As many as 625 San Antonio families and individuals living in public housing received notices to vacate their homes over the past two weeks.
Those notices were issued to all local housing authority tenants who had been delinquent for 12 months or more — whether they owed $1 or more than $10,000.
It’s the first time Opportunity Home has issued such notices to public housing residents due to nonpayment since the pandemic-related eviction moratorium, local housing authority officials said. At least a dozen housing advocates and residents attended Opportunity Home’s board meeting Wednesday to protest what they called a “mass eviction” rollout.
Though the board had directed the agency’s staff to recoup delinquent rent, Gabriel Lopez, chair of Opportunity Home’s board, said he was “shocked” to discover that households that owed so little were being served with notices to vacate alongside people who have long owed so much.
“We were operating under the impression that we were dealing with high-dollar delinquencies,” Lopez told Ed Hinojosa, Jr., the agency’s president and CEO, during the Wednesday board meeting. “How did you allow a family … on the [notice to vacate] list that owes less than $100?”
Unlike the notice to vacate process for the agency’s other mixed-income properties, known as Beacon Communities, Opportunity Home issued notices to vacate from its public housing stock regardless of the amount owed.
Board member Leilah Powell, executive director of LISC San Antonio, echoed Lopez’s concern.
“I’m horrified,” Powell said. “We clearly have some systemic issues here.”
There were some “system limitations” that grouped all delinquent households together, regardless of the amount or how long they were in arrears, Hinojosa said. “That data all had to be cleaned up and scrubbed,” he said, and “all of that has happened in a very short period of time” about two weeks ago before the agency started placing notices to vacate on doors.
But some outstanding balances had been accruing for years even before the pandemic, demonstrating a gap in Opportunity Home’s efforts to get residents connected to financial or other resources, Lopez said. “We can’t ignore the fact that we’re not doing our best for that early intervention.”
A long waitlist
Lopez directed Hinojosa and staff to devise a plan that focuses eviction efforts on households that owe at least more than $3,000. The agency must restart collecting rent, he said, noting that the agency is facing a potential $18 million deficit for fiscal year 2024.
“We said that our priority was to keep people housed,” Hinojosa told the San Antonio Report. “Now we’re being asked for a [different] plan … on how to move forward.”
But, Lopez added, “Compassion can’t be at the expense of the organization, because we have a bigger calling to take care of … the other residents that are in public housing and those that are sitting on our waitlist.”
There are about 113,000 households, many with children, currently on the waitlist for public housing in San Antonio, he said.
“Evictions are the last resort,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg said, but if someone is unable to pay thousands of dollars for several years, the waitlist is filled with families who deserve a chance.
Nirenberg did not attend the meeting, but he said he was briefed by staff. The mayor appoints the agency’s board and Lopez was appointed chair in September.
“I support the board in holding the CEO accountable for coming up with a better plan,” Nirenberg added.
The 625 households that are more than 12 months late on payments currently owe the agency more than $2.3 million, according to Opportunity Home. About 42% of those, or 264 households, owe more than $3,000 each.
Opportunity Home’s repayment agreements can only be applied to households that owe $3,000 or less. Those who owe more can buy down their debt to $3,000 to qualify for a repayment plan, but most cannot afford to do so, Lopez said.
What is a notice to vacate?
A notice to vacate is not an eviction, but the first step in a long legal process.
When Opportunity Home gives a notice to vacate, it also provides information about how to set up a repayment agreement and avoid eviction, said Brandee Perez, the agency’s chief real estate and development officer.
“We have been really trying to make sure that language is clear,” Perez said.
Tenants who are behind on rent are also sent monthly notifications, she said.
But Nicole Hammer, who lives with her five children at Westway Apartments, said she was unaware she was behind by about $1,000 on rent until someone posted the notice to vacate on her door.
“‘Toward the end [of the process] you have to hand over your keys to us,’ is what she told me,” Hammer said after the meeting, where she joined other residents in speaking out against the notices. “I was kind of shocked about that. … I started crying in front of her.”
Property managers have “reached out to everyone that has past-due balances, either by door-knocking or by phone, or by email,” Hinojosa said after the meeting.
Kayla Miranda, an organizer with the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center who also lives in public housing, said the agency should put a pause on all notices to vacate, given the confusion.
The mailed past-due notices sent to residents often look like junk mail, Miranda said. “A lot of other people don’t understand what they’re reading. … They need to have a conversation face-to-face.”
Since Hinojosa took over the agency in 2021, there have been vast improvements in how Opportunity Home operates, but there’s still room for more, Miranda said.
For the average person, getting a notice to vacate is intimidating — and is commonly interpreted as a final eviction notice, she said. “Regardless of how they try to spin it, they’re telling you to get out.”
