Tarrant County has experienced such a huge increase in family homelessness that shelters in Fort Worth are now having to turn away families simply because there is not enough room to house them.

During a City work session, the City council discussed ways to address the growing problem of homeless families in Fort Worth.

“In the past couple months, we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of families entering homelessness,” said Lauren King, executive director of the Tarrant County Homeless Coalition (TCHC).

“Our main family shelter is the Salvation Army,” she continued. “They have 60 family beds. They’re currently serving 277 people. That’s 74 families, so they’re way over capacity.”

King said TCHC provided the data for the most recent informal report on family homelessness, adding that the number of homeless families had doubled.

She implied that the driving factors were the ending of federal rent assistance and the federal eviction moratorium. Continually increasing rents make matters worse.

“For the first time in our community, we’re seeing that shelters are having to turn some families away because there’s not [enough] room,” she said. “We are really over capacity, and the funding is not there to continue sheltering at that same level.”

As the demand for homeless assistance grows, shelters and nonprofits are no longer receiving taxpayer dollars from COVID relief funds.

“We’ve taken about a 70% hit of our overall funding,” claimed John Ramsey, executive director of Tarrant County Hands of Hope. “Our resources have gone down while the need has gone up.”

Ramsey fears “that it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker said the City is “actively looking for potential properties across Fort Worth that we can convert into shelter housing for families.”

If it turns out that the City ultimately does not need the shelter beds at some point, Fort Worth could “then turn that into permanent housing for families,” Parker said.

Furthermore, Parker said Fort Worth was “continuing to leverage our permits per housing dollars towards these projects … Over $20 million.”

The City has also been coordinating with private sector partners to develop new housing.

Between July and September, an average of 162 families were homeless at any given time in Tarrant and Parker counties. Of those families, 138 were in Fort Worth.

“That’s a stark contrast to COVID,” said King. The mayor said the City felt there were many families in the community who “were perhaps on the edge, or doubled up and living with relatives, and their family members are also on the edge.”

In summary, King said, “They can’t make ends meet anymore.”

Mayor Parker said, “It’s a complicated problem to deal with. There’s probably going to be a series of short-term solutions that we need to come up with and long-term solutions.”

Fort Worth has been spending taxpayer dollars on local housing solutions for months, including recently spending more than $17 million in local, private, and federal funds to develop 128 permanent supportive housing units. It is expected to spend another $4.6 million.

The City is also expected to spend $8 million on homeless family units, totaling $29.6 million, and has reallocated federal funds to focus specifically on rapidly rehousing families.

Tarrant County is using $32.5 million in federal funds to develop 254 “affordable housing” units for the homeless. The county is currently searching for developers.

“I consider this a crisis because of whom it’s impacting — our families and children,” said Mayor Parker. “I’m not the only mayor in Texas with this problem right now.”

Mayor Parker and the Tarrant County Homeless Commission are working with churches and local charities to address family homelessness. They offer opportunities to provide food for families staying in overflow locations, support family shelter holiday programs, donate gas cards, or sponsor a family to move into housing.