Sansom Park is a town where many struggle to make ends meet

By Deanna Boyd

dboyd@star-telegram.com

Roughly a decade ago, Margaret LeMaster lost her job as a mixing technician for Kimberly-Clark when the company moved production to Mexico.

"I made $12 and 83 cents an hour -- that was pretty good money for a single parent," said LeMaster, of Sansom Park. "I had assets. I had couple of cars, a truck. I had my own Harley. I could afford to do stuff, and that was without getting any child support.

"I did pretty well then. If I could just get back in a job like that, I would do pretty well right now."

Her jobs since then have been temporary. Now she's unemployed, needed more at home to help care for a mother with Alzheimer's and a father who requires dialysis three times a week. A worsening muscular disease had left her live-in boyfriend unable to work and the couple eager for his disability income to begin.

It's a struggle many Sansom Park residents know well. The 2009 American Community Survey estimated the city's unemployment rate at 14.4 percent, the second-highest in Tarrant County. An estimated 27.2 percent of Sansom Park residents live below the poverty line, as do 1 in 5 families.

At the only school in Sansom Park, James Elementary in the Castleberry district, 73 percent of the students are economically disadvantaged, according to Texas Education Agency data.

The Community Action Partners' far northwest food bank, which primarily serves northwest Tarrant County cities including Sansom Park, saw the number of people seeking help rise more than 142 percent from 2008 to 2010, said Sonia Singleton, interim assistant director of Fort Worth's community services department.

LeMaster, among those seeking help, refuses to let her attitude match her current financial outlook.

"We're making it OK," she said. "We just pull together and combine our efforts. My parents help us out. We help them out."

Deanna Boyd, 817-390-7655

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