Fort Worth’s Mercy Culture celebrates groundbreaking of human trafficking shelter
Nearly 400 people cheered, hugged and cried Friday as dirt and confetti flew through the air to mark the groundbreaking of Mercy Culture Church’s 100-bed human trafficking victim shelter.
The shelter, known as the Justice Residences, is part of Mercy Culture’s Justice Reform ministry that combats human trafficking.
It is expected to cost $13.2 million to build, and will be on the northern edge of Mercy Culture’s campus at 2001 Oakhurst Scenic Drive.
“Today is a day of celebration,” said Heather Schott, a co-lead pastor at Mercy Culture and executive director of the Justice Reform. “We have warred, but today we celebrate.”
The Justice Residences will be two stories, and will include a dining hall, exercise room, offices, gathering spaces and residential sleeping rooms, according to the building permit application and plans obtained by the Star-Telegram through an open records request.
Schott spoke of the need for more shelters like the Justice Residences that will heal victims of human trafficking through a connection to Jesus.
“The same way he healed the lame, the same way he healed the dead, the same way he called the dead back to life, and the same way our God heals today, they will meet their healer,” she said, adding the church plans to open up similar shelters in all 50 states.
The Justice Residences are more than just a building, said Jaco Booyens, an anti-trafficking advocate and Justice Reform board member.
“It is a building built on the word of God, built of the promises of God, built on the promises of God, and it will change lives,” he said.
Booyens added that he hoped construction workers and tradespeople who come to work on the project would be so moved by its mission that they would give their lives to God.
In addition to helping trafficking survivors, Booyens said the project was about “expanding territory,” arguing that some organizations in the anti-trafficking movement were “owned by Satan.”
“This time here, it’s going to be pure, it’s going to be clean. It’s washed in the blood of Jesus. It’s consecrated,” he said.
Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn said the world needs more shelters like the Justice Residences.
“The church is the solution. Not government,” he said. While Waybourn noted a Tarrant County taskforce has helped roughly 1,000 victims escape human trafficking since 2017, he said his office doesn’t have the resources or the know-how to help victims heal from their trauma.
The Justice Residences will be another Tarrant County landmark like AT&T Stadium or the Stockyards, Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare said, speaking at Friday’s groundbreaking.
He said the project exemplifies the Christian principle of loving your neighbors.
“Tarrant County is full of compassionate Jesus-loving people, and there’s no place where that’s more true than Mercy Culture,” O’Hare said.
Schott’s husband and co-lead pastor Landon Schott took a moment at the end of the ceremony to reflect on his wife’s journey from teenage drug addict to leading a shelter meant to help human trafficking survivors.
“How wild is it when you were left in an apartment to die, you are building a residence for girls to live,” he said. Landon Schott expressed his pride for his wife calling her “the most ferocious, strong woman” he’s ever heard of.
Church representatives expect construction to wrap up in 18-months with the shelter opening in Fall 2026.
The fight to get here
The groundbreaking comes after two years of Mercy Culture wrestling with the city of Fort Worth’s permitting process, and navigating disagreements with residents in the surrounding Oakhurst Neighborhood.
City officials initially told church representatives in 2022 the project would require a more substantial land use change, but relented in October 2024 after Schott accused the city of discrimination, and representatives for the church threatened legal action.
City officials instead allowed the church to tweak its land use rules through a site plan amendment process, which has a lower legal threshold for city approval.
A divided city council approved the project at its Dec. 10, 2024, meeting.
Residents in Oakhurst consistently argued the project would exacerbate traffic problems on Oakhurst Scenic Drive. They also said the presence of the shelter in the neighborhood would make residents less safe.
However, a 2019 study by the Institute for Shelter Care found most shelters had little to no security incidents.
Oakhurst residents also pointed to statements by co-lead pastor Landon Schott, who in a May 21, 2023 sermon called neighborhood residents “an insane demonic resistance” for opposing the project.
Several residents referenced these statements during the December 2024 council meeting to question Mercy Culture’s qualifications for running the shelter.
A representative for their neighborhood said in a statement to the Star-Telegram that its opposition hasn’t changed since the December 2024 council meeting.
They pointed to the city’s permitting website saying it’s the neighborhood’s understanding the church hasn’t received the requisite permits to start construction.
The city issued a commercial grading permit on May 2, according to the city’s permitting website, however, several other permits are still being processed.
What is human trafficking?
Human trafficking is when someone uses force, fraud or coercion to extract labor or some other service from a person against their will.
It’s a highly under-reported crime, a Fort Worth police spokesperson said in a November 2024 email to the Star-Telegram.
“Almost all the victims do not see themselves as victims and thus we neither have an outcry nor is it easily recognizable to the public,” they said, while comparing it to domestic violence in terms of visibility.
There have been 262 federal prosecutions of human trafficking in Texas since the turn of the century with 95 being prosecuted in the U.S. District Court of North Texas, according to data from the Human Trafficking Institute. That district covers most of the Metroplex with the exception of Denton, Collin, Cooke, Grayson, and Fanin counties.
The institute estimates those cases involved 936 victims, however, that may be an under count because of limits on the amount of publicly available data on victims.
This story was originally published May 9, 2025 at 3:37 PM.
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