Robert E. Lee Tenants Union founder Megan Navarro speaks during a rally outside Opportunity Home’s headquarters on Wednesday. Credit: Michael Karlis

Housing activists and tenants from downtown’s Soap Factory and Robert E. Lee apartments demonstrated outside of the offices of San Antonio’s housing authority Wednesday morning to demand more affordable housing options.

Outside the offices of Opportunity Home, the protest of about 20 demonstrators organized by housing advocacy group Pueblo over Profit demanded public input on future developments, more public housing, and rents capped at 30% of tenant income for housing voucher recipients. Organizers also demanded that folks living at the Soap Factory and Robert E. Lee apartments not be displaced.

The demonstration comes two days after San Antonio ISD’s trustees voted unanimously to demand the city, county and owners of the Missions baseball team meet a set of bold demands if the district is to sell a parcel of land needed to build the minor-league franchise a new stadium.

Among those demands is that 1,250 new affordable housing units be built in the district.

“No amount of stadium deals, no amount of downtown expansion is going to begin to answer the deeply affordable housing needs of San Antonio,” Pueblo Over Profit founder Dominique Renteria said. “We are not against development; we are against undemocratic city planning that puts the pains and the debts of growth on the back of existing residents.”

Advocates from the Historic West Side Residents Association and Oppressed Revolutionaries for Worker Power also attended the demonstration, as did residents of the Azlan Apache Courts public housing complex.

Housing advocates demonstrate outside Opportunity Home’s offices to demand more affordable housing options. Credit: Michael Karlis

The Missions’ ownership needs a 2.3-acre parcel of land currently owned by SAISD for a planned $160 million stadium approved by City Council and Bexar County Commissioners Court in September.

Housing advocate have criticized plans for the ballpark and surrounding development because they include the demolition of the Soap Factory Apartments, a rare low-cost apartment complex downtown.

Further complicating matters, developer Weston Urban, which owns the Soap Factory, plans to purchase the Robert E. Lee Apartments, a separate downtown complex that includes federally subsidized housing units. Weston Urban CEO Randy Smith also is part owner of the Missions.

After seeing the consequences of Weston Urban’s controversial relocation plan for Soap Factory residents, tenants at Robert E. Lee fear they also face eviction if Weston Urban’s $4 million deal to purchase the building is approved.

“A lot of the people that live at Robert E. Lee were at [homeless shelter] Haven for Hope, and they spent years in that system,” Robert E. Lee Tenants Union founder Megan Navarro said. “I’ve seen how it’s broken their spirit. Now, there are people in the hallways having panic attacks in the middle of the night because they’re afraid of losing their housing.”

A couple protests against the proposed San Antonio Missions ballpark project during Wednesday’s demonstration. The project includes the displacement of tenants at the Soap Factory Apartments. Credit: Michael Karlis

While the futures of Soap Factory and Robert E. Lee tenants — and the Missions ballpark project — hang in the balance, City Council is set to be briefed Thursday on yet another $4 billion stadium project, this one for the San Antonio Spurs.

At Wednesday’s demonstration, housing advocates argued that council should focus on approving and building more affordable housing before signing off on another hastily thrown-together project to develop a sports facility.

Indeed, the wait list for Opportunity Home housing vouchers currently sits at more than 100,000, according to TK. At the same time, the average price of a single family home in San Antonio has risen 30% since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to San Antonio Board of Realtors data.

Meanwhile, the average rent in San Antonio is up 14% since 2019, Axios San Antonio reports.

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This article appears in Nov 13-26, 2024.

Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...