SAN ANTONIO – State and city leaders are weighing their options about solutions for mail theft. Across the city, a union leader says there’s a growing backlog of mailboxes that need fixing, leaving residents waiting weeks or even months for repairs.
Cluster mailboxes are supposed to keep your mail secure. They’re not supposed to be easily opened, and they’re not supposed to be empty.
But around San Antonio, data shows criminals are targeting these mailboxes, hoping to access a lot of mail at once.
“This is an issue that we want to fix,” said Homer Hernandez, who leads the local branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers.
When San Antonio residents deal with mailbox break-ins, many say it takes far too long for the boxes to be repaired.
We met one San Antonio resident who lives in the Medical Center, one of the epicenters for mail theft. She told us her apartment mailbox has been broken into twice this month.
Hernandez says part of the problem is staffing.
“It takes a while because they don’t have enough manpower to do so. They need more manpower in the city of San Antonio,” he said.
San Antonio falls within District 3 of the U.S. Postal Service, which stretches through West Texas and up to the Panhandle. For that entire area, Hernandez says, “we only have 35 field maintenance employees.”
Fifteen of those employees are assigned to San Antonio and the surrounding areas — and that’s not nearly enough, he says.
“We need more employees is what it comes down to,” Hernandez said, estimating the district needs at least 40 more workers to keep up.
The I-Team reached out to the Postal Service to ask if more maintenance employees are coming. The agency told us, “The local San Antonio maintenance group is fully staffed.
City leaders are also exploring how to make cluster mailboxes less appealing to thieves. That starts with the new neighborhoods being built across San Antonio.”
A spokesperson added that Postal Service guidelines say that the purchase, installation, maintenance, repair, and replacement of mail receptacles are the customer’s responsibility, or apartment property management companies, and homeowners’ associations.
At the federal level, Congressman Joaquin Castro is pushing for legislation that would hold the Postal Service responsible for mailbox maintenance and establish funding to make sure those repairs get done.
At the city level, councilmembers are pushing for programs to add lighting around cluster mailboxes to deter thieves or replace them with a safer alternative.
Hernandez is calling for faster repairs on the mailboxes the USPS is responsible for, saying they should be fixed within two weeks.