Metro

METROPOLIS

Providing Safe Spaces for Children ACH Child and Family Services launches a new initiative to support overextended families.

BY EDWARD BROWN

Even before the realities of the COVID-19 crisis set in, March was set to be a challenging and formative month for Chuck Burton and his colleagues at ACH Child and Family Services. The nonprofit, through its community services division Our Community Our Kids, made Texas history on March 2 as OCOK began providing foster care case management and family reunification services for youths in Tarrant County. Up until that date, that role had been exclusively performed by Child Protective Services (CPS).

“We have been preparing for Stage 2 for several years,” Burton said, referring to the classification of the transition according to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

CPS personnel still handle investigations of alleged child abuse and neglect. If a Tarrant County Family Courts judge rules that a child needs to be temporarily placed in foster care, OCOK assigns permanency and child care specialists, who learn about the case and provide resources to both the child and parents with the aim of eventually reuniting both parties.

Reunification through family courts is the top priority for the roughly 150 permanency specialists OCOK currently employs. If the parents state or demonstrate no desire to be reunified, or if drug addiction or other complications make reunification impossible, OCOK and its parent group (ACH) have the resources to quickly find the child a suitable foster family while adoption options are explored, Burton said.

COVID-19 has complicated but not slowed ACH’s foster care efforts. Even after foster care training courses switched to online classes, interest hasn’t waned, Burton said. Permanency specialists communicate with children and parents remotely when possible, but the nature of the job

ACH isn’t waiting for an explanation. The nonprofit has partnered with area agencies and fellow nonprofits to spread the word about free resources that are available to parents and children who are experiencing hardships. Courtesy of ACH Child and Family Services

requires that specialists visit homes (while donning face masks) when needed.

OCOK is currently in the process of hiring more permanency specialists so each case manager has 14 youths to work with. CPS caseworkers, Burton said, are often tasked with twice that number. Helping children who are known victims

Static

Evictions Allowed to Resume Despite the continuing coronavirus pandemic and the havoc it has wreaked on the Texas economy, the Texas Supreme Court recently ordered that tenant eviction proceedings could resume on Monday. The moratorium on most rental evictions was ordered by the court following Gov. Greg Abbott’s declaration of a state of disaster on April 13.

That is bad news in a state with a huge property rental population — which includes homes, apartments, RVs, and mobile homes. According to the Texas Workforce Commission, which handles unemployment benefits, more than 2 million Texans have applied for unemployment insurance since Feb 22, when the pandemic first began to affect businesses. Many of the filers have not begun receiving their checks yet because it takes several weeks for the funds to begin flowing. It’s not out of the question that between 600,000 and 850,000 have yet to see a dime as they’ve filed only in the last few weeks.

Many of those people just became subject to eviction. Not all of them, of course, explained Matthew Haddock, a real estate lawyer in Fort Worth.

“People in properties covered by the federal CARES Act” — the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act that provided those $1,200 checks to a lot of us — “which had its own moratorium on certain types of rentals, cannot be evicted,” Haddock said.

Those include Section 8 housing, housing covered by the Violence Against Women Act, housing backed by federal mortgage loans, and some others, “but a lot of people will fall through the cracks,” Haddock said.

Falling through the cracks here doesn’t mean a bumpy fall off a high horse. It means winding up on the street during the worst economic period in nearly 100 years.

And even the protected housing — most of it — will probably become unprotected in the next 60 days or so unless the federal moratorium is extended.

Landlords of the majority of those properties are similarly suffering. Nearly half of the 43 million rental units in the United States are owned by small businesses, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and if they cannot collect rent, the banks will be coming after those buildings.

“Many landlords aren’t any better off than their tenants,” small-time landlord Jan Lee told Bloomberg Businessweek. Lee manages two buildings in New York’s Chinatown that his family has owned for nearly a century.

At the same time that renters and many small landlords are justifiably terrified of losing their homes, homeowners with mortgages feel similarly frightened. Many banks, including some of the largest mortgage lenders in the country, provided a voluntary and temporary moratorium on home foreclosures for lack of payment ranging from 30 to 120 days. Some of those are already expired, and the remainder will expire in the next month or two. And when those moratoriums expire, those two, three, or four months of mortgage payments will come due, all at the same time.

Brooklyn comic Vic DiBitetto nailed it. Sitting in his car, screaming into his cellphone camera in his viral video, he says, “Dear government, we understand that the virus is not your fault. It happened. It is what it is … but here’s where I have a problem. You told us to shut down nonessential businesses. You told us to go home and quarantine … . But you told us you would help, so where is the help?”

DiBitetto appreciated the $1,200 check, he said, but he noted that it was our tax money to begin with and that it might cover one month’s mortgage but certainly not the remainder of the bills for a month.

“You want to help?” he says. “Here’s an idea. Tell all banks and mortgage companies to stop all mortgage payments at this time. Just stop them, and don’t give me that three-month furlough bullshit. … Someone who lost their job … doesn’t pay mortgage for three months, and in the fourth month, they not only have to pay that month but the three months that were due. … Someone was just unemployed and not earning money for three months. They weren’t earning money. Hello?”

DiBitetto’s anger is well placed. The prospect of seeing your house or apartment evaporate through no fault of your own is enough to make anyone angry. So is the Texas Supreme Court’s order to begin evictions again.

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of abuse and neglect is only part of ACH’s mission.

The 105-year-old nonprofit runs numerous programs that work to prevent the types of family disruptions and conflicts that lead to child abuse and neglect. One such program, the Family Emergency Fund, was created last March in direct response to COVID-19. The pot of money is reserved for families who are at risk for domestic or child abuse due to financial stressors.

“If we have someone call in and say, ‘I’ve lost my job, rent is due, and I can’t go on,’ we know that type of situation can lead to evictions and other stressors,” Burton said.

Burton said his nonprofit has seen a slight uptick in the number of youths coming into OCOK’s care — 1,277 in February, 1,288 in March, 1,338 in April, and 1,323 so far in May — but not quite the surge that one would expect during a sharp economic downtown.

There are several possible reasons for this, he continued. Public school teachers are often one of the first groups to notice and report potential worrisome behavior. With school campuses closed, teachers are unable to fulfill this unofficial but important role. Burton also said that, with children being indoors, there are fewer eyes (neighbors, relatives, friends) who can see and report potential neglect and abuse.

ACH isn’t waiting for an explanation. The nonprofit has partnered with area agencies and fellow nonprofits to spread the word about free resources that are available to parents and children who are experiencing hardships.

Team members from ACH’s bilingual Assessment, Intervention, and Referral Services (AIRS) are available 24/7 via 817- 335-4673 to provide parents with referrals to ACH and outside community services. The same number can be used to access free bilingual youth and family counseling for children ages 6 to 17 through a program called Real Help for Real Life.

Fort Worth is seeing unprecedented levels of need at a time when many charities are experiencing a drop in donations. ACH staffers are encouraging local restaurants to participate in Texas’ Comfort Food Care Package (CFCP). The voluntary program allows patrons to purchase meals for families and youths in need during orderout transactions.

Foster children across Tarrant County and in ACH’s youth emergency shelter are homebound, with limited options for activities outside the house. Burton said his nonprofit is accepting new, unopened board games and activities like sidewalk chalk that can be donated, along with much-needed cash contributions, at Achservices.org/donate-now.

ACH, Burton said, continues to adapt its programming to serve the Fort Worth community during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. The nonprofit is focused on reaching families who may not realize that there are many free services for overstretched and financially struggling families.

“There is a lot of stress out there,” Burton said. “If these parents are thinking of lashing out at their children, we want to tell them, ‘You don’t have to do that.’ ” l

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