Fort Worth approves veteran housing project over objections from neighbors
Tensions flared in the Fort Worth City Council meeting Tuesday night over a veteran housing project in the Rosemont neighborhood south of downtown.
Roughly 30 residents showed up to oppose the project. They said developer and a recently deposed neighborhood association president didn’t do enough to inform the community.
The American GI Forum National Veterans Outreach Program, a San Antonio-based nonprofit, plans to convert a church at 4041 Ryan Ave. into 20 units of affordable housing for veterans.
The units will all be one bedroom and cost $400 to $500 per month in rent, said Steven Gonzalez, a representative for the nonprofit.
The council unanimously approved the rezoning required for the project.
Loretta Snoke-Huezo, a Rosemont resident critical of the project, said former neighborhood association president Fernando Peralta did not respond to multiple requests for information about the project.
Peralta said in a phone interview Monday that he told the neighborhood organization’s board and its active members about a week before an April 12 hearing before the city’s zoning commission.
He also invited the nonprofit to speak at the Hemphill Corridor Development Task Force meeting April 27 and the neighborhood association meeting on May 4.
Peralta was voted out of office during a May 4 neighborhood association meeting.
The only information residents got about the project is that it was high-density multifamily and for veterans, Snoke-Huezo told the council Tuesday.
Rosemont residents don’t want any kind of multifamily development because it encourages investors, increases crime, and can displace long-time residents, she said.
She argued the home would be better suited in a neighborhood with better access to public transit and closer to the Fort Worth Veterans Affairs Hospital, just east of the intersection of Interstate 35W and Interstate 20.
“Allowing zoning density to enter our neighborhood regardless of the program, however noble it may be, will be the end of our beloved Rosemont,” she said.
The zoning change would allow the American GI Forum to build around 60-units of housing on the 1.95 acre lot. Gonzalez said that was to allow the group room to grow saying they have plans to build more housing to help more veterans
Speaking at the meeting Tuesday, Peralta accused Snoke-Huezo and members of the anti-gentrification group Hemphill No Se Vende (Hemphill is not for sale) of spreading disinformation about the project to support their own personal aims.
He said the project is only about helping veterans and said the group opposing it spread chaos and fear in their neighborhood.
The issue is the type of zoning, not the project itself, said Ricardo Avitia, a leader of Hemphill No Se Vende. Rosemont’s infrastructure can’t support dense veteran housing, and the city needs to fix sidewalks and flooding problems before increasing density, Avitia said.
Rosement has also suffered from loud noise, crime, and lack of investment for a long time, said Scott Smith, a 32-year Rosemont resident at the council meeting Tuesday.
He suggested the city place the home in a wealthier neighborhood like Tanglewood or Ridglea North rather than putting what he called “a halfway house for mentally ill veterans” in Rosemont.
Sergio Dickerson, CEO of the American GI Forum, pushed back on that characterization. He said the home is meant to help veterans leaving military service get into stable housing.
When veterans leave the military they have no housing and no job, so the home would help them transition back into society, Dickerson said.
“This is not about money. This is about helping veterans,” he said, while also pushing back on the idea of placing the housing closer to the VA Hospital.
“How many 24-year-olds do you know want to live next to a VA hospital?” he said.
The meeting was derailed briefly after District 9 council member Elizabeth Beck invited Dickerson to the lectern to answer questions about the project.
Robert Snoke, who served as president of the Rosemont neighborhood association before Peralta, protested from the audience that the developer was given more time to speak.
Avitia shouted from the back of the chamber that the meeting should be shut down.
Fort Worth marshals removed Avitia and Snoke from the council chamber.
Beck, who served as a sergeant in the Army Reserve in the Iraq War, said transitioning out of the military is a vulnerable time for veterans.
She pointed to the American GI Forum’s history of serving Hispanic veterans specifically to argue the home would be a good fit for the neighborhood.
Mayor Mattie Parker acknowledged residents’ concerns about gentrification and the lack of services, but said that was a separate issue from this project.
It’s not acceptable that the city hasn’t done its part to help the neighborhood, Parker said while promising to do more to address their issues.
Parker said the veterans home is a worthwhile project, adding she would be happy to have it in her neighborhood of Ridglea North.
This story was originally published May 9, 2023 at 10:03 PM.
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