HOUSTON \u2013 The Houston City Council voted Wednesday to move forward with plans for a $16 million homeless \u201csuperhub\u201d in the city\u2019s East Downtown, a decision that\u2019s being praised by city leaders but criticized by some residents who say they were left out of the process.<\/p>\n
The building at 419 Emancipation Avenue, once home to the Star of Hope Women and Family Shelter, will be repurposed into a 24-hour, low-barrier shelter meant to connect people living on the streets with housing, health care and other services.<\/p>\n
Mayor John Whitmire said the site will include a Houston Police Department substation with eight officers and one sergeant.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can guarantee you we\u2019re not going to fail,\u201d Whitmire said during the council meeting on Wednesday. <\/p>\n
Whitmire called the project the first step in his plan to address homelessness across Houston and said additional locations are being considered.<\/p>\n
\u2018There\u2019s been no community engagement\u2019<\/p>\n
Residents who live near the property say they feel blindsided by the city\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been no community engagement,\u201d said Scott Singleton, who has lived in the Second Ward for more than 20 years and lives just around the corner from the building.<\/p>\n
He said the city didn\u2019t give residents time to be involved and he is also worried about the $16 million price tag, as well as the annual $10-$14 million operating cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the city was really serious about community engagement, they would have done that from the planning stages and from months ago rather than two weeks before the vote,\u201d said Singleton.<\/p>\n
He also compared the new project to the former Star of Hope shelter, which served mostly vulnerable women and children, that previously operated in the building.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Star of Hope shelter was there for women and children, and it also served as a funnel to find those families permanent housing. The new 419 is going to have an open-door policy to where their clients can come and go pretty much as they want to during the day,\u201d said Singleton.<\/p>\n
For David Simon, who was homeless in Houston for two years, the city\u2019s effort gives him mixed feelings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s going to be hell to maintain. I think it\u2019s probably going to be a security issue to have that many homeless people in the same area,\u201d Simon said. \u201cIt\u2019s always a good idea to try to help. Is it a solution? I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t think there is a solution, but it is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Simon said he does think homeless people will take advantage of the resources the superhub will offer like mental health support, substance abuse recovery and housing pathways.<\/p>\n
Whitmire said the facility will have a Houston Police Department substation with 8 officers and 1 sergeant.<\/p>\n
The superhub is expected to open in the first quarter of 2026.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 The Houston City Council voted Wednesday to move forward with plans for a $16 million homeless…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4519,6540,10808,56,58,57,6541],"class_list":{"0":"post-27202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-city-council","9":"tag-homeless","10":"tag-homeless-superhub","11":"tag-houston","12":"tag-houston-headlines","13":"tag-houston-news","14":"tag-superhub"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}