A one-night snapshot of data taken in San Antonio and Bexar County earlier this year combined with a four-year progress report reveals significant wins and enduring challenges for homeless service providers and advocates.
The area’s 2024 point-in-time count report released Wednesday showed a 6.8% percent increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness compared to last year, for a total of 3,372 individuals.
Of those, 888 people were unsheltered.
The increase in homelessness largely mirrors the rate of Bexar County’s growth, with the count showing just a .01% increase in homelessness as a percentage of Bexar County’s total population.
Since 2019, unsheltered homelessness has decreased by 25%, said Katie Wilson, executive director of Close to Home.
“Over 73% of our population is sheltered,” Wilson said “This is much higher than the national average, where it’s closer to 60 or 65%. So this is a win because people are in safe shelter.”
The count, coordinated annually in late January by the nonprofit Close to Home, deploys hundreds of volunteers to survey people living in shelters, encampments and elsewhere across the county. The federally-designated Continuum of Care agency works year-round with governments and service agencies to coordinate homelessness mitigation strategy, funding and data collection.
“It’s important, of course — I don’t have to tell the people in this room — that as we talk about data, [we remember] we’re talking about people who are struggling in our community,” Wilson told elected officials, government staff and agency representatives during the annual State of Homelessness event at Endeavors’ Veteran Wellness Center.
There were fewer unsheltered veterans than ever counted (27), but families and children continue to occupy an alarming number of shelter beds, Wilson said.
Children, who are often undercounted, are the fastest-growing portion of the homeless population, making up 18% of the total count, she said. “We recommend that homelessness prevention be one of our biggest priorities to address families falling into homelessness and the growing number of children in our community experiencing homelessness.”
As federal coronavirus relief funds dwindle and evictions pick back up post-pandemic, service agencies have to do more with less, she said. “We don’t have the housing resources we had over the last few years. … Rents rose by 14% from 2020 to 2024 and over 18% of our citizens live in poverty.
“These are bigger issues than what our direct service programs can cover, but there are factors for us to work with and advocate for.”
‘Big moves’
This year, to provide more context to the point-in-time (PIT) count, Wilson provided a status report on the city’s 2020 “Together to End Homelessness” strategic plan and call to action that laid out goals through 2025.
Less than four years into that plan, Wilson said, substantial progress has been made, including a reduction in unsheltered homeless, improved technology and training and increases in funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, permanent supportive housing, housing vouchers and low-barrier shelter beds.
The most critical area of improvement has been the collaboration between Close to Home, service providers and local government, she said.
“I think the alignment is where all of the magic has happened,” she said. Agencies were drawn together during the pandemic and built stronger relationships, she added: about $25 million was set aside in the city’s 2022 housing bond for permanent supportive housing and the county added about $8 million toward those efforts.
“Those big moves are always because partners are working together,” Wilson said. “So I think that’s been the biggest shift. It’s hard to even remember before 2020, how difficult things could be.”
Close to Home collected surveys from attendees on Wednesday and will continue to gather input to inform its funding and programming priorities for next year, when the agency will be working with the city, county and other partners to develop another five-year strategic plan.
That continued alignment is key “when you’re dealing with an urgent issue and it’s life or death,” Wilson said.
Last year, 322 people experiencing homelessness died in shelters, on the streets or in jail — roughly doubling that figure from 2022.
“We have experienced the loss of dear community members, have dealt with the hottest summers on record and continue to face the ever-present challenge of opposition to critical projects that our most vulnerable neighbors need,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg said during the event. “These challenges serve as necessary reminders for why we must continue to work together collectively to advance proven interventions and solutions to help people exit homelessness permanently”
