City hall plans to pump money into this Fort Worth neighborhood to revitalize it
Fort Worth, on the whole, is becoming a bigger and wealthier city by the day. Many residents of Fairhaven, a neighborhood roughly six miles from downtown, have not shared in the newfound prosperity.
One in five Fairhaven residents lives below the poverty line, according to the latest Census data. The median household brings in $46,136 annually, compared to the countywide median of $80,043. Just under 7% of residents have some kind of college degree, and roughly 42% pay for health care costs without insurance.
City hall announced plans Feb. 18 to help alleviate some of the community’s struggles.
The city’s Neighborhood Services Department selected Fairhaven as the latest inductee in its “Neighborhood Improvement Program,” an initiative designed to route government dollars into the city’s stagnating communities and, over time, nurture their revitalization.
The size of the grants, and the projects on which they can be spent, vary widely. City hall piloted the development strategy in 2017. Stop Six, the program’s first beneficiary, received around $2.6 million, a sum later spent on sidewalk and road improvements, new park trails, trash removal, new police cameras, and other public projects.
Neighborhoods seeking the extra assistance from city hall must meet several unfavorable criteria — high poverty, low education, poor or nonexistent infrastructure, and so on. Fairhaven, neighborhood services director Kacey Bess told council members during a work session Tuesday afternoon, exhibited the most need.
Should the City Council formally approve Fairhaven’s selection, the neighborhood will receive $4 million for “capital investments to improve the quality life of residents,” according to a promotional video displayed at the meeting.
“Fairhaven has charm, and now, it has help,” the narrator concluded, before the promo transitioned to a clip of children hopping on a trampoline at sunset.
Despite the many stated benefits of the Neighborhood Improvement Program, and its general popularity among council members, city leaders last year halved the program’s funding, one of the budgetary sacrifices made to keep the city’s property tax rate flat.
