Bezos’ fund gives millions to fight homelessness as numbers surge in Tarrant County
A nonprofit funded by the billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is giving $2.5 million to the Tarrant County Homeless Coalition to combat family homelessness, the groups announced Tuesday.
The gift, which is the largest private gift in the coalition’s history, will allow nonprofits in the county to provide new kinds of support to families who are unhoused, said Lauren King, the coalition’s executive director. Family homelessness in Fort Worth reached a crisis point in 2022, when the number of families who became homeless each month doubled compared to previous years, according to the coalition’s data. About 40 families become homeless each month in Tarrant County.
“They cannot make ends meet with the cost of child care, transportation, housing, food, all the things it takes to make a life for a parent and children,” King said.
King said the funding, which is from the Bezos Day 1 Families Fund, will be transformational. The coalition will award most of the $2.5 million to partner agencies in the county that provide direct services. The funding will allow agencies to help families find housing and other resources they might need. The coalition will issue a request for funding proposals early in 2024, King said, and hopes to award as much of the grant as possible at that time.
The funding comes as Tarrant County residents are grappling with the end of protections and support provided during the first years of the COVID pandemic, like the moratorium on evictions and emergency rental assistance. Now, King said, nonprofits working to keep people housed or to help them find housing have the same amount of funding as they had before the pandemic but with many more people in need of help.
“We’re back to the resource we had pre-COVID,” King said. “The need has gone up significantly and our resources have actually gone down pretty significantly.”
Tarrant County’s coalition is one of 38 organizations to receive money from the Bezos Day 1 Families Fund. All of the grants go toward furthering the organization’s goal of having no child sleep outside.
This story was originally published November 21, 2023 at 12:27 PM.
