Under the short awning of an empty office building in downtown San Antonio, Anissa Mahone crouched low, hugging her knees with one arm while adjusting the hood of her bright yellow rain jacket.
The on-again, off-again winter rain had resumed its patter as Dan Rossiter shifted his weight to maintain blood flow to his legs while stooping to make eye contact with a 32-year-old woman preparing to sleep for the night in her tent.
It was about 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday and the woman — just one of likely hundreds of unhoused people on San Antonio’s streets that night — was tired but graciously agreed to answer the strangers’ questions.
Mahone offered the woman words of comfort and joined in with an occasional bout of laughter while Rossiter asked the woman about herself and the circumstances surrounding her experience of homelessness. He read questions and recorded answers in an app on his phone designed to assist surveyors as they carry out the annual point-in-time count, which provides a one-night demographic snapshot of how many people are sleeping on the streets or staying at shelters, encampments and elsewhere.
More than 400 volunteers and dozens of police officers spent Tuesday evening within their assigned area within Bexar County asking the same questions. Mahone’s six-person team walked through “Zone 13,” which included Central Catholic High School in north downtown.
“I’ve had jobs, but someone stole my ID,” the woman said in response to a question about her top needs at the moment of the count. Luckily, she had an appointment this week to get glasses for a vision problem that was giving her migraines. She’s supposed to be taking medication for depression and anxiety, but she said Medicaid doesn’t cover the full cost so she self-medicates with marijuana — which “gives me the munchies.”
“Well, we’ve got some snacks for you to munch on,” Rossiter said, to laughter.
Mahone pulled out a small backpack filled with supplies: a shower wipe, hygiene kit, socks, a hat, gloves, reusable water bottle, applesauce, Nutrigrain and chewy granola bars, fruit snacks, a bag of chips, dessert and information about ways to connect to more local resources and services.
“Thank you,” the woman said.
“You’re welcome,” Mahone replied as she joined Rossiter on the sidewalk to decide which direction to walk next.
The rain had intensified, but it was much warmer than just a few weeks ago when freezing temperatures stretched the capacity of Bexar County shelters and churches. As 11:30 p.m. rolled around, Mahone’s sneakers were thoroughly soaked and the team was ready to walk back through the river of rain and mud that was lower Broadway Street to home base: the Corazón Day Center at Grace Lutheran Church.
This was both volunteers’ first time participating in the count, but for Mahone, the evening carried a special significance.
Her husband, Billy Mahone III, died suddenly last July at the age of 39. He was a tireless advocate for the unhoused and was an integral part of the nonprofit Close to Home’s close-knit team, which leads the organization of the PIT count. Tuesday’s count would have been the third that Billy Mahone oversaw as the agency’s senior director of strategic planning and partnerships.
While evening had a layer of grief for her and the Close to Home team, Anissa Mahone said she found the experience “enlightening.”
Remembering the woman in the tent, she said, “You could tell she was eager to have somebody to talk to. … [These] are small moments, just showing compassion.”
Billy Mahone taught her — and countless others — that those small moments add up, she said. “It all, every little bit of it, makes a difference.”
A legacy left behind
Billy Mahone joined the Close to Home team in early 2021 as director of community engagement. He was previously president of Atlas Floors Carpet One, a business his grandfather started in 1948.
“He was great at it and he really got the business growing and really … reshaped how they operated,” said Anissa Mahone, who started dating her husband-to-be in 2008. They married in 2016. “Ever since I’ve known him, he’s always been just super humble and was always wanting to help people.”
He started volunteering for different service programs including KENS 5’s Mi Casa Makeover project, which Atlas Floors sponsors, and Thrive Outreach Ministry, a mobile ministry that provides food and essentials to people experiencing homelessness.
“They always had a spiritual component, which was something that Billy really sought after,” said Anissa Mahone, who is director of corporate engagement at UTSA. “He really loved that aspect; to be able to pray with people and give them hope or just being an ear to listen.”
After transitioning the company through the pandemic, Billy Mahone started to search for a new line of work. He saw an opening with Close to Home, then known as the South Alamo Regional Alliance for the Homeless.
“He was really excited about being able to take what was kind of his side passion — weekend and after work — to a full-time position,” she said. “He did a lot. And really made the needle move.”
Billy Mahone’s colleagues at Close to Home agreed.
He made it his mission to help people understand the issues that contribute to and can help solve homelessness, they said. He also helped fine-tune the PIT count process, started conversations about offering the survey in Spanish and was working on making the questions less jargony and clinical, several staff members said.
“Billy was all in for his community,” said Dacey Werba, the agency’s director of strategic alignment and equity who managed the PIT count this year. In fact, “all in” was the theme of the celebration of life hosted in his honor after he passed. Close to Home staff often wear beaded bracelets with the words “all in,” reminding them of “busy Billy” and his approach.
“I wear this every day,” Werba said. “I feel like if I forget to wear it, something goes wrong that day.”
There are 17 people on staff at Close to Home, said executive director Katie Wilson, and “when you’re such a small team, you feel like family.
“You have family dynamics and just a closeness,” she said. “Particularly with the work we do, it’s important to us to be vulnerable and to feel comfortable sharing what’s going on in our lives. That’s part of our culture.”
When Billy Mahone died, “I was shell-shocked,” she said. Staff members were given time off, many worked from home and “we got grief counseling, we had a chaplain come in. … Our [community] partners really helped us get connected and offered their services, because they knew how much we would struggle. For me, personally, it’s a loss of a friend, a person that we all adored. As the months go on, I really miss what he brought to our organization. He always knew how to think about problems.”
Billy Mahone was able to describe the complex system failures and circumstances that can often lead people to lose their housing and show others how to make a positive impact, Anissa Mahone said.
Her husband would assemble little care packets for the couple to keep in their vehicles. They contained a few dollars, tissues and other small things someone without housing might need, so they would always be ready to help.
“His gift was he was approachable,” she said. “He made it easy for people to understand that there are tiny things that you can do. … You really can make a difference if you’re one person. And so I feel like I saw that with Billy.”
There was a point several weeks ago when Anissa Mahone was “a little on the fence” about volunteering for the PIT count this year.
“I didn’t know if it [would] be hard … not having Billy,” she said. I asked a friend if they would come with me … and we were like: ‘Let’s do it for Billy. Let’s support our community.’ … It’s about honoring his legacy and what he cared about.”
Rossiter, who got to know Billy through Leadership San Antonio (class No. 46), was that friend. He said he was proud to honor Billy’s legacy.
“Billy made [volunteering for the PIT] more personal,” Rossiter said. “What I was most pleasantly surprised by was how receptive everyone I spoke with was; sharing [their stories] and answering these really annoyingly long questions.”
The point-in-time count is required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for cities and communities across the country that receive federal funds tied to homelessness mitigation. It is also one of the few metrics San Antonio has to understand the existing needs.
‘Just ask’
As the designated Continuum of Care agency for San Antonio and Bexar County, Close to Home — which changed its name last year — leads the count for San Antonio and Bexar County and works year-round with local governments and service agencies to coordinate homelessness mitigation strategy, funding and data collection.
Along with other data collection, the PIT count helps Close to Home and other agencies identify trends among the unhoused population and shift funding or strategies when needed.
Because Billy Mahone played such a critical role in the past two PIT counts, this one was especially difficult, Wilson said.
“Leading up to the point-in-time count, it opened up some of those wounds,” she said. “Grief leaves a permanent hole. I think we’ve all continued to take the lessons from not only our time with Billy, but what we learned about ourselves and each other going through that loss together.”
At the helm of the count this year, Werba takes solace in the fact that she learned from the best.
“Something he taught me was: Always reach out to a partner. Like even if you [think] they would never say yes … just ask.”
So Werba asked the local Planned Parenthood if they would like to donate or participate in the count this year, leading to volunteers being able to offer menstruation kits to women they encountered.
“I keep thinking that all these little things that come together are … a result of Billy’s voice subconsciously in my head,” she said.
This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Dacey Werba’s name.
