Trevor Baker, a clinical homeless outreach worker with the city’s Department of Human Services, talks with Josh Palumbo, who had been sleeping under Wurzbach Parkway, trying to get him to move someplace more safe.
Jessica Phelps, Staff photographer / San Antonio Express-News
San Antonio Express-News
Molly Smith, Staff writer
An award from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will provide 47 more families and individuals in San Antonio an escape from chronic homelessness — a stable, permanent place to live, officials announced Monday.
In addition to the housing vouchers, a group of organizations will share a $14.5 million federal grant that will be used for resident support services, street outreach, staffing and other efforts to connect homeless persons with housing and resources.
“Housing opportunity is economic opportunity, it’s health care, it’s public safety, it’s everything that’s at the foundation of having a secure, thriving community,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg said at the announcement at The Hudson apartment complex on the North Side.
The unassuming, two-story white brick complex on Blanco Road is one of three sites in line to receive a combined $31.2 million from the city’s 2022 housing bond and from city and county coronavirus stimulus funding to provide close to 300 units of permanent support housing. The City Council is expected to approve the funding on Thursday.
The properties will have on-site services, including case managers and mental health counselors, as part of the permanent supportive housing model, which aims to address issues that have caused people to lose housing.
San Antonio has seen an increase in the number of people who are considered chronically homeless, meaning they’ve been homeless for at least a year, or repeatedly, while struggling with a physical disability, serious mental illness or substance use disorder.
The city’s chronically homeless population rose 77 percent from 2020 to 2022, according to the South Alamo Regional Alliance for the Homeless, or SARAH.
“Things like the housing bond are great to develop and rehabilitate units, but this will be ongoing funding that will be used to operate the programming,” SARAH Executive Director Katie Vela said of the HUD grant.
The $14.5 million will be split among SA Hope Center, Haven for Hope, SAMMinistries and Opportunity Home San Antonio over a three-year period, Vela said.
People can live in permanent supportive housing for as long as needed. For some, that might be only a year, for others a decade or more.
“It’s really tailored to the individual person’s needs — of course, always with the goal of self-sufficiency or other opportunities if possible, so we’re making space for another person to come in,” Vela said.
San Antonio aims to create 1,000 permanent supportive housing units by 2031 as part of a 10-year affordable housing plan that the council adopted in late 2021.
Candace Valenzuela, a HUD regional director for an area that includes Texas, said the city’s success so far in offering permanent supportive housing factored into the Biden administration’s decision to include San Antonio in the latest batch of HUD awards.
In October 2022, San Antonio became the first city to reach its goal of placing at least 1,500 homeless individuals in permanent supportive housing as part of the administration’s “House America” initiative, an achievement Valenzuela praised Monday.
“All of that good work has made this investment possible, and I look forward to coming back to San Antonio and Bexar County to celebrate more of your success,” she said.
molly.smith@express-news.net