As of mid-December, at least 315 people experiencing homelessness have died this year in San Antonio and Bexar County while in shelters, on the streets or in jail, according to SAMMinistries, a nonprofit services provider that has been tracking such deaths for 17 years.
That’s nearly double the 160 reported in 2022, which more than doubled 2021’s count.
The youngest person on the list this year was 11 days old, said SAMMinistries President and CEO Nikisha Baker. The oldest was 94.
While the fact that number of deaths almost doubled is staggering, service providers said it may not necessarily be a fair comparison to the previous year, since it’s possible that deaths in previous years went uncounted.
Regardless, they said, the number is way too high.
“It’s incredibly frustrating,” Baker said. “We’re the seventh largest city in America, we’re the most industrialized nation in the world and we’re letting our children and our seniors die.”
SAMMinistries will host its 17th annual Homeless Persons’ Memorial Service on Dec. 21 at 7 p.m. Each year the event, which will provide warm meals and other resources, coincides with the winter solstice, the longest night of the year.
Each name on the list will be read, a bell will be rung and a candle will be lit in each person’s honor.
She attributed the drastic increase in deaths year over year to better reporting, data collection and coordination among partners and outreach workers involved in the local homeless response system.
“We have always been able to report how many people passed away who were sheltered,” said Katie Wilson, executive director of Close to Home, the nonprofit agency tasked with coordinating the homeless response system.
There are now more outreach workers in the field and more engagement with the unsheltered community at the Corazón Day Center, the staff of which follow up “when somebody is missing to find out what happened to them,” Wilson said.
A report this year showed that 3,155 people were counted as being homeless in shelters or elsewhere in Bexar County on a single night in January. That’s a 5% increase from the 2022 count, but the rate of homelessness remains relatively flat in the region due to the general population increase. However, there were 28% more families experiencing homelessness in shelters this year.
The city and county have poured record-breaking amounts of funding toward affordable and supportive housing, homelessness mitigation and prevention services, and additional outreach staff in recent years. And the homeless response system — the network of governmental, private and nonprofit partners that collaborate to end homelessness — is stronger than ever, Baker said.
“We’re getting better and … I’m hesitant to say we’re getting good at it,” she said. “And then we see these [total death] numbers. And it feels like we’re not. So it’s deflating.”
A death at the jail
People experiencing homelessness typically interact with several systems, including social services, health care and justice systems — but many gaps and policies allow unhoused people to slip through the cracks.
“Folks may be headed to jail when they actually need mental health or psychiatric treatment,” Baker said.
Those systems are valuable, but they’re often not being used correctly, she said. “It pains me when I hear folks say Bexar County jail is our community’s largest mental health treatment facility because it’s not. That’s not how it’s designed.”
There are mental and physical health resources inside the jail, but it’s not enough, she said, and it doesn’t often “get them on a path to self-sufficiency.”
Ed Penix, 63, was experiencing homelessness when he was arrested for criminal trespassing at a VIA Metropolitan Transit bus stop on Oct. 5 around 9 a.m.
According to a report filed by the VIA Metro Transit Police officer who arrested Penix, he was lying down at the bus stop and refused to leave.
“Penix asked me where he should go,” the officer wrote. “I told Penix to go anywhere … but the bus stop if you [are] not taking the bus.”
Penix twice threw up his middle finger at the officer and refused to leave. He was arrested and taken to jail.
He was then placed in an infirmary cell because of his “unchecked diabetes,” Sheriff Javier Salazar told the San Antonio Report last month, and his bail was set for $500.
“On paper, he was he was a good candidate for a [personal recognizance] bond,” Salazar said. “However, probably because of his mental illness, he was not cooperating with the people asking him the questions to … help him get out.”
Penix was in jail for about five days and was semi-regularly taking medication, Salazar said, as jail staff cannot force inmates to take medication. Around 2 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 10, he was found unresponsive by a deputy and medical staff, who called EMS to transport Penix to a hospital. Staff performed life-saving measures, but he died before EMS arrived.
“This gentleman should not have been in our custody in the first place,” Salazar said at the time. “He was homeless, mentally ill and had major medical issues. Jails are not the appropriate place for people in those situations.”
He was hesitant to “second-guess” the judgment of the arresting officer, the sheriff told the San Antonio Report, but “could we have done more [for Penix] out on the street? … Unfortunately, in this instance, he wasn’t caught by the system.”
VIA’s police force is instructed to try to avoid arresting people who are experiencing homelessness or mental illness, instead directing them — in some cases driving them — to support services, VIA Transit Police Chief Mark Witherell told the San Antonio Report.
Officers are far more likely to issue a warning or emergency hospital detention, Witherell said.
“We try not to resort to an arrest unless it’s just, unfortunately, it’s the last thing we can do,” he said.
The officer in Penix’s case followed protocol, Witherell said. The bus stop Penix was arrested at was right in front of Metropolitan Methodist Hospital. “One of the things that the officer offered [was] the hospital.”
Penix refused.
“The officer’s discretion was to try and get him to move along first and when he didn’t do [that and] he became belligerent, [the officer] had no other choice,” Witherell said.
The department is charged with ensuring “VIA customers and the public feel welcome and safe when riding VIA,” according to its website.
People sleeping or otherwise obstructing bus stops are “impeding the system — they’re impeding the patrons who want to use the service,” Witherell said.
As a former member of the Close to Home board, he understands that you can’t arrest homelessness away, he said. “De-escalation is by far the best way to handle things. And that entails, if nothing else, just listening.”
Shortening the list
Sadly, Penix and the names of hundreds of others will ring out at Milam Park, Baker said, but it’s important to use that sadness or anger as motivation.
“Don’t just be upset,” she said. “Turn that into doing something.”
Advocating for more services and housing is a start, said Baker, who has had to defend several different housing and shelter projects from criticisms about their locations this year.
SAMMinistries and its partners plan to collect more data regarding the demographics and causes of death among the homeless population in the future “so that we can get a better handle on what gaps exist in the system and what we need to be doing differently.”
In the meantime, SAMMinistries and other partners in the homeless response system are already working on closing those gaps, Wilson said.
A skilled nursing program — which will place acutely disabled, chronically homeless individuals into nursing homes — will launch next year thanks to a grant and no-interest loan from San Antonio-based First Day Foundation.
The program includes online benefit navigators who will work to get participants Medicaid benefits to ultimately cover the cost of care, Wilson said. But they won’t have to wait for Medicaid approval.
The care will first be covered by the loan and “once the Medicaid benefits are approved, we can be reimbursed and help another person move into skilled nursing.”
Wilson, who declined to announce the total loan and grant amount, anticipates the program will serve about 24 people.
“It’s a really innovative approach to helping people that can’t meet their activities of daily living and need for intensive support, like help getting to the restroom or putting on clothes,” she said.
It’s this kind of programming, along with affordable and supportive housing, is aimed at shortening the list of names read in Milam Park each winter solstice.
“The memorial speaks to the urgency of the issue,” Wilson said. “People are dying from being homeless and we need to be able to provide them with the appropriate services. We still struggle at times to get the community’s support to house people.”
