{"id":37383,"date":"2025-11-06T01:52:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T01:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/37383\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T01:52:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T01:52:08","slug":"north-texas-single-moms-face-housing-childcare-and-health-gaps-nbc-5-dallas-fort-worth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/37383\/","title":{"rendered":"North Texas single moms face housing, childcare and health gaps \u2013 NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A new report highlights the barriers single mothers face in Tarrant\u202fCounty in North\u202fTexas.<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/transforminglives.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Center for Transforming Lives<\/a>, one\u2011third of single mothers in Tarrant\u202fCounty with a child under age\u202f5 live in poverty.<\/p>\n<p>Charity, 23, is a medical assistant studying to become a court reporter&#8211; and she\u2019s the mother of an almost\u20112\u2011year\u2011old. \u201cShe\u2019s literally the most joyful child, and I\u2019m grateful for her,\u201d said Charity.<\/p>\n<p>Just a few months ago, she found herself living out of her car until she was introduced to the Center for Transforming Lives, which provided rental assistance, counseling and hope.<\/p>\n<p>Charity said she doesn\u2019t know if she would have been able to afford a stable place to live without their help.<br \/>\u201cIt\u2019d be really hard, especially being a single mom in this economy. I\u2019d probably still be living in my car,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The non\u2011profit\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/transforminglives.org\/files\/galleries\/Disrupting_Poverty_for_Single-Mother_Families_FINAL.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">new report highlights the struggles<\/a> facing single mothers like Charity in Tarrant\u202fCounty\u2014among them the lack of affordable housing, access to childcare and health care.<\/p>\n<p>On the issue of affordable housing alone, their data shows single mothers now spend 51\u202f% of their income on rent, and the eviction rate in Tarrant\u202fCounty is five times the national average.<\/p>\n<p>Carol Klocek, CEO of the Center for Transforming Lives, hopes the data will empower policy leaders and providers to invest in wraparound services to support better mothers who are working to lift their families out of poverty.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf a single mother comes for services but she has a hard time making it consistently because of transportation barriers or childcare barriers, sometimes she\u2019s perceived as unmotivated or she\u2019s not trying hard enough, but these mothers, I can tell you, are trying extremely hard,\u201d Klocek said.<\/p>\n<p>For Charity, the investment in her mental health and housing is already paying off.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wake up, my feet hit the floor, and I\u2019m thanking God instantly for the progress that I\u2019ve made, the places that I\u2019ve come, the lessons that I\u2019ve learned, the people that I\u2019ve met, the mentors that I have,\u201d Charity said. \u201cNone of this would have been possible without the people surrounding me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new report highlights the barriers single mothers face in Tarrant\u202fCounty in North\u202fTexas. According to the Center for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,122],"class_list":{"0":"post-37383","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arlington","8":"tag-arlington","9":"tag-arlington-headlines","10":"tag-arlington-news","11":"tag-tarrant-county"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}