In Stop Six, an iconic public housing development comes down, leaving room for change

Hundreds of families used to live in the red brick apartment buildings that make up Cavile Place. The public housing development — commonly known as the Stop Six projects — became a neighborhood landmark over its nearly 70-year history. Today, the blocks of apartment buildings are either boarded up or stripped of everything inside. Debris piles up on the lawns: broken glass, torn-out sinks, old furniture. Other buildings have already been reduced to heaps of red brick. Carolyn Tubbs lived at Cavile from 2018 to 2019, when it was her turn to move out so the demolition could begin. Sitting under the brick cabana that used to be a gathering place for residents, she remembers when there was life here. "There's a park right down this street, and there used to be cars lined up, and on Sundays, different soccer teams would come and play," she said. Not anymore. "You don't see nothing. It just looks like a kind of ghost town," Tubbs said.

With the help of a $35 million federal grant, Fort Worth and the city’s housing authority have a plan to revitalize Stop Six, a long-neglected neighborhood that suffers from high unemployment and poverty rates. Tearing down Cavile is the first step. The plan, called the Stop Six Choice Neighborhood Initiative, includes the construction of 1,042 new housing units, at the Cavile site and elsewhere in Stop Six. The six phases of construction will replace all 300 of Cavile's affordable units and add several hundred new ones. They will be spread throughout the new buildings, which will welcome people with a range of incomes. The housing authority gave Cavile residents vouchers to get new apartments elsewhere during the demolition and construction process. Everyone has the option to return to the new developments if they wish.