SAN ANTONIO \u2013 A San Antonio homeless shelter hopes it won\u2019t completely lose public funding, despite the city\u2019s plans to halt funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope that we are able to compel the city, and candidly, the county as well, to continue to invest in this as a resource for the community because we don\u2019t want to see it go away,\u201d Nikisha Baker, the president and CEO of San Antonio Metropolitan Ministries said.<\/p>\n
SAMMinistries has operated the 313-room Holiday Inn<\/a> at Cesar Chavez Boulevard and Santa Rosa Avenue since 2023 as a \u201clow-barrier\u201d shelter geared toward helping people with disabling physical or mental health conditions, who have experienced long-term homelessness, on the path to permanent housing.<\/p>\n Individuals at the shelter do not need to be sober, participate in a drug screening, meet residency requirements for the city or have a clean criminal record. <\/p>\n However, due to a nearby childcare center, they can\u2019t allow registered sex offenders.<\/p>\n In the first two budget years, the shelter served 526 people, according to city budget documents<\/a>, and more than half of them had \u201cpositive exits\u201d to positive housing, like vouchers, reunification with family, long-term medical care or other assistance.<\/p>\n Baker says they\u2019ve served another 340 people since the beginning of this fiscal year in October.<\/p>\n The City of San Antonio formerly paid for the shelter using pandemic-era federal relief dollars through the American Rescue Plan Act. This year, the city put $4.8 million from its own budget toward lease costs, while SAMMinistries funded the operations.<\/p>\n That lease ends on Oct. 31, and the city has no plans to continue funding it. <\/p>\n The city\u2019s future plans to tackle homelessness include leveraging bond dollars to build shelter capacity, but those plans also assume the continued existence of the 300-plus beds currently at SAMMinistries.<\/p>\n \u201cI think what we\u2019re working with SAMMinistries and the homeless response system to be able to absorb, at least temporarily, what\u2019s in that location today\u201a” San Antonio Chief Housing Officer Mark Carmona said two weeks ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n Baker said she doesn\u2019t know where the shelter\u2019s beds would be absorbed.<\/p>\n They currently use about 150 to 175 of the rooms, Baker said. As of Tuesday, they only had 106 people on site because they don\u2019t know what will happen with the shelter. <\/p>\n \u201cIs it the most responsible thing for us to take in a new client tomorrow that we don\u2019t have a solution for in 90 days, and then they have the potential to be displaced?\u201d Baker said.<\/p>\n SAMMinistries is pursuing $7.5 million in non-competitive funding from the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs for capital costs which could acquire, build, or rehabilitate a permanent site<\/p>\n Its application is due in early July, and Baker expects to hear in August or September \u201cwhether or not that could be a viable opportunity for us.\u201d <\/p>\n Baker estimated it would still realistically take nine to 12 months to start operating at a new, permanent site.<\/p>\n Baker said SAMMinistries has been proactively looking where it could temporarily relocate its operation, but the shelter can\u2019t continue to operate a site of the current size without outside support.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe if it\u2019s 50 units,\u201d Baker said. \u201cMaybe if it\u2019s 75 units that we can figure out how to continue to fund and operate with the community of partners that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n Running 175 shelter units without city or state funding is \u201cnot reasonable\u201d for SAMMinistries, Baker said.<\/p>\n The end of city funding has been expected though. San Antonio City Manager Erik Walsh told council members \u201cit is not a long-term sustainable option for us,\u201d after he presented a draft of the current budget last August.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThe city can\u2019t expect that there are beds available without making an investment in that,” Baker said. She also mentioned the city\u2019s request for proposal process this year included an emergency shelter component.<\/p>\n \u201cSo while they\u2019re indicating that at council that they don\u2019t want to continue to fund the lease, that doesn\u2019t mean that they wouldn\u2019t fund some other mechanism to facilitate low-barrier shelter,\u201d Baker said.<\/p>\n Both the city and Bexar County are in a budget crunch, but Councilwoman Sukh Kaur (D1), who represents the downtown area where the shelter sits, expressed support at a recent discussion for adding it into the budget \u201cat least until we have a bridge.\u201d <\/p>\n