communities and welcome new clients and residents to our rental assistance programs.

We’re recruiting current Housing Choice Voucher clients for our Family Self-Sufficiency program and busy planning career enhancement sessions and contractor briefings to ensure that residents and area businesses have the opportunity to participate in our work. More details are below.

We are thankful for your ongoing support as we watch the Stop Six Choice Neighborhood Initiative take shape. We will complete demolition of Cavile Place this spring, and we are preparing to begin construction of the Cowan Place senior living community by early summer.

Stay strong as our nation works to defeat the Covid-19 pandemic.

You are the reason we exist.

Mary-Margaret Lemons

FWHS President

Attention: The Covid-19 vaccine is now available in Tarrant County for front-line health care workers, people age 65 and up, as well as those with underlying medical conditions.

You must register at tarrantcounty.com/covidshot in advance, and you must schedule an appointment to receive the shot.

Section 3 Program Helps Former Cavile Mom Find Employment

Brasalin Mosley remembers the relief she and her husband felt when they were approved for a four-bedroom home three years ago in the Cavile Place community.

The support she has received since relocating as part of the Stop Six Choice Neighborhood Initiative guided the mother of six to a job that helped her give back.

Last fall, Mosley became a FWHS Section 3 worker. She prepared apartments for move-in at Casa de Esperanza, a new community that serves the chronically homeless. Read her story here.

Want to know more about the FWHS Section 3 program? Email Workforce Coordinator Dennise Babiche at dbabiche@fwhs.org.

Virtual Career Open House Set for Jan. 27 on Zoom

Residents and Community members are invited to attend an online Career Open House with a resume and interview skills workshop at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 27, on Zoom.

The event is produced in collaboration with the Stop Six Choice Neighborhood Initiative, Urban Strategies, Inc. and Workforce Solutions of Tarrant County.

To attend, register now at https://bit.ly/3ieQuab. To schedule a one-on-one resume editing or career counseling session, email dbabiche@fwhs.org.

“Butler Place” Short Documentary Selected

for Denton Black Film Festival Jan. 21-Feb. 1

A short documentary about Butler Place, Fort Worth’s first public housing project, has been selected for this year’s virtual Denton Black Film Festival, Jan. 27-Feb. 1.

The video is a collaboration between the City of Fort Worth’s Communications and Public Engagement Department and Fort Worth Housing Solutions and commemorates the closing of the 80-year-old apartments in December 2020 and the end of an era in American public housing policy.

Butler Place opened in 1940. Over time, the red brick campus just east of downtown became outdated and isolated, surrounded by major highways.

FWHS helped residents relocate to homes of choice throughout the city as part of its strategy to deconcentrate poverty and is working with HUD and community leaders to determine next steps for the site.

Visit https://dentonbff.com/ for tickets and the festival schedule.

HCV Residents Now Enrolling in Family Self-Sufficiency Program

Housing Choice Voucher clients who want to increase their educational attainment, earn certifications, increase job skills and achieve career goals are invited to enroll in the Family Self-Sufficiency Program. Participants set their own goals and build a five-year plan to achieve them with support from a FSS specialist.

As participants achieve goals, personal income typically increases. The FSS program captures rent increases that the participant would have paid based on higher income and escrows those funds. Program graduates like Crystal Baker, pictured with two of her sons, are awarded the escrow, a healthy start on family savings.

Call 817-333-3653 for more information.

Stop Six Choice Neighborhood Work Accelerates

Stop Six Choice Neighborhood progress is moving forward quickly this year:

Demolition of the 300-unit former Cavile Place community is moving quickly and is expected to be complete in March. Watch KDFW/Fox 4’s story on the overall effort here.

Hughes House, 210-unit, mixed-income community to be built on a portion of the Cavile site, will be named in honor of Robert Hughes Sr., the famed Dunbar High School boys’ basketball coach and the winningest high school coach of all time. (Click here to view a recent presentation to neighborhood associations.)

BLOCK Cos ., general contractor for the Cowan Place senior living community, has scheduled a pre-bid conference for multifamily subcontractors for 10 a.m. Feb. 4, 2021. More details will be available soon.

Questions or suggestions?

Email FWHS Communications Manager Kristin Sullivan at ksullivan@fwhs.org.

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