Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Calvert (Pct. 4) pressed pause last week on funding for a 201-unit affordable housing complex on the near South Side, where neighbors said they were unaware of the plan.
The Commons at Acequia Trails, which would house people experiencing homelessness, received about $11 million from the City of San Antonio’s 2022 bond earlier this year. Calvert delayed the county’s nearly $4 million contribution to the project last Tuesday due to concerns that residents of the Hot Wells neighborhood surrounding the property weren’t notified of what the now-vacant land would become.
“There’s a history in this area where they feel inundated by affordable housing projects,” Calvert told the San Antonio Report. “I have to be sensitive to whatever concerns they have.”
Calvert said he checks in with the relevant neighborhood association on any housing project that comes across his desk, and on Acequia Trails, “I had no documentation from any neighborhood association,” so he decided to pause the funding until the neighborhood could learn more.
The kind of housing local nonprofit SAMMinistries plans to provide at Acequia Trails is called permanent supportive housing, meaning it provides housing and “supportive” services like physical and mental health care, addiction counseling and food for people who are chronically homeless and have a disabling condition.
Increasing permanent supportive housing is one of the core components of the community’s strategy to end homelessness and help relieve capacity pressures at local homeless shelters.
“Locally, [permanent supportive housing] has a 96% housing stability rate, so it’s key to addressing the issue of homelessness in Bexar County,” Robert Reyna, community development director for the county’s Economic and Community Development Department, told commissioners last week. That rate means a vast majority of SAMMinistries clients are still housed one year later.
It’s not the first time that housing like this has been met with skepticism, but projects like Towne Twin Village on the East Side and Hudson Apartments on the North Side have been largely embraced by their respective neighbors, proponents say.
At the same time they chose to delay the Acequia Trails funding, commissioners voted last week to contribute $4.25 million in county funds to Hudson Apartments, which is also operated by SAMM, along with about $200,000 for capital improvements and additional outreach workers at Haven for Hope.
The package was part of a historic $42 million collaboration with the city to fund affordable housing projects over the next five years.
SAMMinistries recently faced pushback from a downtown daycare center when it relocated its low-barrier shelter — which is not permanent supportive housing — to a nearby Holiday Inn.
With any project, “our goal is to partner with the neighborhood, as has been the history of SAMMinistries, so that we can help create a stronger San Antonio, because we all live and work in this place that we call home,” SAMMinistries CEO Nikisha Baker said.
The hesitation about this specific project being located on the South Side is not an example of the not-in-my-backyard attitudes that can prevent such projects from being developed, Calvert argued.
“This neighborhood is not exhibiting NIMBYism, this neighborhood is exhibiting reality,” he said. “The reality is, they have a disproportionate amount of affordable housing.”
Communication and timing
Brady Alexander, longtime president of the Hot Wells Neighborhood Association, said the first time he heard of the Acequia Trails project is when Calvert called him after the commissioner delayed the vote last week.
“If it wasn’t for Commissioner Tommy Calvert, we wouldn’t even know about it,” Alexander said. “My job as president is to get valid information out to the members to determine the positions of the association. And really, it’s concerning when we’re misrepresented or are left out of that conversation.”
Still, Alexander said he would keep an “open mind” about the project, but other neighbors already have concerns that the neighborhood would become overrun with addicts and drug dealers.
“Let’s get the facts before we make a knee-jerk reaction,” he said. “That’s my goal in this. There is a lot of emotion and a lot of preconceived [notions].”
Projects like Acequia Trails and Hudson Apartments, which are not walk-in shelters, are exactly what’s needed to get people off the street and reduce illicit activity, Baker said.
Calvert’s office organized a video conference call on Monday morning, less than a week after initiating the funding pause, to discuss the project with county staff, residents and SAMMinistries staff.
During the call, Alexander demanded that no further action “on any aspect” of the project be taken until his neighbors are given a chance to review the plan at its next meeting in late January.
Reyna said the county will not move forward on funding the project until after that meeting, and possibly others, take place.
It’s more complicated for SAMMinistries to make such a pledge, Baker said, since the organization has an agreement with the City of San Antonio and other funders that may require some action on the Acequia Trails project to take place before February.
For instance, Baker said, an archeological study, required for most developments, is currently underway at the site. SAMMinistries and Brooks Development Authority, which owns the land, also has submitted a zoning change request slated to be heard by the Zoning Commission on Dec. 12.
The nearly 7-acre project that SAMMinistries plans to purchase for Acequia Trails is a portion of a 55-acre tract of land that the nonprofit aims to acquire over the next decade or so, Baker told the San Antonio Report. That could include a public park, human services additional housing and employment opportunities for residents.
“Nothing has been set in stone, but we have some ideas,” she said, noting that SAMMinistries has the right of first refusal to purchase more parcels of the tract in the future.
The site was chosen partly for its affordability, she explained.
“We would love to do work on [the North Side] of town in the same way,” Baker said. “But where can you point to 55 acres of usable land to do that, in that part of town … that you can afford?”
It’s still unclear how a potential 60-day delay in zoning or other activity on site would impact Acequia Trails, Baker said. “I need to have a conversation with all of the appropriate parties. … [A delay] doesn’t necessarily bode well for the potential of the project and may cause some concern around the funding tools that we’re using.”
Delays may impact “the developer’s ability to complete necessary predevelopment work, including securing additional financing or tax credits,” Veronica Garcia, director of the City of San Antonio’s Neighborhood and Housing Services Department, said in a statement. “The Neighborhood and Housing Services Department remains committed to the project moving forward and creating 200 permanent supportive homes for people currently experiencing and at-risk of homelessness in San Antonio.”
Baker pushed back on Alexander’s claim that SAMMinistries didn’t communicate the plan properly.
“We have, as an organization, met with the Tier One Neighborhood Coalition,” she told him. Tier One is a collection of leaders from various neighborhoods, including Hot Wells, but does not speak on behalf of individual neighborhood associations.
Cynthia Spielman, a member of the Tier One Neighborhood Coalition’s steering committee who lives in Beacon Hill, confirmed that SAMMinistries has presented plans for Acequia Trails to a subcommittee that works on homelessness. That committee was supportive of the project, but it was not intended to be representative of the coalition, Spielman said.
“We support affordable housing” in general, she said, but the coalition does not have a stance in this specific project.
Personally, Spielman said she would “love to see that in my neighborhood.”
A path forward
Calvert campaigned on promoting “housing first,” but “permanent supportive housing is successful because it has community buy-in. … You’ve got to do it with community in mind.”
Ideally, Baker said, work on the project should move forward while the city, county and SAMMinistries meet with the neighborhood to discuss the details of how Acequia Trails — and permanent supportive housing in general — will operate.
“It’s kind of hard to understand and support this kind of work — and this project specifically — in a timely way,” she said. “How do we balance? How do we do both effectively is ultimately what I’m trying to figure out.”
Reyna committed to help organize any future meetings and coordinate with the city.
Alexander said he just wants to protect the future of his neighborhood.
“It’s very concerning that this is being pushed through without community input,” he said. “What are they afraid of, if this is so great? … I doubt there’s other communities in town saying, ‘Please, we want it.'”
