San Antonio City Council approved lease and operation agreements Thursday to expand the city’s low-barrier homeless shelter from 45 rooms to 200.
The city will pay up to $8.8 million to lease the Holiday Inn hotel at 318 W. Cesár E. Chávez Blvd. on the west side of downtown and $7.1 million to SAMMinistries to operate the shelter for two years.
The nonprofit, which offers housing and services for people experiencing homelessness, will move the shelter out of the Days Inn motel on the opposite side of downtown and move operations to the Holiday Inn.
In the low-barrier shelter, which means residents will not be required to be sober to stay there, residents will be provided with case management services and connections to treatment for drug and mental health issues, permanent housing and other services such as ID recovery.
The city has set a goal of getting 400 unsheltered people off the street and into shelters or permanent homes over fiscal year 2024, which started on Oct. 1. The 2023 homeless point-in-time count found 874 unsheltered individuals on one night in January.
“I think this is a first step toward that goal and a really important one,” Councilwoman Sukh Kaur (D1) said before the agreements were approved. “SAMMinistries is going to be able to offer a lot of great support to folks. … It’s a secure facility that’s providing resources necessary for folks to help get them back on their feet.”
The bigger shelter will not fully solve the demand issue, but it will likely put a dent in the number of unsheltered people, Melody Woosley, director of the city’s Department of Human Services, told reporters.
“There is a waiting list for … the current shelter,” Woosley said. “We have a lot of people who are interested in that.”
The shelter is slated to open by the end of November.
Funding for the shelter comes from some of the last remaining federal COVID recovery grants, allocated through the city’s annual budget.
It’s unclear if the city and SAMMinistries will continue to offer the low-barrier shelter beyond the two years allocated. That will depend on whether City Council approves more funding from other sources.
This year, more than $31 million in municipal bond funding and other federal money was allocated to house people experiencing chronic homelessness, building on other affordable housing projects and initiatives.
Earlier this year, the city and SAMMinistries planned on operating two separate shelters, but found a more efficient plan with the Holiday Inn, Woosley said.
“As we were looking for the right facility to add, we came across one that made more sense and [was] big enough to consolidate,” Woosley told reporters. “You don’t need duplicate staff.”
Initially, the city anticipated the shelters would serve about 600 people experiencing chronic homelessness; now, the city expects to serve about 1,200 over two years.
Outcomes from the Days Inn motel have improved over the last few months, according to the city.
During the first 18 months of operations, SAMMinitries served about 280 people at the 45-bed motel and about 25% moved into permanent housing. Now, of the nearly 330 people served, 41% have gone on to find housing or treatment options.
The average stay at the Days Inn was 100 days and more than 70% of residents had a disabling condition or multiple conditions including mental health issues, substance use disorders or physical disabilities. More than half of the people who stayed there had been unsheltered for more than one year.
Modifying and securing the Holiday Inn should be relatively easy, Woosley said, because it’s the same hotel that the city leased in 2020 for Haven for Hope, the city’s largest shelter. It expanded operations into the empty hotel during the height of the coronavirus pandemic to stem the virus’ spread.
“We expect it to be as smooth as that operation was, we had no security issues [or] complaints from the neighborhood or businesses,” she said.
Andrea Drusch contributed to this report.
