The City of Leon Valley has essentially outlawed homelessness. Last week, Leon Valley City Council passed an ordinance making it illegal for people to sleep in a public space, stand in a traffic median unless crossing the street, leave their tents and personal belongings unattended, sleep in a vehicle, or stand or sit on a sidewalk in a way that obstructs passage.
Since the law cannot make people magically disappear, what does Leon Valley plan on doing with the human beings affected by the new ordinance? Send them to San Antonio, of course!
It isn’t that Leon Valley can’t deal with homelessness, as suggested by its director of public works. Instead, the city chooses not to deal with homelessness because San Antonians already do it.
According to an internal city policy, police will contact Haven for Hope or Corazón San Antonio for assistance with people violating Leon Valley’s new ordinance.
This idea is a win-win for Leon Valley. Let other people deal with homelessness. Let other people pay for it.
San Antonio allocated $8,338,985 in general funds as part of its 2022-2023 budget for Haven for Hope and its partner organizations. Leon Valley allocated $0 of its 2022-2023 budget for addressing homelessness.
San Antonio’s model for funding homeless services is like a group project in which one group member does all the meaningful work. San Antonians put much money into homeless solutions like services and shelters. Cities like Leon Valley put in none.
In economics, this is called the “free rider problem.” Free riders use resources, public goods, and common goods, but they enjoy the benefits of these resources and goods by underpaying or not paying at all.
Regarding homeless services, San Antonians are surrounded by a few hundred thousand free riders. No other city in Bexar County (nor unincorporated Bexar County) allocates general funds for homeless services like San Antonians do. The word “homeless” is absent from their budgets. They aren’t building shelters. They aren’t applying for federal grants to start homeless programs.
You probably know the non-technical term for free riders: moochers, people who ask for or obtain things without paying or giving anything in return. Cities that don’t allocate funds for homelessness but want people to go to San Antonio for services are saying one thing: homelessness isn’t an absolute priority for us, so let’s mooch off someone else’s work.
Of course, this is not to say that these cities do not incur any costs for addressing homelessness. The police and the public works departments are spending some resources. Still, when homeless services are not budgeted, a local government has yet to address it seriously, and Leon Valley hasn’t. Leon Valley’s hackneyed idea to eject people from its city limits and send them to Haven for Hope is less like caring for human beings and more like taking out the trash.
One day, all the cities in Bexar County should come to the table as a regional group, create regional solutions and allocate regional funds for regional homelessness. Enough is enough. Homelessness cannot be treated as a City of San Antonio problem. Homelessness is a sprawling condition that falls on everyone.
But until then, San Antonio’s 2023-2024 budget is under development, and free riders of homeless services and other social services need to be considered severe fiscal problems.
Year after year, San Antonio’s residents bear rising housing costs, one of the root causes of homelessness. Appraisals continue to increase, and across-the-board tax relief is nowhere in sight for homeowners and renters. This tells me that the mayor, the council, and the city’s administrators (some of whom don’t even live in San Antonio) treat our tax burdens as political windfalls.
So, I don’t blame Leon Valley or other small, wealthy cities for taking advantage of San Antonio’s taxpayers. Our city’s dominant politics — or incompetencies — enable such abuses.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to be taken for a ride.
