Bonton Farms expansion to add affordable housing, resources in South Dallas

South Dallas is expected to see more housing options and resources for health and other needs as nonprofit Bonton Farms announces its expansion.
It’s a vision that has been in the works for years.
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The nonprofit announced its plans to build a 36-unit, multi-income apartment complex, build a separate resource center and open a wellness center. The announcement — which included two groundbreakings and a ribbon-cutting — earlier this month was a “trifecta,” showcasing the community and collaborative efforts to address the need for affordable housing, medical care, financial help and other resources said Gabe Madison, the nonprofit’s CEO and president.
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“These are lots of people coming together to say we believe in this,” Madison said. “And for this to be replicated across the city, across the country — that’s our hope.”
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Bonton Farms is expanding as the result of feedback in the community, Madison said, adding the nonprofit is “truly committed to the transformation of the community around the systemic injustices that have happened to this community for decades.”
Local politicians, hospital leaders and church leaders were among those who attended an event that traveled up and down Bexar Street to see where the Bonton Gardens Apartments will be constructed and explore the empty rooms of the wellness center, which is expected to open within the next few months. The resource center — expected to serve the community’s mental health and provide meeting spaces for people to learn new skills — will go beside the nonprofit’s current market.
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A representative for U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, presented a $600,000 check from a grant acquired through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Bonton resident Daris Lee said for a long time, people in the area weren’t very trusting. When the Bonton Farms founder, Daron Babcock, moved to the area, Lee said he was “probably the biggest adversary.” Then, Lee said Babcock offered to save his life when he needed a kidney.
”I saw this guy just replenish hope in places where I’ve never seen it before, and that’s a big deal,” Lee said. Lee believes the expansion will be a game-changer.
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”I’ve seen lives changed, even my own and people around me,” Lee said. “Just having somebody walking with you, that kind of advocacy is it’s not normal in places like this. It’s not common but it’s a deep need.”
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Madison said the nonprofit’s vision is to create a space where people can afford to live near their jobs and be part of a community in Dallas. She said while the nonprofit has worked to address a need for affordable housing, there hadn’t been enough done.
Bonton Farms staff and other representatives turn dirt during a ground breaking ceremony for the Bonton Resource Center, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, in Dallas. (Elías Valverde II / Staff Photographer)
The plans for the apartments are a huge step toward a solution, Madison said. Bonton Farms is leading the construction, with an estimated cost of about $6 million and a goal of opening in the spring of 2026.
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”The need for safe and affordable housing in Dallas is undeniable,” Madison said. “We’re facing a critical and crucial shortage.”
Staff from both Methodist Health System and Baylor Scott & White Health toured the upcoming wellness center, where some planned to work. They saw areas for a health clinic, cooking and nutrition class, dental care and financial resources.
Speakers at the facility talked about the importance of serving the community’s health needs, with or without insurance, how many don’t know they have a chronic disease, and the need for health education and equity in southern Dallas.
Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins shared at the event that he was 7 when his father died. Lewis Jenkins said he and his sister were playing at an Oak Cliff park the day their dad suffered a heart attack.
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”Dad didn’t have ready access to primary care,” Lewis Jenkins said. “Dad suffered a heart attack that day and by the time dad got to Methodist, because he took us home, he wasn’t able to ever leave the hospital.”
Lewis Jenkins said his dad’s half-brother went to a doctor, found the same heart condition, got care and lived another 43 years.”That is the power of primary care,” Jenkins said. “That is taking today’s high blood pressure and not letting it become tomorrow’s heart attack.”
Leaders share vision for the future
Jeromy Apena, a Baylor Scott and White dietician said he loved the building where he plans to work and provide nutrition services.”I’m newer to this particular area of Dallas, and so working with people who have been underserved or overlooked, providing them with resources, providing them with education, that’s something that I feel strongly about,” Apnea said.
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Mark Jones, the Bonton Farms board chairman, said he grew up in southern Dallas and when Madison proposed two groundbreakings and a tour of the wellness center in the same day, he thought “something was going wrong with her.”
”She believed that, as we go forward into 2025, this would help create hope,” Jones said, “and I believe that it’s going to create the kind of hope that a community that believed 20 years ago [that it] didn’t have any hope, deserves.”Mayor pro tem Tennell Atkins, who said he also grew up not far from Bonton Farms, said the expanded resources would improve the quality of life in the area.
Atkins, among others, credited Pete Schenkel, a businessman, philanthropist and civic leader who died last month at 89 and was also from South Dallas. She said he worked behind the scenes to help gather resources for quietly creating pathways to resources for Bonton Farms. About a month before he died, Madison said Schenkel checked in to see that “everything was on track” with the project.
“That touched me in so many ways, that he stayed committed to everything that he was about and everything that he was involved in right till the end,” Madison said.
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This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.