SAN ANTONIO – Busting into the cluster mailboxes at apartment complexes and newer neighborhoods in the dead of night, thieves snatch thousands of San Antonians’ mail every year.
While junk mail and political ads may be overlooked, the missing mail raises concerns about identity theft, fraud and stolen funds.
At Hart Ranch on the Northwest Side, HOA President Lewis Barr showed KSAT the bent and cracked slots on cluster mailboxes where thieves had apparently tried to pry their way in.
“It’s every day trying to figure out, ‘Did I get my mail?’” Barr said.
Under state law, mail theft can range from a Class A misdemeanor to a first-degree felony, depending on the number of addresses a thief targets and whether it can be proven that they were after items such as identifying information, checks, or money orders.
Penalties also ramp up faster in those cases if the thief was targeting elderly people or people with disabilities.
However, they have to be caught first. Despite thousands of reported cases in the past few years, the San Antonio Police Department has only managed to make a handful of arrests.
SAPD Deputy Chief Michelle Ramos said many of the thefts occur overnight, and when they’re able to arrest someone, it’s often because they catch them in the act of the theft.
“So getting that information out, having people call 911 or the non-emergency number to report suspicious activity,” Ramos said. “We recently had a case about two weeks ago where they called; there was a suspicious person at a cluster mailbox unit. Officers were able to get there pretty quickly, and they were able to apprehend that individual.”
Last year, Councilwoman Marina Alderete Gavito (D7) asked for a “task force” to address the theft issues.
Most of what has come out of it is about public awareness or information, with tips such as picking up your mail on the day it’s delivered, contacting both SAPD and the U.S. Postal Service, or utilizing the USPS Informed Delivery service to track incoming mail.
There’s also a CPS Energy program, All Night Security Lights, which allows HOAs or individual residents to apply to get lighting. However, the lights are linked to an account, which means it would have to cover the cost of operating them for at least three years.
The city is planning a public awareness campaign, including a website on the SAPD website, which Ramos said should be rolled out in the next few weeks.
One of the pressing issues for many neighborhoods is getting mailboxes that have been broken into either repaired or replaced. Barr told KSAT that the boxes cost approximately $1,400, and the labor to install them can cost an additional $400.
U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-San Antonio) has clashed with the USPS over the past two years, citing what he said he believes is the postal service’s pivot away from maintaining many cluster boxes it had previously maintained.
>> USPS says maintenance costs for cluster mailbox units now responsibility of neighborhoods
In an emailed statement on Wednesday, the USPS put the onus on customers to have broken boxes repaired or replaced.
Safeguarding the security and sanctity of the mail is of paramount importance to the U.S. Postal Service. This includes ensuring mail receptacles are secured, and in good condition at all times. Postal Service guidelines specify that postal customers are responsible for ensuring appropriate mail receptacles are provided for the receipt of mail, to include door, curbside and centralized delivery via a cluster box unit (CBU). Further, current Postal Service guidelines specify that the purchase, installation, maintenance, repair, and replacement of mail receptacles are the customer’s responsibility, or apartment property management companies and homeowners’ associations (HOA), where applicable.
USPS Spoksewoman
Alderete Gavito told the Public Safety Committee on Tuesday she would “also like the city to work with our federal counterparts to advocate for USPS to cover the costs of replacing the cluster mailbox units.”
In the meantime, Councilwoman Ivalis Meza Gonzalez (D8) announced a pilot “Replacement Anti-Theft Mailbox Program.”
Setting aside $10,000 in discretionary funds, Meza Gonzalez’s office stated that it will provide matching funds to neighborhood associations in the district, up to $2,000 for mailboxes and $500 for lighting.
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