In 2023, the city outlined five priorities for organizations receiving federal community development grants.
On 3 of 5 goals outlined by the city, community organizations have fallen behind in metrics set by Fort Worth city staff.
The money for selected organizations comes from the Community Development Block Grant, a flexible federal program providing communities with funds to address wide-ranging community needs.
What is the Community Development Block Grant?
Community Development Block Grant is a U.S. Housing and Urban Development program that began in 1974. The flexible funding model provides large municipalities — including metropolitan cities with populations of at least 50,000 and counties with populations of at least 200,000 — with funding to give to local organizations dedicated to community development and improvement.
Public service agencies are nonprofits and local organizations that provide social services. HUD allows for up to 15% of CDBG funding to be allotted to public service agencies. The rest goes to housing programs, major projects and grant administration.
When the city created its five-year Consolidated Plan in 2023, five priorities were outlined for selected organizations — called public service agencies — to focus on when receiving CDBG funds: affordable housing for renters and owners, economic empowerment and financial resilience, children and youth services, aging in place, and healthy living and wellness.
In a workshop last month guiding nonprofits on grant application processes, city staff said agencies working on three of the goals — youth services, aging in place and healthy living — are all behind desired benchmarks on people served.
Through two fiscal years, the city wanted agencies to meet 40% benchmarks of people served. This was based on being 40% through the five-year plan.
Only affordable housing and economic empowerment met those benchmarks. Children and youth services only completed 20% of the benchmark. Aging in place and healthy living and wellness were at 4% and 2%, respectively.
The numbers provided at that workshop did not include the current fiscal year, which is set to end in September. Neighborhood Services staffers expect those three categories to “continue to remain below their established targets” in the amount of people served, city department spokesperson Scott Daniels said in an email to the Fort Worth Report.
Fort Worth City Council approved the 2026-2027 HUD Annual Action Plan — which includes the CDBG public service agency funding allotment — this week.
What is the Consolidated Plan?
Three years ago, Fort Worth created its 2023-2027 Consolidated Plan. The five-year funding cycle consolidates housing and community development priorities for these four federal block programs:
- Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)
- HOME Investment Partnerships
- Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG)
- Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA)
Fort Worth outlined nine priorities for the five-year grant cycle for the HUD programs listed above. Bolded priorities are ones primarily supporting public service agencies funded through the CDBG.
- Promote affordable housing for renters and owners
- Housing preservation and rehabilitation
- Neighborhood improvement and revitalization
- Economic empowerment and financial resilience
- Children and youth services
- Aging in place
- Accessibility improvements
- Homelessness prevention and special needs support
- Healthy living and wellness
A look at the first four years
Each year, 11 to 16 organizations are selected as public service agency grant recipients.
The amount of funding allotted to organizations varies on several factors, Daniels said, “including an agency’s past performance, the amount of funding available within each service category, the number of agencies applying within a category, and the needs and priorities identified in the Five-Year Consolidated Plan.”
Eight nonprofits have been selected by the city every year since 2023.
- Meals on Wheels of Tarrant County
- United Community Centers
- The YouthVantage Alliance/Girls Inc.
- Housing Channel
- The Women’s Center of Tarrant County
- Camp Fire First Texas
- Junior Achievement of the Chisholm Trail
- Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Tarrant County
United Community Centers were awarded the most in the first four fiscal years of the Consolidated Plan with $465,000 allotted to the nonprofit from 2023 to September 2027.
The federal funds support the organization’s education literacy programs by paying part of the wages of 12 instructors, Chief Operating Officer France Torres said in a statement to the Report.
“Since receiving CDBG funding, we have been able to provide our children with the comprehensive literacy instruction they need to thrive,” Torres said. “Over time, our programs have grown from serving approximately 300 students to now serving more than 400 students through our after-school and all-day summer programs.”
Meals on Wheels of Tarrant County is receiving the most funding of all the agencies for the coming fiscal year. The grant directly supports the nonprofit’s home delivery meal program for eligible Fort Worth residents, President and CEO Alissa Deaton said in a statement.
“From 2023 through 2025, the funding supported low-income Fort Worth residents with disabilities of any age. For 2026, the funding is designated to support low-income Fort Worth residents who are disabled and age 62 or older,” Deaton said.
That shift happened because the nonprofit requested funding under the aging in place category rather than healthy living and wellness, Daniels said.
For the nearly three fiscal years since the Consolidated Plan began in September 2023, Meals on Wheels has provided over 58,000 meals, according to data provided by the nonprofit.
Camp Fire First Texas used the funds for its free Teens in Action leadership and youth development program. The grant supports the cost of four full-time staff and allowed the nonprofit to expand the summer portion of the program, Chief Program Officer Jenny Wester said.
YouthVantageAlliance — which was initially Girls Inc. in 2023 before the creation of the parent organization — uses the funds for youth development and STEM education.
“Through our Fort Worth CDBG-supported programming, we served 179 young people,” said President and CEO Jennifer Limas.
The Women’s Center of Tarrant County used funds up until this year to support the organization’s Employment Solutions Program, which helps people get steady jobs in high-demand occupations, director of employment solutions Faye Saenz said. Over 500 Fort Worth residents have gone through the program in 2023.
For the incoming fiscal year, the nonprofit will use the federal dollars for PEARLS, a program bringing adults 60 and older together with the goal of building connections and fighting depression.
Reaching benchmarks
Beginning with fiscal year 2025-26, the city added “a scoring criterion” that takes into account an agency’s performance, including its ability to meet established performance measures and goals, when it comes to being selected for the following year, Daniels said.
Daniels added that even though scoring criteria are applied consistently throughout the categories, he noted that “each agency is also evaluated based on the specific performance measures, proposed outcomes, and service goals associated with its individual program.”
Allotted funds per category are decided based on need. Because youth services, aging in place and healthy living were not meeting desired metrics, more funding was given to those categories for the incoming fiscal year, Daniels said.
Given that dollars to public service agencies are fixed at below 15% of the CDBG, categories meeting benchmarks end up being given less money.
That shift in allotment affected agencies not working within those categories. Housing Channel, which used the funds for housing counseling and education to support Fort Worth’s Homebuyer Assistance Program, received less funds for the incoming fiscal year.
Housing Channel President Donna VanNess said the decision, from her perspective, “seems a little backwards.” She noted that the affordable housing category was meeting metrics.
“I’m not sure I understand their methodology of focusing more money on goals that aren’t being met versus the ones that are productive,” VanNess said.
Toby Owen, CEO of Presbyterian Night Shelter, expressed a similar frustration. His agency received the most money in 2025 for the purpose of funding case managers for the nonprofit’s male shelter.
Despite meeting goals, Presbyterian Night Shelter was not selected for the incoming fiscal year. Owen said the organization is now looking to fund the case managers some other way.
“I was very concerned with that decision because it is 100% counter to the way normal grants work. If you meet your outcomes and you score well in the competition, you are funded, and if you do not perform well and you don’t score high on the competition, you’re not funded,” he said.
The shift in allocation from category to category was revealed to Owen and VanNess in July when funding for the incoming fiscal year was announced to agencies.
At the Aug. 4 city work session, Neighborhood Services director Kacey Thomas said the number of applicants this year was one of the largest she has seen. Thomas said the department prioritized new agencies. She also noted the focus to prioritize categories that were “falling behind.”
“These efforts are intended to help improve performance in categories that are currently behind and support progress toward the overall five-year goals,” Daniels said.
For more charts depicting community development grants per year, see the Fort Worth Report.
Ismael M. Belkoura is the nonprofit editor for the Fort Worth Report. His position is supported by a grant from North Texas Community Foundation. Contact him at ismael.belkoura@fortworthreport.org.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 2 p.m. Aug. 18 to clarify the partnership between the Fort Worth Report and Junior Achievement of the Chisholm Trail.
Disclosure: Junior Achievement of the Chisholm Trail is a partner with the Fort Worth Report on the 18 Under 18 awards. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
