An extended-stay hotel has been converted into a 119-unit affordable housing community in Fort Worth, Texas, with the help of funding from the CARES Act.
The recently opened Casa de Esperanza is home to residents who have been homeless for 12 or more consecutive months, are disabled, and either 65 years or older or who have health conditions making them vulnerable to COVID-19. Residents have been referred from a list managed by the Tarrant County Homeless Coalition.
City officials have estimated that there are about 1,800 homeless individuals in Fort Worth and that as many as a third are chronically homeless. Casa de Esperanza is Fort Worth’s largest permanent supportive housing community to date, according to Tara Perez, manager of the city’s Directions Home program.
The city provided $9.3 million in CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act funding to Fort Worth Housing Solutions, the local housing authority, last September for the project. The agency closed on the property Oct. 1, leaving roughly eight weeks for development partner Ojala Holdings to remodel units and gut and upgrade offices and common meeting areas under the funding program.
“There was a very short time frame or shot clock on the money,” says Matthew Vruggink, Ojala principal. “We had to spend it by the end of the year. We had to have residents in units by the end of the year.”
The solution was to acquire the former HomeTown Studios extended-stay hotel, which had an apartment-type set up with kitchenettes in the units, he says.
The project also worked because there were no long-term residents who faced the possibility of being displaced.
Officials and developers in California also have been turning hotels into housing for the most vulnerable during the pandemic and beyond.
In addition to working against the clock, there were other challenges. The project required a number of waivers from the city, including one for minimum room size requirements, says Vruggink.
“There were a lot of things that had to come together at once,” he says, adding that it was a collaborative effort by FWHS, the city, and Ojala, a Texas-based real estate developer and owner with a portfolio of nearly 5,000 units of market-rate and affordable housing.
In addition to the CARES Act funding, Casa de Esperanza is supported by project-based vouchers from the housing authority. The city is also providing funding for on-site case workers. These are important in ensuring the development’s long-term sustainability.
