Fort Worth native Clarence Donald Babers dedicated his life to improving public housing in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, New Mexico and Oklahoma as a leader and administrator for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Now, Fort Worth government and community leaders are memorializing Babers by naming a new housing development in the 2019 Stop Six Choice Neighborhood Initiative in his honor. A groundbreaking ceremony for the Babers Manor development at the corner of Ramey and South Hughes avenues was held Wednesday morning at the Eastside Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Tarrant County, 4651 Ramey Ave.
The $30.5 million project will bring in two-story and three-story apartment buildings and townhomes — adding to other nearby redevelopment projects, including Hughes House currently under construction. McCormack Baron Salazar is the developer and GMA Construction Group is the general contractor.
“I can’t think of a better honor we can do,” said Terri Attaway, board chair of Fort Worth Housing Solutions, the agency working to develop the housing project. “This has been a long time in the making.”
Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker said the redevelopment of the Stop Six neighborhood is important to the city.
“We are finally stepping up,” Parker said. “We are fulfilling our promise.”
Gyna Bivens, the mayor pro tempore who represents Stop Six as a City Council member, credited Parker with “speaking up loudly and boldly” on Tuesday night in calling for improvements to the Fort Worth school district.
“If children can’t read, we’re doomed,” she said, adding that the public calls for improvements to the district are needed to ensure the success of students, including those in Stop Six.
The neighborhood was disregarded for too long as disrepair set in, leading to dilapidated houses across the area, Bivens said. Only 300 homes were built in Stop Six between 2006 and 2015, she added.
Babers Manor will set aside about 51 of the 80 units for low-income households, four of which will be permanent supportive housing. The project will set aside some apartments for former Cavile Place public housing residents, who will get first pick. Twenty-nine remaining units will be rented out at market rate, the Fort Worth Report previously reported.
The project — expected to be substantially completed by October 2025 — is the third housing development that will help redefine Stop Six, Bivens said.
Cowan Place, a 174-unit mixed-income senior living community at the intersection of East Rosedale Street and Andrew Avenue, is now accepting applications as the development will begin leasing units.
Further down Rosedale is the Hughes House mixed-use development with 519 apartments and townhomes under construction. The project, located at the site of the former Cavile Place project, will also include 12,000 square feet of commercial space to help revitalize the historic Black neighborhood.
“Three down, a few more to go,” said Mary-Margaret Lemons, president of Fort Worth Housing Solutions.
John Heerwagen, vice president of sales and client management at Aetna Public Sector and Labor, said the housing project will benefit “so many in the community.”
He said his company invested $17 million to create safe and affordable housing since that is often a deterrent to health care.
Esther Shin, president of Urban Strategies Inc., said Babers Manor will memorialize the legendary HUD administrator. Babers held numerous positions at the federal agency, including managing the Dallas office from 1975 to 2005 and serving as a southwest regional administrator. After Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana in 2005, Babers was tapped as recovery advisor and chairman of the board for the Housing Authority of New Orleans to oversee the monumental task of reorganizing the city’s public housing developments after the disaster displaced millions of residents.
Babers, one of the first Black students to attend the University of Texas at Arlington after integration, was honored in 2006 with a Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Executive, the highest award for a federal civil servant.
“I hope the work we’re doing honors him,” Shin said.
Babers’ daughter, Thalassia Mombeleur, said the family was blessed and honored to have the development named for her father.
“It speaks volumes to the input he had in the community,” she said.
Lucinda Jones, a lifelong Stop Six resident, said she was happy to see her neighborhood redeveloped.
“It’s about time,” the 69-year-old said. “We deserve it.”
Eric E. Garcia is a senior business reporter at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at eric.garcia@fortworthreport.org.
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