The Tarrant County Homeless Coalition has received a $2.5 million grant from the Bezos Day 1 Families Fund, the fund established by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to support homeless families.
The grant is the largest private gift in the history of the Tarrant County Homeless Coalition, a nonprofit organization that is leading the way in seeking solutions to homelessness in Tarrant County.
“This gift from Bezos Day 1 Families Fund is transformational for our organization and will have incredible impact on our community,” Lauren King, executive director of the Homeless Coalition, said in a news release. “This funding comes at a critical time when more families than ever are experiencing homelessness in our community and as we look for more innovative ways to meet those increased needs.”
The grant will support the Homeless Coalition in serving as a critical lifeline to children and adults in families experiencing homelessness, the release said. The Homeless Coalition plans to use its Day 1 Families Fund grant to enhance services available to families experiencing homelessness with increased efforts to end homelessness quickly through diversion, housing location and additional supports to help families return to self-sufficiency.
Tarrant County Homeless Coalition was selected as a Day 1 Families Fund grant recipient by a group of national advisors who are leading advocates and experts on homelessness and service provision. National advisors brought expertise on housing justice, advancing racial equity and helping programs employ resources effectively to assist families out of homelessness.
Over the past six years, the Day 1 Families Fund has provided 208 grants totaling more than $630 million to organizations around the country working on the frontlines to identify unsheltered families, help families regain housing and connect families experiencing homelessness to vital services.
This year, the fund issued a total of $117.55 million in grants to 38 organizations. The Day 1 Families Fund has now granted this award to organizations in 48 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. New states this year include Arkansas, Vermont and Wyoming.
Here are some questions and answers about the grant and the battle against homelessness, provided by the Tarrant County Homeless Coalition.
How will this funding be used?
Tarrant County, and in particular Fort Worth, has had one of the largest increases in family homelessness in the country. There is a critical need for services and affordable housing to address this issue. This one-time, uniquely flexible grant will support the Homeless Coalition in serving as a critical lifeline for children and adults in families experiencing homelessness, who represent more than a quarter of the homeless population nationally.
The Homeless Coalition will distribute $2 million of this grant to our partners who serve families in need in three different ways:
- Diversion efforts. Diversion helps get families out of homelessness as quickly as possible by reuniting them with family and other community supports.
- Family housing navigation. Locating an apartment to rent is one of the most difficult and tedious parts of getting out of homelessness. A housing navigator can help guide families through the search and leasing process to help them find a new place to call home.
- Enhanced services for families experiencing homelessness. These services will work in partnership with family housing programs to provide enhanced support services to higher needs families who need more help getting back on their feet to self-sufficiency.
The Homeless Coalition will use the remaining funds to support our landlord engagement program, which works directly with landlords to provide permanent, affordable and supportive housing solutions to hundreds of community members each month, as well as additional intervention training and grant administration.
What is the goal?
The goal is to reduce the number of families experiencing homelessness and move them out of homelessness as quickly as possible.
What are the statistics for family homelessness locally?
So far this year 318 families have entered into homelessness. In analyzing the past five years, the homeless system saw significant change from 2018 to 2023. In 2018, an average of 16 families became homeless each month. In 2020 and the first half of 2021, this number increased slightly to 20 families becoming homeless each month. The second half of 2021 to present is a very different situation with 40 families per month becoming homeless.
What is causing the increase in family homelessness?
The following issues coincide with the significant increase in families becoming homeless.
- Eviction Moratorium Ends: The eviction moratorium that began early in the pandemic came to an end in Texas in March 2021. Six months later, our system saw the number of families entering homelessness go from 20 to 40 per month (September 2021). The eviction moratorium end triggered a huge number of households needing rental assistance to pay both rent owed and up to six months forward.
- Emergency Rental Assistance Ends: Emergency Rental Assistance (from the U.S. Department of Treasury) was available in 2021 and nearly fully expended by March 2022. In 2022, an average of 43 families per month were entering homelessness. As more families were in need, numbers continued to increase, including 70 families entering homelessness in June 2022. So far this year, 318 families have entered homelessness. To put assistance levels in perspective, we had 49 times the amount of rental assistance during the pandemic than we do now (and pre-pandemic).
- Rent Increases: Since 2018 we have seen a cumulative 35% increase in rent for affordable properties. Whereas in the past rent would increase by 1% to 6% per year, between 2022 and 2023, rent increased by 13% and is estimated to jump another 10% in 2024. This aligns with what families are reporting to us – landlords are opting to raise the rent by $300 to $500 per month at lease renewal.
- Number of Evictions: Over the past few months, we have seen the highest numbers of evictions since before the pandemic, including one week when over 950 evictions were filed. Although households rarely go directly from eviction to homelessness, this is concerning when projecting what we will see in the winter when these households have floated around for six months and reach the point where they have nowhere else to go.
- Shelters Over Capacity: Unsheltered families are a relatively new phenomenon in our community. In August 2023, outreach teams served 45 families who were living in cars, totaling 170 people. In September, 11 families had entered homelessness, eight of whom were seen by outreach teams and could not access shelter due to all shelters being over capacity; three were able to get into shelter immediately.
What is the next step?
In January, the Homeless Coalition will begin an RFP process to find the right partners for the diversion, family housing navigation and enhanced services for families. The RFP will be open for three weeks, after which time the allocations committee will review applications, score them and recommend funding for proposed projects. We hope to award funding by the end of February.
Who will be included in the RFP process?
We will share this call for proposals with all of Tarrant County’s Continuum of Care member agencies and ask United Way to distribute the RFP to other agencies serving families. All information related to the RFP process will be posted on the Funding Opportunities section of the Homeless Coalition website.
Many of the organizations that will be receiving this request are already involved in finding solutions to this issue, and this funding will help support their work.
How much will this funding help you?
This is the largest single private grant our organization has ever received, and it will be transformational for our community. The efforts that we are funding with this grant have been on our wish list for some time, but we have not had the resources to accomplish them.
How much additional investment have you received?
The Homeless Coalition continually works to secure additional funding for our community. In the last year alone, we secured $50 million in capital funding from local municipalities to build housing for people exiting homelessness. In addition, the Homeless Coalition ensures that our community receives increased investment from HUD to support housing programs, and in fact, this year our community will receive an investment of $18 million to support our efforts to create more affordable housing in Tarrant County.
