162. Close to Home on Why the City Struggles to Keep Up With Homelessness

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Welcome to Big City, Small Town, the weekly podcast all about San Antonio and the people who make it go and grow. I'm your host, Bob Rivard.

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Our guest this week is Katie Wilson, the president and CEO of Close to Home. That's the local nonprofit working to prevent and eliminate homelessness in the metro area. Close to Home is designated by HUD, the US Housing and Urban Development Department, as the lead continuum of care organization in Bexar County, That qualifies Close to Home for $25 million in HUD funding annually, most of which is then distributed along with matching city and county dollars to qualified nonprofits that are operating in the homeless services ecosystem in the San Antonio metro area.

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That $25 million, by the way, is up from $8 million San Antonio received a decade ago from HUD. Close to Home works with the Alliance to House Everyone, which includes 90 local nonprofits and others working to prevent homelessness and then to get those who are homeless access into services and into programs that work to get people off the streets and into housing. Let's get into the conversation.

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Katie Wilson, welcome to Big City, Small Town. Thank you for having me.

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Tell our audience a little bit about yourself, where you're from, how you came to work into this space. You've been doing it for quite a few years now in different jobs and organizations. Sure.

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So I was born and raised in San Antonio.

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And throughout my kind of education and career path, I knew I wanted to come back to San Antonio. I went to Texas State University.

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And I think what I've realized is that my mom worked in system-level work, but with mental health. That type of work always interested me, you know, working collaboratively at a large scale to solve community problems. So when I came back to San Antonio after graduating, I started working in the Bexar County Budget Office. and then from there moved to Haven for Hope and worked in the, uh, with the data team there. So that's how I got my start, um, in learning about more about homelessness. Um, and in that role, I got to work with all of the different nonprofit agencies, um, learn about their programs, review their data, and also got to travel to other communities and see how they were addressing homelessness. And so in 2015, when they wanted to start a continuum of care lead agency, nonprofit in San Antonio. I was excited about that opportunity, and I was the first hire for the executive director at that time. Since 2015, we've just been working to bring partners together to look at our outcomes, see where we can make improvements, and we've had a lot of successes over the years by doing this work together.

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I think we're in a moment right now in San Antonio, Katie, where the ecosystem is functioning at a very high level. There's a lot of collaboration between all of the different entities. I can remember a time when there was less collaboration, even some unhappy competition for the very scarce dollars that were out there 15, 20 years ago prior to the Haven for Hope being established, but even after it was established. So it can be a very confusing array of nonprofits in the Alliance for people that aren't that familiar with it. And I wonder if you can just give donors and, citizens in general in our audience, a general understanding of what the state of homelessness and homeless services are in our, our community right now. Absolutely.

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Well, thinking back to 2015, we definitely had some high-performing nonprofits, but I think what we were missing was that interconnectivity across all of the different agencies. We definitely saw that with Haven for Hope and their co-locating of services to make it easier for people experiencing homelessness to access medical care, job training, all of those things in one place.

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But I think a lot of the work that we did was to look at our outcomes for different demographics, veterans, youth, families, older adults, and start to figure out what were their unique challenges and who could fill those gaps, and then bringing people together to help solve problems in that way. And so I think that's where we started to see that next level of collaboration is really just painting a picture of what the whole ecosystem looked like and people figuring out their place in it where they could be most effective. A lot of the last 10 years has been a lot of learning. I'm always learning more about how we do this work, and I think it also was really broadening the scope of how we think about addressing homelessness. It's not as simple as a shelter bed, an outreach worker, although you absolutely need those things to help keep people safe and get them connected. But you also have to think about how are you preventing homelessness and how are people ultimately going to sustain housing after experiencing homelessness.

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So that's really kind of the landscape we're working with now is prevention, the crisis services, and the housing options that we need. Tell us about the point-in-time count and whether that's an accurate reflection of the homeless population at any given moment and whether it's growing or diminishing in size in San Antonio. Sure. So the point-in-time count is our annual census. It's a one-night snapshot of how many people are experiencing homelessness in our community. Something that's helpful about it is that it's part of a national report that's used to gauge what's happening with homelessness, if it's going up or down. But where I think it's most useful is not the literal count of how many people, because of course that could vary. It could vary based on weather, based on volunteer experience, although I think we've done a lot to bring consistency to that with how we train volunteers and, and how we conduct the count. Um, but it is really helpful when you're seeing trends with populations, and you can then see that reflected in what we're seeing on an annual basis. So for example, we can see families are starting to tick up. We're starting to see more families not only counted, but learning about their experience and what led to their homelessness as part of the count. So something that really stood out to us last year was half of the people we counted were homeless for the first time. So it's not that we're continuing to see the same people year after year, although that's true to some extent with those that are unsheltered, but more people are falling into homelessness than we can manage and get out of homelessness before the next round of people are going through evictions and these things that lead to them experiencing homelessness. So again, I think it's not the snapshot, the overall count, that's not the end-all be-all. I think the actual data points and the, the interviews that we have to learn about people's experiences and their needs, that's what's really useful about the count. And what was the count? So last year was about 3,300, but less than 1,000 were actually unsheltered. And so I think that's important when you're looking at those counts is in San Antonio, we have more people in shelter by proportion than unsheltered, which is not what you see in a lot of other major cities that haven't invested in shelter in the same way that we have. So to us, that's still a much better situation. You have safety, you have meals, you're getting connected to case management. The unsheltered count last year was, I think it was 888. And so that, that's a manageable number of people to find solutions for if we can all rally behind what those solutions are that really work for people. It's a manageable number to some degree, but to some degree it isn't because we, San Antonio, like a lot of cities, doesn't have enough permanent supportive housing to frankly put in some of the most deeply affected, uh, homeless individuals, people with deep mental, uh, health issues, um, people that are delusional, people with addiction issues that are on the street that don't want to come in and avail themselves of programs. Those are the people also that symbolize homelessness for everyone else, people in the business community, the downtown community, um, our visitor economy.

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And, um, you, you, you see people on the streets that that are, they tend to be in very urban areas with their shopping carts and all of their possessions. And it's disturbing, you know, and it disturbs the sort of day-to-day life on the streets for people, for tourists, for business people, for people out after dark. And it just seems to be one of the most intractable aspects of homeless treatment. And I wonder how we're doing on that front because I live and work downtown and I don't see a lot of change in that population. That's right. So when you're talking about homelessness, many people are going to just experience very temporary homelessness. You know, with a little bit of help and support, we're able to get them stable and self-sufficient in pretty short order. But the group that you're talking about, what we would call our chronically homeless, where they have ongoing medical disabling conditions, they've experienced homelessness for a long time.

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We found that permanent supportive housing is the most effective strategy that we have because we move people into housing where they're then able to really stabilize and continue to get access to things like their medication, get into treatment, get connected to all of the services that they need. If you think about somebody with that level of need being independent in housing without any sort of safety net or family support, which is often the situation, it's very hard for them to maintain housing over the long haul. So permanent supportive housing, wrap services around them in housing, we've really doubled down on that intervention because we know for that high need group that's unsheltered, that continues to be unsheltered, that's our most effective strategy. And it keeps them from cycling out of emergency rooms, law enforcement interaction, and then all of those things just continue to be a cost to the community. And also just more negative experiences for people that affect their trust in systems, right? And so again, permanent supportive housing, that's not what everyone experiencing homelessness needs.

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And I think it's important for the community to know that the goal is always self-sufficiency, but there are those in our society that, that need that level of support. Many have intellectual and developmental disabilities. We're even seeing people who are unsheltered now that can't care for themselves independently at all.

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And that's even another level of care. That they need, where they have trouble getting to the bathroom on their own, changing their clothes, just simple things like that. And so that's an important part of our overall homelessness strategy is that we continue to develop permanent supportive housing. Now, last year in our point-in-time count, we actually saw a decline in our chronically homeless population. I think the only threat to that continuing is it takes time to develop units. And, um, at the federal level, they're really shifting support away from long-term supportive housing to shorter-term programs, um, as the federal strategy. And so I think as a community, if we can really look at that number as a solvable problem and continue to strategize for that group, it'll have a huge impact on, on our community at large that is feeling the effects of homelessness and concerned about people they see experiencing homelessness and wanna be able to find an option for them. I just, I think that's what's tough is that there's no quick fix to somebody that's experienced that level of trauma, that has that level of need. It takes time to engage with them.

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But we do find that when we move people into permanent supportive housing with those needs, every year between 96 and 98% are stably housed when they have those supportive services. And I think also, Housing is different than shelter, and so it's also finding locations for these housing units is another challenge. The community being willing to have permanent supportive housing in their neighborhood, we see that NIMBYism sometimes. But once people are in housing with those services, you're not going to see the same thing that you would see with a shelter, for example, where people are waiting outside to get in like they are in other communities. They're, they're safe, they're cared for, and they're They're great neighbors once they're in those supportive housing units.

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Just to stay on the subject of the chronic homeless for, for a moment, you, you've told me before that that number may be as low as 500 on any given day. So it's not a huge population. But on the other hand, our number of permanent supportive housing units, which are not inexpensive, uh, to, to either create or to operate, uh, is, is, is less than that number. And there is on the drawing board, uh, a a plan to increase several hundred more units. But at the same time, the indications are— and they may be stronger than indications— that is that Housing and Urban Development is going to be cutting and not only the funding. And I'd like to know what kind of cuts you fear we're going to have to absorb. But also they're changing their philosophy about supporting permanent supportive housing, which is surprising to me But they seem to be putting 2-year limits on some of their funding programs and saying you're going to have to get people out of publicly supported programs within 2 years, whether it's on addiction issues or house temporary housing issues or other measures. That's right. So that shift in strategy is something that we're planning for right now that we expect to see go into effect now in 2027.

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We're looking at cutting about $3 million from our permanent supportive housing allocation and moving that into transitional housing. So we've talked to our partners, a couple of our permanent supportive housing programs think they can make that shift, but we have to go through and really assess for everybody that's in permanent supportive housing, can we find other residential options for them, voucher options for them? Um, with a year's notice, can we work towards self-sufficiency? With some support. So we're working through that. But I think that's where our community coming together and saying regardless of what the federal strategy is, let's all align around what we see works in San Antonio in our community. And so even if that's not the federal strategy, how can we rally some support locally to say yes, it's somewhat of an expensive intervention, maybe not when you look at, you know, all of the emergency services and other costs to the community, leaving people unsheltered. But can we continue to plan for that? It's part of our strategic housing implementation plan at the city. I know it'll be part of our homelessness strategic plan that we're working on right now, our 5-year vision. So I think we— that's where we have to tell the story. This is what works.

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These are exactly how many more units that we need, and then we'll be in a much better place with homelessness in San Antonio. How are those cuts going to affect operations at the city. In 2021, city council passed the 10-year Strategic Housing Implementation Plan, what's generally referred to as SHIP.

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But it seems to me that both the federal— at the federal level, they're going in a different direction against the grain of, I think, professionals like yourself who, who support permanent supportive housing and and don't believe 2 years is a timeline that's sufficient in many cases to deal with, with issues. And the city is facing its own funding challenges. It had a budget deficit that it's, it's had to, you know, work on this year. And they predicted budget deficits that are growing for the next 2 years. So is SHIP still on track and are the city and county going to be able to really step up with federal cuts and operate in the way that you just outlined, which strikes me as optimistic, which I think you must be an optimist by nature or you wouldn't be in your work. But I really wonder whether or not the city needs to brace itself for some tough going in the next couple of years. Well, the city's been a great partner. They just launched a new Homeless Services and Strategies Department. And so a project that we're working on together is doing a gaps analysis of our current system and also looking at the next 5 years using predictive analytics. What do we expect to to see as far as gaps across our homeless response system. To answer your question about the ship, 5 years is a long time with all of the different things our community has gone through from COVID You know, we haven't had a normal year in a while to see how things are going to kind of level out from there. But the ship is going to go through a refresh also at the same time that we're working on this homelessness plan. So we have a really good idea of What are the needs? And we're aligning those plans because we know ultimately to end homelessness, you have to have a place that people can be housed. That just has to exist, whether that's, you know, diverting people and getting them reconnected with family, vouchers, job training, education. It all ultimately has to end with people need a place to live. Yes, I'm optimistic at the federal level.

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What we actually saw come out from appropriations was increases. For the Continuum of Care program for homelessness. And you know, it's long had bipartisan support because I think at the federal level they like the, the local control, the analysis, the performance monitoring. We're reallocating funds if grants aren't performing well, if programs aren't performing well. So it's not so much the funding level that we're looking at now as much as it is that change in strategy.

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but it's the right tool for the right job also. So transitional housing can be a great option, for youth and young adults, for families while they're rebuilding their income, getting ready to move out independently. So yes, we need that, but we also need permanent supportive housing or some sort of long-term treatment, you know, case management, those types of services for a different group. And so I think again, it's, that's what we're working towards this year is What's that clear framework of how much transitional housing do we need and for what populations? How much permanent supportive housing do we need? And then really making that easy for the community locally to understand, because I think we've got a lot of people that are supporting our different nonprofit partners, but giving them that clear picture of where the gaps still exist to hopefully help people not blame the homeless service providers for increases in homelessness.

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Well, moving away from the chronic homeless population to that other 50% that you talk about being homeless for the first time, and anyone who's gone to the Haven for Hope is often surprised by the number of mothers and children that are there versus the stereotype of a deluded male with a grocery cart. There's just a lot of families there that have been unhoused by the housing crisis, by domestic abuse, by being shut out of— in a one-income family that breaks up. And, and those are the people that I think really rely on vouchers, for example, that are very helpful. But there's indications that those might be cut as well, or the time period that people are qualified for vouchers may be limited to 2 years now going forward.

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Isn't that right? That's a possibility. We're working closely with our housing authorities. They haven't officially made that announcement. It was something that was indicated in the skinny budget last year. So that's yet another risk factor that we'll have to look at for our long-term planning. But for now, it's still one of the best tools that we have for people to live in community with the rent they can afford. I think on that point, you know, there are lots of different situations that happen where somebody finds themselves evicted. It could be a health event, it could be a divorce, domestic violence, all of these different things.

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But ultimately, if people can't afford where they live and they're one crisis or even a minor crisis away from losing their housing, That's ultimately that prevention strategy that we have to figure out. And so I think it's important to look at housing costs and income very realistically. I think that would also help paint the picture for the community of the challenges that we're seeing. Because, you know, with Housing Commission, we've had panels before talking about employment and they say, well, our starting, you know, hourly pay is$15 an hour. Well, 5 or 10 years ago, you might be able to sustain yourself in your average one-bedroom apartment.

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but now you can't. Our average apartments in San Antonio are about $1,100 to $1,200 a month. You have to make over $20 an hour to not be cost burdened. And so I think that's part of the conversation too, is you either need the affordable housing units or you need the wages that you can sustain the housing that's available in San Antonio. And so again, I think there's lots of messaging work simplifying this so that it can be better understood by our community that at scale, when you have people that don't make enough to support themselves in housing, you're going to continue to see people fall into homelessness. How do we compare to other cities both in Texas and around the country?

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We're a Sunbelt city. And so whether it's true or not, your thinking is, well, more people would come down here because of the climate, uh, rather than up north where we look at the storms that are loose in the Northeast right now. You wonder I think 20 people died in the last New York snowstorm out in the streets. It seems to me these point-in-time counts always come plus or minus 3,000. And so it sounds to me like we have a fairly stable number, even if it's not the same number of people.

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Different people are moving in and out. As a percentage of our population, it's very small but very visible, and that it's in and around 3,000. And when I go to Austin, for example, I think I see more homeless people in the urban core there than I see here.

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But again, it's anecdotal, right? So looking nationally, the communities or cities that have the highest rates of homelessness have the highest housing costs and the least available affordable housing units. And so Los Angeles, New York continuously have the highest rates of homelessness because it's more difficult to get access to housing.

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Looking across Texas, if you look at our total point-in-time count, which again, it's a one-night snapshot. It's not the end-all be-all number. Our number looks relatively high, but that's when you include our sheltered population. And when you think about our shelter capacity in San Antonio, I mean, Haven for Hope alone houses about 1,500 people per night. And what we've seen is that if you build it, people will come. If they're in those precarious situations, they have an option in San Antonio to seek shelter. So I think the unsheltered number is important to look at when you're looking at that point-in-time count. And when you do, we're one of the lower numbers across Texas as far as how many people are unsheltered. I think Houston has a lower rate of unsheltered homelessness, and their main strategy has been building permanent supportive housing. They have a great encampment response program where they're actually able to get people keys and move them into units. So those are different strategies that we're looking at along with moving people into shelter. But again, we need to rally community support around the strategies that work and see a level of investment where we can do that. Houston has their own challenges though. They have hurricanes, but then they also had disaster assistance that allowed them to rebuild housing in a different way. So it's also important to just look at our community, you know, our poverty levels, our demographics, our employment and, and really solve the problem for here. Because every community is a little bit different in how they're structured, the nonprofits that they have, the philanthropists. So I think we're excited to get to work on this 5-year strategy that works for San Antonio.

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What do you think should be the policy of the city toward encampments, given our lack of permanent supportive housing to put everybody that's in, in camps? I, was recently dropping off some clothes, uh, to people that shelter under I-37 there at, uh, right near a couple of the other nonprofits, um, McCullough, or I guess it's Nolan Street. And, um, a fight broke out while I was there, and it was nasty. And, uh, you know, the police had to come. But, uh, I also noticed that people, um, were using the same area to, as a bathroom, an outdoor bathroom. And it's a very unsanitary, unsafe kind of environment. There's crime, there's drugs.

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But if you chase everybody off, where do they go?

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And so what do we do about those homeless encampments? They're unsightly, they're not safe, they shouldn't exist, but they do exist.

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And I'm not sure we have options for the people or that the people in there will avail themselves of the options even if they're offered.

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Right. So just backing up a little bit, when you think about the people that are living in encampments and how they get to that point, something that's always stuck with me is we did a listening session where we were talking to people who were unsheltered about their experience and what they needed.

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And the things we heard were, I don't have access to a shower, I don't have access to a bathroom, I want to look for a job, but I'm not, I don't have clean clothes. When you're unsheltered, it's incredibly difficult to, to get out of homelessness without some sort of safe place. Um, so I think that's important. And also something that always resonated with me, um, was thinking about addiction or substance use. Um, what we heard from several people was, I didn't use drugs until I became unsheltered. After spending a couple of days out here, you start to deal with the stress, the anxiety, the elements, being hot or cold or scared, And that's when the drug use really starts to pick up for a lot of people and mental health deteriorates. So by the time you see someone who's been in an encampment for a long time, all of this has transpired, but that may not have been what initially caused their homelessness. And so I just thought that was really interesting that again, that goes back to that prevention piece. How can we keep people from getting to that point where it's so difficult then to help navigate and get them out of that situation? As far as how to deal with encampments, Um, it's a very difficult issue because I understand that neighborhoods and businesses may not feel safe with having a large encampment and drug use and things like that in their neighborhood, and I empathize with that.

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I think it becomes a question of how do you manage the current state in the most compassionate way, but also working towards the longer-term solutions that are going to ultimately solve the problem.

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And so I think that's where Close to Home and our partners have really focused is there's different ways of managing what is keeping areas clean and safe, but we're not going to ultimately get more people off of the street unless we have a place for them to go. Our shelters are often full right now, again, because people are falling into homelessness faster than we can get them out into housing. So I think it's a misconception that it's as easy as accepting shelter and you go right over. There are also people who don't feel as safe in shelter as they do in an encampment, which might— Is that logical? When you think about the experiences that they've had, it is, because if you've been in institutional settings, maybe you've been in jail before, you were in foster care, that shelter environment can feel very triggering. You're surrounded by tons of people. That you don't know, as opposed to living in your encampment, you've built a community of people that you feel safe with.

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And one of the strategies we're working on is actually shared housing, like pairing roommates and having a process to do that, because we also hear people say, "I don't want to get housed and leave my friends behind. I'm looking out for them. What's going to happen to them if I'm not here to protect them and make sure that they're safe?" You know, they also have all of their things. And so you mentioned the shopping carts, but if that's all you have, and then you have to give up all of those possessions in order to go into shelter, not knowing what the outcome will be, that's also a really hard decision. So, there's lots of reasons people may not accept shelter or say they're uninterested in help. But often people are willing to go in after a lot of engagement from talented outreach workers and peer support specialists. That's why that outreach is so important. And there are, I would say, even more people who would be interested in a permanent place that they can be, that they know it's their home, they'll be safe there. There'll be some community surrounding them. So there's just a lot of nuance to it. And again, I think it's a tough issue with encampments and needing to keep communities safe in the meantime. Those are, those are not easy decisions to make. But ultimately what I'd like to see is that we can offer more to people that are living in encampments directly, getting them to a safe option. I want our co-host Corey Ames to jump in here, but I have one more question for you. We're in the middle of a pretty heated county judge race, and, um, the Bexar County Jail and Annex has come up in that campaign quite a bit. The San Antonio Express-News has been doing quite a bit of coverage on the jail's, um, woes. It's been overcrowded for years, um, it's been understaffed for years, uh, more people have died from suicide and violence in there than is acceptable, and that's not getting any better. Do you, do you think the police have the tools that they need, um, in dealing with the homeless situation and the way they have to deal, which is responding to calls?

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Uh, or in yesterday, I, I saw a 911 call with a prone body on, on the sidewalk right on Broadway and Mulberry, and and, uh, that required a number of units. And they have, uh, apparently, um, because of over, over, um, subscribed shelters, they don't have places to bring people sometimes, and they end up bringing them to the Bexar County Jail. And that creates other issues because they're not equipped to deal with mental health issues, uh, as well as they would like to be able to do. And, and, uh, you know, they're putting people with, with, uh, those mental health issues into a general prison population, which is challenging, right?

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Well, um, our San Antonio Police Department is pretty innovative in what they've done to help address homelessness over the last decade. We actually work with them on an ID recovery program that was started by the HOPE team within San Antonio Police Department, where they've actually come up with a process to quickly get people access to their identification. They have mental health training, first aid across the same, the police department. So I give them a lot of credit for those, those changes that they've made over the years to be supportive. Um, I think they are good about calling outreach workers and taking people to Haven for Hope, um, or other shelters whenever it's possible.

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But I agree with you that, you know, the jail often becomes one of the only places you can get consistent mental health treatment. And that's often what people need is continuous mental health treatment. They need to start the process. And be able to finish it with the same person, which is very difficult when you're unsheltered. So we've got to find a better way to operate as a community. We have to have other options for people.

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I am excited about the potential of a diversion center to keep me— more people out of the jail. And I also want to think about what's the option for people after the diversion center for ongoing outpatient treatment and also residential options for people, because I think that's what we always come back to is coming out of the jail, the state hospital, um, the regular hospital, uh, where do people go, um, where they can stay safe, keep taking their medication? Um, I think that's also an issue to solve, is just a place for people to be to continue to get that care. Well, and Katie, thank you so much for being here to share your really broad-reaching perspective, uh, on this issue. I want to take it back just a little bit to the top of the conversation to get pretty clean frame, I think, for, for where we are as a community and as it relates to tackling this issue. But what were you seeing as maybe like the greatest driving force of more people falling into homelessness? You've mentioned affordability here in some way, shape, or form. Is that true? Is it housing costs that you're seeing people just can't continue to sustain, or what's really driving more people falling into homelessness than we can field? Ultimately, what's driving homelessness is housing costs, but also the mismatch between wages and housing costs. And so, um, there's this book, Homelessness is a Housing Problem, and it has this great analogy about if you have a game of musical chairs, um, and there's one person that has a walker and the music stops, that's who's not going to get the chair. But ultimately, the issue was there weren't enough chairs, and then it's your most vulnerable that ultimately are without the place to be, without the seat, without the housing. And so I think that's a good way of thinking about homelessness. There are different experiences people may have that trigger that episode of homelessness, usually something related to financial issues, a health event, family issues, loss of a job. You get behind and things just compound and it's hard to get out of that situation. So ultimately homelessness is a housing problem, but to get people out of homelessness who have experienced it for a long time and have all of those other ongoing issues. There are different solutions for different populations. So if it's not being able to afford housing, you mentioned as well that, you know, the, the mismatch in, in wages, mentioning that maybe $15 an hour a few years ago might have been something sufficient to afford a one-bedroom or a studio in San Antonio. Is there any sort of like ballpark understanding of, of what wage might be satisfactory to take a significant chunk of this population and make them more housing secure? That's a good question, and it's something we've talked about, in some working groups where we're talking about the compounding effect of health insurance subsidies, SNAP benefits, loss of rental assistance. Um, because that's another issue is that, that benefit cliff of when people earn a certain amount, they no longer can access those benefits or they might see cuts. Um, so we've been having this conversation. From what I understand around our basic, you know, one-bedroom apartment, of course there's different family sizes and needs, but you'd need to make about $21 an hour in order to not be cost-burdened in your average rent apartment. So I think it would be great as part of our planning and talking about affordability, affordable housing, to also talk about what is a living wage and have some agreement and strategies around that. So that's something that through Housing Commission and our work at Close to Home, I want to keep at the forefront of the conversation because it's hard to build your way out of the problem just with how much time that takes. It's necessary, but that's also another way of addressing this issue is increasing wages or incentivizing employers that can increase their wages. So that's something I want to explore over the next year as we're working on our vision. I think that that's really interesting. And I interviewed Eric Cooper last year, the CEO of the food bank, and he shared with me in a suspect that food insecurity is not necessarily an issue of food, it's an issue of income. And so it seems with housing that might be something very similar.

00:36:00.764 --> 00:37:45.987
And so a very long timeline to perhaps construct and put up the affordable housing units, let alone to find the money to do so. It seems like maybe there's some merit to advocating for a greater municipal wage, but I'm not sure the legitimacy of that. Is that something that, you know, you see in other communities across the country? Of course, there's other downstream effects from doing so, I suppose, but is there any merit to San Antonio pushing for some greater municipal minimum wage? I think for me right now, it starts with messaging and just helping the community, philanthropists, donors, businesses, and understanding the issue of homelessness that, you know, wages and housing costs, that's part of the conversation. Again, treatment diversion strategies, those conversations are also important, but broad stroke looking at the issue of homelessness, that's the issue that you have to understand is can people in our community afford to sustain housing? So not sure about a municipal wage strategy as much as getting all of our partners to work together on common messaging so we can better tell this story because I think Everyone wants to end homelessness, whether it's because it impacts your business, your home, your school, your neighbor, your friend, your parent, you've struggled with it. We all want to see fewer people living unsheltered, experiencing homelessness. But I think we have to help everybody understand the strategies that work in a way that's digestible because it's a complicated, huge system. So that's, I think, the starting point is just telling a more clear story that, you know, it's not as simple as building one shelter, building one apartment.

00:37:47.206 --> 00:38:02.275
You have to have an ongoing strategy to prevent people from falling into homelessness, which I think is a huge part of the equation. 'Cause as I mentioned, once people are unsheltered, you have a variety of other issues, conditions getting worse that make it that much harder.

00:38:02.612 --> 00:38:13.842
Mm-hmm. Um, so you have to have a strategy to prevent homelessness, um, to manage the crisis with shelter and outreach, connecting with people, keeping them safe, and have the appropriate housing options.

00:38:13.969 --> 00:39:17.628
And I think being able to tell that story, um, we'll start to see more movement locally. And we have to, because we don't know what's coming at the federal level or at the state level. Um, there were more housing and homelessness-related bills in the last session at the state level than we'd seen. But locally, we can have a plan and a vision and agree on those shared outcomes and strategies and keep moving forward. Because even if we only get halfway to our goal in one of those categories, a 50% reduction in the number of people falling into homelessness would be huge as far as the impact on our partners. Because again, it's the same nonprofits that are providing outreach, helping someone with those really severe needs, that's also helping to mitigate the constant families and older adults and people that are, are calling and behind on rent and getting evicted. You know, one, uh, solution of course is, is to, um, to produce more housing locally and not depend entirely on the federal government for, for all of our funding of our programs.

00:39:18.175 --> 00:39:27.858
We haven't mentioned this, uh, Katie, but you were the co-chair of the 2002, uh, housing bond, uh, initiative, as I recall. Am I right about that?

00:39:28.677 --> 00:39:37.878
Yes, the Housing Bond Citizen Committee was in 2022. Right. Well, that's when voters approved it, and that was $150 million. That was a first for the city.

00:39:39.032 --> 00:39:46.438
Those bond cycles occur in 5-year cycles. And so there's much talk about renewing that bond in 2027.

00:39:47.447 --> 00:40:08.827
What's been accomplished in your opinion through that bond to date? And what do we need to still look at? I think the bond's been incredibly successful. So the approach that we took with the Citizen Committee was, well, first we were getting input from every different council district and the public in shaping what are those different levels of investment for different areas in housing.

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Because we know it's, again, it's not all one strategy. So it included, you know, remodeling and redeveloping some public housing units, some home ownership strategies, and things like permanent supportive housing, developing more rental housing for lower incomes.

00:40:28.121 --> 00:40:31.137
So, the progress made has been incredible.

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All of the money almost has been allocated. It will be certainly by the end of this year. The Neighborhood and Housing Services Department has done a fantastic job of managing those projects and really getting the community to also focus on that 30% and below the area median income where they're making about $20,000 per year or less because an affordable rent for for someone making $20,000, it's about $500 a month, which is very, very difficult to accomplish. And so I look forward to the next bond. I think as voters take a look at the accomplishments, the number of units that have been developed, they've really fulfilled those promises from the bond. I think the ongoing challenge is, as we get better at developing units, we have to continue to figure out how do staff these programs. Um, there's sometimes a reluctance, um, to fund administrative overhead, which can sometimes even be seen as the staffing positions at nonprofits. But that's really the magic, is the staff that are available to help people get connected to services, um, to make sure they stay, they stay stable. They're really their safety net because they don't often have family or people that can look after them. So I think that's the challenge alongside the bond, is What's going to be that funding source to continue to fund staffing and operations as we build more units? Would you consider more permanent supportive housing to be the priority for a future housing bond, which would— that could handle the infrastructure needs? But again, the city and county would have to come up in their operating budgets for more money to accommodate the staffing challenges that you just articulated.

00:42:16.445 --> 00:43:05.003
I'd say it's certainly one of the priorities. I think there are other strategies that are going to be important as Opportunity Home is working on their vision and figuring out their plans for the public housing units that they have. And we continue to just need, you know, market rate and affordable units for the general population as our city grows. So I think that analysis we do for the next 5 years of the SHIP will tell us what level of investment, how many units do we need in these different categories. But Certainly permanent supportive housing is a priority for Close to Home because again, we see that 2 more Acacia Trails by SAM Ministries, another Town Twin Village, and we're at a much better place to be able to house everyone with those severe conditions that are unsheltered right now.

00:43:06.063 --> 00:44:06.268
So again, that's a solvable problem. It might be expensive and take some creativity, to develop those units, but then we have them and we have a safe place that people can go. And we're still just lacking there as much as we're making progress. Katie, I just want— I don't know if you mentioned it, but what's the like rough price tag on a permanent supportive housing unit, like in the setup of it, or maybe the year-round, what would be maintenance or, you know, services provided just so that we can have a sense? And I think you maybe mentioned like 500 more units or so is what you would want to target, like aspirationally speaking? I don't have the exact, uh, breakdown of how much each unit would cost. I think we'll have a good sense of that once we go through this process that we are right now with Town Twin Village finishing their development. Sam Ministries, um, is ahead of schedule and within their budget to develop Asakia Trails. But I think it'll be important that we take a look at what that actual ongoing operational cost is.

00:44:06.862 --> 00:44:32.588
Historically, a lot of our permanent supportive housing has been scattered throughout the community, meaning that we're housing people in apartments and then checking on them regularly. These are some of the first units that are really site-based where everyone's housed together with those co-located services. So I think we'll have to assess what the ongoing operational cost is as we see those units come online.

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Well, we're running out of time, but before we do, why don't you reach out to our audience and invite some new donors to join Close to Home?

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Maybe there's some individuals that haven't had confidence in the homeless ecosystem because they haven't known very much about it, but maybe after hearing this episode, that'll change and they'd like to donate. So how can they do that?

00:44:51.840 --> 00:44:56.248
Sure. So, um, you can donate by visiting our website, which is www.closetohomesa.org.

00:44:59.177 --> 00:45:02.722
Um, you can also sign up for our newsletter to get regular updates.

00:45:03.106 --> 00:45:21.362
And if you're interested in joining the Alliance to House Everyone, you can also do that through our website. Um, we'll do an interview with you and get you connected to the group that's most related to your area of interest. And I'd love for people to join our newsletter and see our communications because we have a lot of exciting work coming out this year.

00:45:22.115 --> 00:45:56.041
Um, starting with a shelter and housing strategy report that'll be presented to council by the new homeless, uh, strategy department. Our 5-year vision and plan, and we're building out a plan for a homelessness impact fund to give people an easier way to donate to these specific interventions that we identify that we need over the next 5 years to continue to see reductions in homelessness. Well, the work you're doing in the community is incredibly important, and the work of your team. And thanks for coming on to Big City, Small Town. Katie Wilson, thank you.

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All right, y'all. Thanks for listening to this episode of Big City, Small Town. If you enjoyed this conversation, please share it with friends and colleagues who might find it interesting. You can also sign up for our newsletters, Bob Rivard's Monday Musings and My San Antonio Something. You can find those linked up at bigcitysmalltown.com. Our show, Big City Small Town, is made possible by Weston Urban, building a city our children want to call home, and Geekdom, where startups are born and smart ideas become businesses. If you're part of a business or organization that believes strengthening San Antonio's civic engagement and would like to explore a partnership with us at Big City Small Town, we'd love to hear from you. You can reach out through our website or connect with us on social media. All right, y'all, thanks for being here. We'll see you next time.