{"id":794807,"date":"2026-05-14T02:21:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T02:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/794807\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T02:21:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T02:21:13","slug":"new-san-antonio-homeless-services-department-finds-significant-gaps-in-current-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/794807\/","title":{"rendered":"New San Antonio homeless services department finds \u2018significant\u2019 gaps in current system"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\"><strong>SAN ANTONIO<\/strong> \u2013 A new city department has identified sizable gaps in the local homeless response system: a need for hundreds of extra shelter beds, many more housing units and vouchers, and more rental assistance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">And while the total cost to close them isn\u2019t clear yet, the head of the department says it won\u2019t be just the city paying for it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">The Homeless Services and Strategy Department, which was created as part of the current city budget year, has been working on a new \u201cShelter and Housing Framework\u201d to show what\u2019s needed to create a \u201cmeaningful reduction\u201d in homelessness in San Antonio.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Homeless outreach, services, and encampment cleanups are consistently top resident priorities in city budget surveys, but the department says there are still gaps.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cI think they\u2019re significant enough that we\u2019re still seeing 1,327 people on the street today; we\u2019re seeing a record number of people that are coming into homelessness for the first time,\u201d said Mark Carmona, the city\u2019s chief housing officer and director of the new department.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">In fiscal year 2025, Carmona told council members during a Wednesday briefing there were over 4,100 people living on the street. Through outreach and other methods, more than 2,800 got into shelter or housing, leaving 1,327 people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Even out of those who accessed shelter, Carmona said 609 returned to homelessness. Another 1,738 people became homeless for the first time. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Going off those numbers, the city identified three main gaps:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 kDvXdO font_openSans articleList\">\n<li class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__StackBase-sc-1fnzlkn-7 ecGWWE iQviKm\">\n<p>Rental assistance to keep another <b>1,738<\/b> people from slipping into homelessness<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__StackBase-sc-1fnzlkn-7 ecGWWE iQviKm\">\n<p><b>550<\/b> emergency shelter beds<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__StackBase-sc-1fnzlkn-7 ecGWWE iQviKm\">\n<p>Enough housing units and vouchers to help get, or keep, <b>1,475<\/b> homeless or formerly homeless people off the street<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Slide from a May 13, 2026 presentation to the San Antonio City Council (City of San Antonio)Slide from a May 13, 2026 presentation to the San Antonio City Council on gaps within the area homeless response system (City of San Antonio)<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">The city is already investing over $30 million across those three areas, but it also works with numerous governmental and nonprofit partners.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">And Carmona emphasized the effort to close those gaps is \u201cnot a city-only funded plan.\u201d He plans to provide a final framework plan during his August budget presentation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cWe\u2019re going to take the summer to work with stakeholders, really fine-tuning what lanes people are in, and then fine-tuning cost estimates so that we can give council in August a clear cost number of what this is going to look like and who\u2019s sharing in it,\u201d he told KSAT.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\"><b>Read also:<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 by KSAT &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 A new city department has identified sizable gaps in the local homeless response system: a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":794808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,13239,7265,7065,7202,7203,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-794807","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-city-hall","10":"tag-homelessness","11":"tag-housing","12":"tag-san-antonio","13":"tag-sanantonio","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-tx","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116570546875948690","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}