Could millions in subsidies help make Fort Worth a more affordable place to live?
Fort Worth Star Telegram
Whether you’re looking to buy a house in Fort Worth or you’re already a homeowner who is concerned about taxes and property values, the affordable housing component of the city’s 2026 bond package should interest you.
In May, Fort Worth voters will decide whether to OK $845 million in spending, including $10 million for affordable housing assistance and incentives.
While that amount pales in comparison to the $511 million allocated for transportation infrastructure — or even the $60 million for a new animal shelter — $10 million is still $10 million. So what can the city accomplish with this money? And would it be money well spent?
How Fort Worth’s affordable housing money could be spent and why it’s needed
In a statement to the Star-Telegram, April Rose Escamilla, senior capital projects officer at FWLab, an analytics department that helps develop and fund the city’s strategic goals, said the affordable housing bond money would go primarily toward purchasing land, building homes and neighborhood infrastructure, and funding loans, grants and home repair programs.
At a City Council work session in January, council members discussed using at least part of the money to purchase derelict properties where affordable (below market value) single-family, owner-occupied homes would be constructed.
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But Shawn Buck, president of the Greater Fort Worth Association of Realtors, told the Star-Telegram he’d like to see more transparency about how exactly the bond money will be spent. Ideally, he said, a portion would go toward providing more down payment assistance to teachers, police officers, firefighters and other essential workers in Fort Worth who want to live in the city they serve.
The average salary for those professions, Buck estimated, is around $70,000. A person at that income level can afford a home in the $280,000 range. The median home price in Fort Worth, however, is around $330,000.
Affordability isn’t just a problem for teachers and civil servants, though. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the median household income in Fort Worth is $79,507. Using the median home price, that household would have to commit roughly 40% or more of their monthly gross income to their mortgage to live in Fort Worth, far exceeding the recommended 25%-30%.
Fort Worth already has something called the Homebuyer Assistance Program, through which eligible first-time homebuyers with moderate incomes can receive up to $25,000 for down payment and closing cost assistance. Additionally, there are a number of other programs out there to assist homebuyers, including those offered through the Texas State Affordable Housing Corporation.
One of those is the Homes for Texas Heroes program, which offers home down payment assistance for teachers, police officers, corrections officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians.
A Texas affordable housing policy expert offers perspective
Jake Wegmann, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture, has a doctorate in city and regional planning and worked in affordable housing development before getting into teaching. Throughout his career, Wegmann has spent considerable time researching the impact of affordable housing initiatives, and in his opinion, if properly funded and managed, taxpayer subsidies can have a positive impact.
Housing prices in Texas have risen faster than wages, but Wegmann also pointed out that housing construction has declined in recent years, partly because of higher interest rates and partly because of housing saturation, worsening the affordability problem.
In Austin, one of the most expensive housing markets in Texas, Wegmann has seen city investments in affordable housing offset that problem. In 2024, Austin led the nation in affordable housing development with more than 2,700 new units.
Wegmann said efforts like that have stabilized housing prices after years of steep increases. Rent prices, in particular, have fallen, though Wegmann said there’s still something of a broad misperception in Austin.
“If you asked the typical person on the street, I think they’d say it’s so expensive, and it’s so much worse than it used to be. … People are always kind of grumpy about this issue even when it’s getting better.”
When asked about using bond money to build or renovate affordable single-family homes, Wegmann said that could help fill a needed gap. He also said down payment assistance is generally a good idea, especially for public service professionals like teachers and police officers who want to live closer to where they work. Additionally, it’s an attractive recruitment and retention incentive for cities to offer those workers, who are in high demand.
However, like Buck, Wegmann doesn’t want taxpayer-funded incentives to be a free handout. He said with down payment assistance programs and other programs for single-family homebuyers, it’s important to require recipients to stay in the properties for a set period of time. It might also be wise to restrict resale values on homes constructed using bond money, preserving an inventory of affordable housing for the next generation of buyers.
One misconception people have, said Wegmann, is that affordable housing is a magnet for poverty and crime and that it can lower the values of surrounding properties.
Wegmann said people tend to think of affordable housing in the context of the housing projects built in decades past, which, in some cases, were plagued by crime.
The data shows modern-day below-market housing bears little resemblance to the projects of old, Wegmann argued. He said in most cases, you’d never know an apartment complex offers low-income units. And typically, Wegmann added, those units are occupied by productive, working adults, not layabouts or career criminals leeching off the system, as the old narrative goes.
“They’re employed, but maybe they earn $50,000, and they just can’t afford market rent,” said Wegmann.
Will $10 million for affordable housing be enough?
Along with transparency and accountability for how the money will be spent, one of Buck’s concerns is that $10 million simply isn’t enough for affordable housing. He questioned the rationale behind asking for $60 million for the animal shelter and only a fraction of that for people who need help getting a home.
In 2023, the city published its Neighborhood Conservation Plan and Housing Affordability Strategy. That report identified an estimated 40,000 homeowner households and 60,000 renter households in Fort Worth that struggled to pay their monthly mortgage or rent payments. Analysts offered a number of strategies to address the issue of affordability, but in terms of dollars, it said the city needed to raise $100 million by 2027 for affordable housing financing.
Wegmann agreed that $10 million is a pretty modest amount, particularly when compared to the hundreds of millions Austin has spent on affordable housing programs over the past decade or so.
But Wegmann said having that $10 million as part of the bond package indicated a shift in thinking for city leaders and residents who see housing affordability as a real concern. If the bond passes, Wegmann believes that relatively small investment could pave the way for bigger investments down the road.
“It’s a lot harder to go from zero to $10 million than it is to go from $10 million to $100 million,” said Wegmann.
As for how far $10 million would go, Wegmann said the average person would be shocked at how quickly that money will be spent. By his estimates, building new affordable multifamily housing costs between $50,000 and $100,000 per unit. It’s even more for single-family homes, especially if you’re buying derelict lots on which to build them that may have environmental concerns or infrastructure shortcomings.
Regardless of the amount spent, Wegmann argued affordable housing is a critical need. Fort Worth’s 2023 affordability study said job growth was outpacing housing growth, creating more competition for the inventory and driving up prices even further. That also drives up property tax rates for existing homeowners, frustrating those who hope to remain in their houses long term.
Wegmann said the Dallas-Fort Worth area had, in his opinion, the best economy in the nation. He called it “an unstoppable job creation machine,” and therefore we’ll need more and more housing to accommodate workers to fill all those new jobs.
Sure, Fort Worth is still inexpensive when compared to some other urban areas around the country. But that could change given the region’s rapid population growth. Now, voters must ask themselves if it’s worth paying for a housing affordability safety net.
This story was originally published March 9, 2026 at 4:04 PM.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Matt Adams is a news reporter covering Fort Worth, Tarrant County and surrounding areas. He previously wrote about aviation and travel and enjoys a good weekend road trip. Matt joined the Star-Telegram in January 2025.