Olga Vazquez spent 24 years in an abusive marriage before she packed up and left her home with her youngest daughter, heading to a shelter with little more than the hope of starting over. Today she runs her own cleaning company in Fort Worth, a milestone she credits to a local anti-poverty program that paired her with a personal coaching team for years, not weeks.
Vazquez's story was first told by WFAA, which reported that after leaving her marriage, she joined Catholic Charities Fort Worth's Padua program, a poverty-exit initiative that began in Fort Worth about 12 years ago. According to the outlet, Catholic Charities Fort Worth covered one month of her rent as she got back on her feet, and she went on to graduate from Padua with honors. Vazquez has since started New Beginnings Cleaning Solutions, a company serving homes, businesses, churches, restaurants, and offices, and she has said she hopes it will eventually create jobs and help other people, not just generate income for her own family.
A Program Built Around Years, Not Weeks
Padua works differently than most emergency assistance programs. Per the same WFAA report, it uses intensive coaching and navigation to help clients identify goals and overcome the barriers keeping them in poverty, primarily serving adults who are willing and able to work and aiming to help them find employment that can sustain their families. Vazquez has said the program gave her more than a paycheck plan: she learned to set both short-term and long-term financial goals and told WFAA that Padua gives “education, hope and guidance.”
That structure is by design. Each Padua client is assigned a two-person team, a master's-level case manager and a bachelor's-level caseworker, who keep caseloads small, according to Results for America. The program runs at an average cost of $11,000 per participant and carries no fixed completion timeline, with participants allowed to stay enrolled for two to five years until they reach full self-sufficiency. To qualify in Tarrant County, applicants must live in the county, earn household income under 200% of the federal poverty line, and have at least one able and willing adult worker in the home, criteria that often bring in clients who first arrived seeking emergency assistance from Catholic Charities Fort Worth.
Notre Dame Research Backs Up the Model
The claims behind Padua's reputation are not just anecdotal. A randomized controlled trial from the University of Notre Dame's Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities evaluated 427 participants enrolled between 2015 and 2016 and found that those who were unemployed at enrollment saw a 67% increase in the probability of working full-time and a 46% increase in monthly earnings compared with a control group. The same study found that participants who lacked stable housing when they enrolled were 64% more likely to achieve stable housing, and that participants overall were 53% more likely to report improvements in their personal health.
Catholic Charities Fort Worth president and CEO Heather Reynolds has framed the program's goal in blunt terms. “Catholic Charities wants clients to move out of poverty for good,” Reynolds has said, describing an approach built around long-term stability rather than one-time handouts. Reynolds, who also serves as LEO's managing director, presented Padua's multi-year case management framework to the U.S. House Committee on Economic Disparity in July 2022, telling lawmakers, per the Notre Dame LEO account of the testimony, that fragmented safety-net systems fail compared with intensive wrap-around support.
From Fort Worth to South Bend and Chicago
Padua's reach now extends well beyond Tarrant County. Catholic Charities Fort Worth has begun helping other communities implement the model, and the program has been replicated in South Bend, Indiana, and in Chicago, Illinois. The South Bend site launched in January 2026 as the first-ever national Padua replication, a partnership between Catholic Charities Fort Worth and Goodwill Industries of Michiana that leans on Notre Dame LEO research and franchising principles to keep the model consistent across sites, according to Notre Dame News.
Catholic Charities Fort Worth itself traces back to 1910, founded by a small group of women at St. Patrick Cathedral, and now serves tens of thousands of residents each year across 28 counties in the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth, according to North Texas Catholic. The organization serves people regardless of their faith, and its evolution from emergency handouts to long-term poverty interventions is part of what fueled Padua's design.
The Stakes for Survivors Leaving Abuse
Vazquez's path out of her marriage also unfolded against a grim backdrop for domestic violence survivors in Texas. The Texas Council on Family Violence reported 161 domestic violence homicides statewide in 2024, with Tarrant County suffering 12 fatalities, ranking among the top four deadliest Texas counties for intimate partner violence, per the council's findings reported by the Odessa American. Firearms were used in 71% of those homicides statewide, and 84% of perpetrators had a prior history of criminal justice intervention, the council found.
Texas law treats the most severe forms of domestic assault as serious felonies. Under Texas Penal Code §22.01, domestic assault involving strangulation or impairment of normal breathing is a third-degree felony punishable by two to ten years in prison, a penalty that can be enhanced to life imprisonment for habitual offenders, as Hoodline previously reported. Tarrant County prosecutors frequently seek those enhanced terms in repeat family violence cases.
Vazquez, for her part, has said she wants New Beginnings Cleaning Solutions to build long-lasting relationships with customers as it grows. She has said there is hope for people struggling the way she once was. Anyone experiencing domestic violence can reach the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).
