Catholic Charities programs for Tarrant County and nearby counties.
Financial assistance, credit counseling, housing, and other aid is provided by Catholic Charities Fort Worth to almost 30 counties in the central Texas region. There is information on free medical or dental for people without insurance, debt counseling, housing including rent help, legal aid and more. Residents of counties including Denton, Tarrant, Wichita, Parker, and Johnson can receive help and case management. Learn more about the services and resources offered below.
Get free debt and credit counseling services
Credit Counseling is offered in order to help people improve their overall financial condition. A number of services, workshops, and one-on-one counseling sessions can help teach individuals how to use and rebuild credit through wise decision-making, help people eliminate their debts, deal with a foreclosure, and improve their credit scores. Learn about mortgage assistance programs offered too. All of these issues are key to long term self-sufficiency.
Catholic Charity credit counselors are certified from the National Association of Certified Credit Counselors and the program is also part of the United Way Financial Stability Initiative.
The services available in Tarrant and Denton County, and neighboring regions, focus on the Asset Development portion of the initiative. A goal is to use both financial literacy and credit counseling to increase the number of families with savings accounts, and help people control their outstanding debts, loans and bills.
Free Financial Education is usually offered at the same time as debt or credit counseling. The program provides information, guidance and skills to help enable families and individuals to manage their financial resources wisely. Individuals can learn to make informed decisions regarding their personal finances and also create positive relationships with the financial institutions they deal with.
Catholic Charities Financial Education and Literacy Services offers comprehensive services. This can include, but are not limited to, group financial education classes and also one-on-one financial coaching and credit counseling. Group classes and workshops that are held across the region address issues such as credit repair, budgeting, property and income taxes, financial institutions, foreclosure prevention and insurance.
Clients of the financial literacy programs can learn about investing, avoiding payday or predatory investing, retirement accounts like 401K or SEPs and more. The advice is given in both English as well as Spanish for ESL students. Read more on improving financial literacy.
Free income tax filing is offered from Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, or VITA. Qualified low income Families with adjusted gross incomes of $50,000 or less are eligible for assistance through VITA. All staff and volunteers of this program are certified by the IRS so all clients can be assured of receiving high quality advice and service.
Catholic Charity emergency financial help for paying bills or housing
A resource that is always in high demand is the Financial Assistance program. This Catholic Charity program is very limited in scope, but it may be able to provide emergency financial assistance for basic needs. It operates in all counties in the region, including Tarrant, Johnson, and Parker.
Funds can be used to pay critical expenses and bills in a crisis, and can include rent, utilities, cooling bills, medications, some car repair costs, and other expenses. After receiving financial assistance from the Catholic Charity program, clients are strongly encouraged to look into credit counseling (see above) and also complete a financial education class. The aid is focused on both homeless prevention and work requirements, that is why there may be car repair assistance from Catholic Charities.
Some of the financial assistance programs do focus on utility expenses, and they include Arlington water bills, TXU Energy, and Reliant Energy costs. The church can help keep the lights on.
Homeless prevention and assistance is offered by the Catholic Charity HOMES program. This program provides aid to those facing eviction and also chronic and vulnerable homeless families and individuals. Intensive case management services, advice, support, and other resources are all provided that will enable the homeless to successfully reintegrate into housing. This can include funds for security deposits or rent in order to prevent an eviction.
Enrollment Solutions will help increase access to state of Texas services through outreach, education, and also offer application assistance. The Enrollment Solutions staff provide individual application assistance and community outreach to families across the service territory. People who are interested in learning more about Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly Food Stamps), and long-term care services can all benefit from this resource. Click here for more details on state of Texas public and government assistance.
Families First is another Catholic Charities program that is offered to help strengthen families. Case managers provide free assessment, parenting education, and other support services to help strengthen families using an evidence-based curriculum. Some of the Tarrant and Wichita County Families that benefit from this program include those who would like to improve parenting skills, strengthen their relationships and who are faced with an emergency or crisis.
Aid is focused on those people who are having difficulty managing their child’s behavior; experienced a recent divorce/separation; who are low-income or homeless; who are teen parents; or who live in a high stress environment.
Senior and disabled housing units are offered across Arlington, Fort Worth, and a number of other cities and counties. Catholic Charities provides apartments and housing facilities for low-income disabled/handicapped and elderly persons. Housing facilities are located in affordable subsidized communities. To be eligible for this program, a person must be 62 years of age or older, or they need to be disabled. In addition, the applicant needs to be able to function self-sufficiently, both mentally and physically.
Transportation is provided around Texas from the Wheels program. This service was organized and is operated by Catholic Charities Fort Worth. The Wheels Transportation Program provides clients with a shared ride service to and from locations outside of their traditional hours of operation or that are outside of the public transportation service area. Receive transportation services including Ride2Work as well as Medical Transportation.
Job training and education is offered from the Vocation Program. This Catholic Charity program can assist clients with gaining the necessary skills and education, as well as job training, that is needed to secure employment at a living wage. They may offer have information on jobs available in Fort Worth Texas and surrounding communities.
The Vocation program assists clients with paying their tuition costs at local community colleges. Most of the financial aid is focused on helping clients gain their Associate’s Degree. The program also assists with job placement, professional skills development, and follow-up support.
Assistance for immigrants, refugees and Spanish speakers in Tarrant County region
Legal advice for immigrants is offered by the Catholic Charities Diocese of Fort Worth. The non-profit works with local law firms and attorneys in order to provide free or low cost, yet high quality, legal assistance to individuals who are eligible to apply for immigration benefits.
The primary goal is the reunification of families through immigration. Some of the legal services offered include application assistance, personal consultation and other forms of legal representation for clients. A focus is on issues including naturalization, petition for alien relatives, adjustment of status, consular processes, work permits, visa renewal, and other related areas of family-based immigration.
Refugee services are offered to. Services can help welcome refugees into their new lives, including employment training, case management, English as Second Language, and provide successful integration into the Texas public school system.
Free legal advice and representation is also arranged for other low income families. Catholic Charities partners with pro-bono firms and volunteer attorneys to help the poor, low income and elderly. Whether it is legal help to stop an eviction, or advice in dealing with debts or housing discrimination, resources are offered. There are partners in Tarrant County, Denton, Parker County and others. More on free legal advice in Texas.
Free dental care and health insurance from Fort Worth region Catholic Charities
Dental Clinics are located across the region. The Catholic Charities Fort Worth (CCFW) agency can provide access to quality, affordable and safe dental care. This includes preventative services as well as health education. The programs are offered for low income, uninsured, and economically disadvantaged individuals and families throughout the region, including in Denton, Archer, and Wise counties Texas. The agency is committed to ensuring that all members and families of the community have access to high-quality and affordable dental care. If the patient’s needs can’t be met, then they will give information on other regional dental clinics in Texas.
Medical services are offered by St. Joseph Health Care Trust. With the ever rising costs of health care and medical bills, more people across Texas are either medically underinsured or do not have any health insurance. This makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for people to access quality or affordable medical or dental care.
This lack of health insurance coverage causes many individuals to wait to see a doctor to access medical services until it is an emergency. As many people know, emergency care is the most costly type of medical bill to pay for.
So to help address this need, the Catholic Charities St. Joseph Health Care Trust strives to connect the underinsured and uninsured to health care services at the primary care level. This will help patients and their doctors detect and treat illnesses at the earliest stages.
The case managers and Health Systems Navigators assist clients with connecting to primary doctors and medical care providers to diagnose and treat illness at its earliest stages. Health Systems Navigators also connect clients to various health education services and also importantly prevention services.
Regional Catholic Charity centers in Forth Worth and surrounding counties
Regions covered by The Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth are extensive. In addition to providing services to the counties of Tarrant, Denton, Parker, Johnson, Wichita, programs support people in the following counties. Archer, Baylor, Bosque, Clay, Comanche, Cooke, Eastland, Erath, Foard, Hardeman, Hill, Hood, Jack, , Knox, Montague, Palo Pinto, Shackelford, Somervell, Stephens, Tarrant, Throckmorton, Wilbarger, Wise, and Young Counties.
- Main Fort Worth Campus, 249 West Thornhill Drive, Fort Worth, Texas 76115, call (817) 534-0814
- Arlington Office, 1721 West Pioneer Parkway, Arlington, Texas 76013, (817) 274-2560
- Northeast Office, 3713 Harwood Road, Bedford, Texas 76021, (817) 921-5381
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