DRC
One of 4444 Qual Trail's new residents, moving out of a tent camp into a new fully-furnished apartment.
A 48-unit apartment project in the works in West Fort Worth for chronically homeless people has quietly welcomed its first 14 tenants.
A coalition of First Presbyterian Church of Fort Worth, private developers, City of Fort Worth, leading local foundations, and the DRC Solutions to End Homelessness agency broke ground on the $4.7 million project last fall at 4444 Quall Trail off of River Oaks Boulevard near River Oaks.
The first day of September, outreach crews moved the first 14 tenants into three completed and fully furnished fourplexes. Some of the new residents were in temporary housing, but most were still unsheltered, living in parks and other locations outdoors, where the crews reached them.
“The majority were unsheltered,” Flora Brewer, a board member of New Leaf Community Services, the nonprofit founded to build and own 4444 Quail Trail and develop similar projects in the city, said.
The schedule for opening the remainder of the project – nine fourplexes and a building with a laundry, community and meeting space, property managers, and offices for DRC case managers who will guide the residents in obtaining social services and adapting to their new lives – appears to be on track for later this year, after numerous delays related to bad weather, materials shortages, and even a fire that damaged one building under construction. The fire apparently was caused by somebody seeking shelter in the uncompleted building.
“We’re weeks away from having the next three buildings ready to occupy,” Brewer said. The community building is nearing completion. As for the remaining fourplexes, “I think we’re looking at November.”
The first tenants included two couples, 10 individuals, and one pet dog, Steve Christian, a First Presbyterian member and president of New Leaf Community Services, said. First reactions by several of the tenants to their new apartments: jumping in the shower.
Easing the tenants’ transition to stable shelter and helping them replace the communities they were living in, even if in a park, will be a big challenge, Christian said. “They have a community back on East Lancaster,” he said.
DRC
New tenants at 4444 Quail Trail, with their pet dog
The project has remained on budget even with the delays and product shortages, Christian said. “The PMs did a really good job keeping a contingency,” he said. David Babek, the general contractor, “did a really good job of managing cost,” Brewer said. “He was not used to residential.”
The Quail Trail founders have set the nonprofit project up as a model for ones in the future in the city, and nationally. It’s an adaptation of the model Brewer used in 2015 and 2016, when she purchased and renovated the Palm Tree Apartments on Fort Worth’s Race Street in the Riverside area in 2015 into 100% permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless people. The Palm Tree is now owned and managed by the Brewer family’s Paulos Foundation.
First Presbyterian Church, a founder and supporter of the Presbyterian Night Shelter in Fort Worth, led the formation of New Leaf and committed $1 million to permanent supportive housing in conversations started under the retired pastor Karl Travis. And the same time it made the commitment to New Leaf, the church pledged $1 million over three years to the Night Shelter.
The project, critically, is being completed with no debt. DRC is under contract to New Leaf to provide case management for tenants. DRC also provides case management for Palm Tree residents. In recent years, the Fort Worth agency has remodeled its mission to a housing-first strategist to help end homelessness and ameliorate its impact on the community.
DRC
“We’re ending the suffering and instability,” Bruce Frankel, the agency’s executive director, said. “It’s just a humanitarian aspect of getting these people who are on the street into secure housing."
People who are chronically homeless have been homeless for at least a year – or repeatedly without a home – and have a disability such as mental illness, substance abuse disorder, or physical disability.
The federal government estimates cost of homelessness at $35,000-$40,000 per year per person, including the costs of emergency shelter, use of emergency medicine, ambulance usage, hospital admission, and criminal justice. That means permanent supportive housing is still far cheaper than the cost of homelessness, its proponents say.
“Once you get people into their own apartments, their receptiveness to behavioral healthcare increases,” Frankel said. “You have much better recovery efforts. The real barrier to ending chronic homelessless is having enough units.”
Lauren King, executive director of the Tarrant County Homeless Coalition, estimated about 20% of the area’s homeless population is chronically homeless.
“We estimate our community needs 500 more (permanent supportive housing) units in addition to what’s already in development,” she said.
The apartments are each 363 square feet in size, one bedroom and one bath, with living rooms and sealed concrete floors. They feature dual-burner stovetops, toaster ovens, microwaves, refrigerator-freezer, central air and heat, wifi, and television sets.
The Tarrant Area Food Bank provided the initial food stocks to open the apartments. “The Food Bank will be delivering food at least once a month,” Brewer said, including “high-quality produce and proteins. The residents will support that with (contributions from local) food pantries and food stamps.”
The Quail Trail team has been getting residents’ laundry washed, pending completion of the community center. The community center will have a demonstration kitchen. “It will support any kind of cooking people want to do,” Brewer said. Residents are being encouraged to provide feedback on the kinds of programs they’d like to see and will have sessions at least once a month to discuss their personal goals.
“This is as close to the normal apartment complex as we can possibly be,” Brewer said.
The average age of Quail Trail’s new tenants is 52, and about 60% are men. Most do not qualify for Medicare or Medicaid, Brewer said. Most don’t have income; residents who have income will pay part of it toward their rent, which is otherwise federally subsidized. Residents will also perform the landscape maintenance. “There’s possibly a community garden at some point,” Christian said.
New Leaf is looking for the next site. HUD has a number of requirements for such sites, including high walkability, proximity to a grocery store, bus line, education, and healthcare. Neighborhood politics also come into play. “We have a lot of ideas we can use, once we find another site,” Brewer said.