As he finally moved into permanent supportive housing in northwest Fort Worth three years ago, Lorenzo Williams said he felt “blessed and joyful.”
Homeless since 2017, he struggled with drug addiction resulting in multiple stints in jail and health complications. Quail Trail, an apartment complex near River Oaks, was his opportunity to live in a home with a plug for his heart monitor.
Just one year later, at age 66, Williams died in his Quail Trail apartment from a cocktail of drugs.
“He was a decent human being,” said Tanya Parsons, who spent time at the property and knew Williams. “He fell through the f— cracks.”
Current residents, neighbors and a former employee say what started as a well-intentioned project by the nonprofit New Leaf Community Services to help the city’s chronically homeless was marred by a lack of resources and expertise. Now, its new owner, Presbyterian Night Shelter, is working to rebuild tenant trust as it improves the safety and security of the development after taking over in October 2023.
New Leaf Community Services was formed in 2019 by the late housing advocate Flora Brewer alongside several concerned residents affiliated with First Presbyterian Church. They raised money to build 48 units of permanent supportive housing on Quail Trail and operated the property for about two years.
Documents obtained by the Fort Worth Report and interviews with tenants reveal during those initial years, residents were victims of assault, harassment and burglary at the hands of their fellow tenants and trespassers. Steve Christian, chair of the New Leaf board, knew from previous experience working with the chronically homeless that creating a safe environment at Quail Trail would be difficult.
When Brewer, the group’s housing expert, fell ill and stepped back from the project, New Leaf struggled to meet the needs of their tenants.
“Right now, this is the best we’ve been able to do … get folks that are chronically homeless in safe housing, with full-time counseling and to try to provide a soft landing, a safe place for them to be in to get some of the help they need,” Christian said in a recent interview, reflecting on the history of the project. “We’re trying to help them, but not everybody is capable of staying in it, which has been a learning curve.”
In 2019, New Leaf Community Services hired DRC Solutions, a local nonprofit focused on mental health and homelessness, to provide two case managers to oversee 48 tenants. Pride Property Management was hired to maintain the property.
Pride Property Management did not respond to several requests for comment.
Properties like Quail Trail are the city’s best tool to reduce the number of chronically homeless individuals living and dying on Fort Worth’s streets. Still, it requires significant resources and expertise, local housing experts said.
The true power of housing like Quail Trail can be found in the story of a woman with stage four cancer, who died in her unit surrounded by hospice care and family instead of on the street in a tent, said Toby Owen, CEO of Presbyterian Night Shelter.
“I would rather her pass away in her unit, in her home than somewhere else out in the middle of nowhere,” Owen said. “That is permanent supportive housing.”
Violence, lack of security left residents feeling unsafe
Calls to police in the Quail Trail neighborhood have nearly tripled in the two years after the development opened compared to the years before the project was built. Quail Trail residents paint a picture of unsafe and unclean living spaces, assaults by other residents, trespassing and apathetic on-site case managers.
The Fort Worth Report requested 12 police incident reports generated by officers between February and June 2023 at the Quail Trail properties. Most were either completely or partially redacted. One mostly redacted report describes a Quail Trail tenant bleeding from the head, claiming another individual slammed her against a wall.
Anthony Ray Henson was the subsequent tenant of the Quail Trail apartment where Lorenzo Williams overdosed. Henson joked that Williams’ spirit was still there, haunting the 450-square-foot space where both men had sought a safe place to live.
Henson was recently evicted from the apartment as a result of an altercation with another resident. He was arrested in November and charged with a felony for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
He denies assaulting another resident with a knife and is currently free on bond. His case is pending in the 297th District Court. Henson could face up to life in prison because he’s a repeat felon.
Now, he’s back to living on the street, mostly sticking around the Quail Trail neighborhood.
Henson’s eviction was part of Presbyterian Night Shelter’s efforts to evict problematic residents who contributed to Quail Trail’s unsafe environment, Owen said.
“The tenants have to go along with (the rules). And most do — there are some that don’t want to,” he said. “If you commit a criminal act on the property and you’re arrested, you will be evicted.”
Carol Canoe has lived at Quail Trail for over two years. She keeps to herself, avoiding the neighbors she routinely witnessed fighting. While Canoe has been able to maintain sobriety through the support of case managers and My Health My Resources, the transition to living at Quail Trail is hard for most formerly homeless people, she said. Tenants struggling with loneliness go to Lancaster Avenue before returning to Quail Trail to sleep.
It’s all they know, Canoe said.
“People who have been on the street for their whole lives, how do you teach them to live a normal life?” Canoe said. “Be consistent with the security, and be consistent with your case managers. Because they are coming from a place with no consistency.”
Conflicts between residents at Quail Trail are routine, several residents told the Report — a problem exacerbated by a lack of control over accessibility to the property, they said. Residents reported that, in the past, people without a lease stayed on the property for long periods.
Of the 101 emergency calls placed to law enforcement from Quail Trail since it opened, six involved an assault or deadly weapon.
Resident Barbara Hall described an altercation in November 2022 that escalated when she swung a bat against a man she claims trespassed on her home. The case was later dismissed.
She tearfully described fearing for her life as she was handcuffed and arrested. She denied hitting the alleged trespasser with the bat.
“He wasn’t supposed to be there,” Hall said through tears. “Why am I in jail with my lip busted open? And I don’t know if I died or not. That scared me because I blacked out.”
Hall felt fearful in her home and said the case managers and staff were dismissive when she raised safety concerns.
Non-tenants agree changes were necessary at Quail Trail
Amada Saldaña, a former maintenance worker at Quail Trail and a recovering addict, wanted to help those experiencing the same things she went through. She ended up taking a job with Pride Property Management, which previously managed the site.
“I was ecstatic. I heard sober living, like ‘OK, maybe I can make a difference here,’” she said.
It took less than four months on the job for her to start questioning the safety of the property. She described the property’s condition and treatment of residents as degrading. Keys to the units were accessible to anybody and routinely stolen, leading to robberies and confrontations, she said.
“The way they talk to these people was horrible. It hurt me to watch them talk to these people this way because I’ve been in their shoes,” Saldaña said. “I don’t judge them. I get it. I’m not here to knock you dude, I’m here to help you. But nobody will listen to them.”
Linda Robinson, who has lived in her home down the street from the apartment complex for 43 years, said she and other longtime residents of the street worry the housing development has become a detriment to both their quality of life and property values.
Robinson never experienced people trespassing on her property until Quail Trail opened. Now at night, the 82-year-old hears voices of people camping near the wooded creek that runs behind her property.
“I’ve got where I will hardly even leave the house after dark,” Robinson said. “I’ve got two grandchildren that come a lot, and I always say, ‘Don’t mess around that backyard or be out there too long.’ Because you never know who’s in that creek.”
Council member Carlos Flores, who represents the area surrounding Quail Trail, instructed city staff to reach out to neighbors and secure buy-in and support for the project. Since then, Flores said he has heard only a few complaints about the project from nearby residents, and that he worked closely with the neighborhood police officer to resolve issues.
Owen complimented New Leaf Community Services’ willingness and ability to build housing for the homeless. However, when Presbyterian Night Shelter took over, the safety and security were not up to the nonprofit’s standards, he said.
Since taking over, Owen said the units have been updated with magnetic locks and electronic keypads to prevent tenants from accessing other units without their permission.
Presbyterian Night Shelter transitioned to providing their own property and case management services. They made other changes to improve safety, including installing new locks, surveillance cameras, a fence with controlled entry, hiring full-time security and evicting residents who commit crimes on the property.
“I don’t want to do anything or say anything about what others were doing,” Owen said. “We made the changes we needed to get (the property) to a level we felt comfortable with. And we’re still not there. We still have some ways to go.”
What is permanent supportive housing?
Permanent supportive housing is a type of housing that offers long-term housing for individuals who are chronically homeless and with a disability. In many cities, this housing model has been cited as a successful way to tackle homelessness with a “housing first” approach.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness reports a 98% retention rate in the first year.
Navigating a learning curve
Christian, New Leaf’s board chair, never saw himself leading a permanent supportive housing project.
A longtime member of the First Presbyterian Church and full-time employee of the Tarrant Regional Water District, he previously volunteered through the church’s various ministries. In 2019, housing advocate Brewer approached First Presbyterian Church about funding for a new housing project targeting the city’s most vulnerable unsheltered residents: the chronically homeless.
The church partially funded the project and intended to find another nonprofit to build the housing. They found very few organizations willing and capable of accepting the money and building suitable housing with enough continuing support for the chronically homeless.
The volunteers depended on Brewer’s experience building a similar — albeit smaller in scale — project on northeast Fort Worth’s Race Street known as Palm Tree Apartment Homes. Unfortunately, shortly after the first tenants moved into Quail Trail in September 2021, Brewer was diagnosed with terminal cancer and was forced to step away from the project.
“I think if Flora had been able to stay involved, we would have had all the expertise we needed. The fact that she had to exit unexpectedly, we did have a steeper learning curve,” Christian said. “We were heavily relying on the contractors that we hired for case management and property management.”
DRC Solutions, who provided the case management during New Leaf’s ownership, asked for additional resources to improve safety at Quail Trail several times, said Tony Wilson, director of operations with DRC.
At biweekly meetings with New Leaf management, Wilson said they repeatedly asked for resources to improve safety for staff and tenants including lighting, cameras and a new fence.
“We were repeatedly told that there was no funding in the budget for that,” Wilson said. “From a case management perspective, that’s not what we want to hear and we don’t have control over that.”
DRC Solutions said case managers were not able to respond directly to resident’s concerns about safety on the site, because they lacked money and support. Scarce resources, funding and lacking experience contributed to the strained relationship between Quail Trail’s owners and DRC Solutions, Wilson said. It’s difficult for non-housing advocates to grasp the depth of challenges some tenants face navigating both the housing system and life within four walls.
“There’s a reason that they qualify for an intervention, like permanent supportive housing and it’s because they have a lot of challenges,” Wilson said. “If someone has a substance use issue or a mental illness, that does not mean that they don’t deserve housing, in fact, it means they need housing even more so that they can work on those challenges.”
Christian responded that New Leaf Community Services addressed the case manager’s requests, purchasing more cameras, lighting and patching holes in the property’s fence. However, along with financial limitations, the property owners were hesitant to change the look of the property too much.
“We’re trying to make this a pleasant place to live and not look like a prison,” Christian said.
Presbyterian Night Shelter took over operating the property from New Leaf Community Services six months ago. Owen said the organization immediately began funding improvements to the property.
“We wanted to add some enhancements and we focused on three things: safety, security, and a peaceful environment,” he said.
Presbyterian Night Shelter has had full ownership of the site since January. Since taking over, Presbyterian Night Shelter implemented several of the safety upgrades DRC Solutions recommended, Wilson said. The shelter has invested $200,000 in safety upgrades, Owen said.
Hall said she has felt safer since Presbyterian Night Shelter took over the property. Canoe said the new rules and security provided by Presbyterian Night Shelter drove out tenants who didn’t follow the rules and the improved fence makes her feel like she lives in a gated community.
“It has calmed down so much,” Canoe said. “Everybody was fighting all the time. It’s definitely not like that anymore.”
Quail Trail’s funding stems from a mix of public and private dollars
In 2019, Fort Worth’s Housing Finance Corporation allocated $5 million which was matched by private dollars. For the first time, a $10 million pool of funds became available to build permanent supportive housing across the city, Perez said.
New Leaf was funded through a mix of private and public money. Around $50,000 of that newly available pool of funds went to Quail Trail, supplemented by First Presbyterian Church’s $1 million grant.
But even with that money in hand, fundraising for affordable housing projects serving the city’s chronically homeless population remains a difficult task amid rising costs.
When a nonprofit like New Leaf Community Services looks to build new housing, it often has few sources of funding to draw from, including federal and local public dollars and philanthropic support. Housing projects got a boost from an infusion of COVID-19 relief funds from the federal American Rescue Plan Act, but that money is running out.
What comes next?
New Leaf Community Services is not the only housing organization that struggles to balance resources with accomplishing its mission. Financing is often a barrier to creating permanent supportive housing and the model is usually never profitable.
Housing advocates and developers have to choose between building more units or providing a higher level of services to a smaller number of residents, said Tara Perez, who oversees the city of Fort Worth’s Directions Home office that provides housing services and resources for those experiencing homelessness.
“We have a lot of people on the streets now, some of which are dying. So there is an urgency to get people off the street,” Perez said. “It’s a continuing tension.”
Perez said this “housing first” approach is the best long-term solution to getting people off the streets and into stable housing. If the public wants quicker action on homelessness, officials must put more funding into permanent housing, she said.
“I don’t know a third option,” Perez said. “It is difficult because you can’t call and complain about people experiencing homelessness near your businesses and neighborhoods and then also oppose good quality, accountable housing for people who are formerly homeless.”
Since 2020, the city has invested $37.14 million in creating housing for Fort Worth’s most chronically homeless residents. In that same amount of time, Fort Worth has spent nearly $25 million in rental assistance and case management services.
Most of the developments have had a positive impact on the city’s homeless, Perez said.
The investments have resulted in a 12% decrease in Tarrant County’s homeless population and the city plans to continue investing in a housing-first solution. That will include a new program aimed at providing direct psychiatric services to people experiencing homelessness, including those living at Quail Trail.
“Instead of having one case manager who’s also working with 24 other clients, you have a team of 10 just focused on that person,” Perez said.
For the first time, Fort Worth officials are also considering including housing in the 2026 bond program aimed at funding more affordable housing.
More money, more housing
The Tarrant County Homeless Coalition, the city of Fort Worth and Tarrant County will invest $50 million to create over 300 new units for people exiting homelessness, including the chronically homeless and families over the next two years.
That includes Presbyterian Night Shelter’s two projects in south Fort Worth: Journey Home Housing at Seminary, which has 42 units for families exiting homelessness, and Journey Home Housing at Crowley, which will create 72 permanent supportive housing units.
New Leaf Community Services is also planning to build a second location off of Camp Bowie West, providing 48 units of permanent supportive housing. The project will differ significantly from New Leaf’s first property on Quail Trail.
First, the project will spend more per unit, about $160,000 per unit compared with about $100,000 for the Quail Trail project. Christian said New Leaf Community Services plans to have Presbyterian Night Shelter oversee the initial management of the property. Once construction is completed, ownership will be transferred.
Everyone involved in the project, from Christian to city staff and elected officials, said they plan to apply lessons learned at Quail Trail to future permanent supportive housing projects.
As for the property at Quail Trail, Owen said Presbyterian Night Shelter has clear measures of success. That includes shorter lengths of stay, fewer tenants returning to homelessness and a decrease in reports of criminal activity.
Saldaña, who hasn’t worked at the Quail Trail property for several months, hopes that new management will have a better understanding of the needs of the people she considers friends.
Perez and Flores said the city is willing to help address concerns raised by tenants and neighbors. Owen said he understands rebuilding trust will take time and requires Presbyterian Night Shelter to follow through on their commitment to the tenants.
“Some of our people have a hard time trusting because of the way they’ve been treated and so I would want them not to trust until they get to know us,” Owen said.
Improvements to the property go beyond better fencing and security, Owen said. Presbyterian Night Shelter planted a garden and added more optional community events for tenants. Tarrant Area Food Bank delivers food twice a week and My Health My Resources provides counseling services twice a month. Ridglea Presbyterian Church also throws birthday parties once a month for the tenants.
A home is much more than a house, Owen said. A home introduces essential consistency in the lives of individuals traumatized by homelessness and precarious life on the street.
For the woman with stage four cancer, it was a place to peacefully spend her final moments. It represented safety, but also comfort and ownership.
The task faced by housing advocates is helping tenants connect, finally, with home. For some residents, that home is lifesaving.
“There’s no doubt in my mind, I would be dead if I hadn’t moved here,” Canoe said.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to clarify that Ridglea Presbyterian Church was the organization throwing birthday parties at Quail Trail.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.