An unhoused man sleeps on the streets of New York City. Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Linda Fletcher

Editor’s note: The headline of the story was revised to avoid confusion about the difference between city-run warming centers and resiliency hubs.

San Antonio officials said the city won’t open resiliency hubs for overnight warming options during the cold front now gripping the area, even though temperatures will dip below freezing several times this week.

That decision hits the city’s unhoused population particularly hard, especially as those individuals are already contending with overflowing shelters and daily encampment sweeps.

City Manager Erik Walsh illuminated San Antonio’s official plan of action in an email he distributed over the weekend to Mayor Nirenberg and City Council. In the message, he stated that temperatures are low enough to trigger the addition of some temporary homeless shelters and daytime warming centers. However, he added that conditions would have to worsen to trigger resiliency hubs and additional emergency protocols.

In anticipation of the freezing temperatures, groups serving the street homeless population have opened up emergency shelters throughout the city.

“The Department of Human Services Street Outreach, alongside community partners teams (CAM, SAMMinistries, Haven for Hope, Corazon and Centro Ambassadors) began last week their outreach to the unsheltered population ahead of the inclement weather,” Walsh’s email read.

Those temporary emergency shelters include Corazon at Travis Park Church, Communities under the Bridge (CUB), SAMMinistries’ Holiday Inn shelter and the Haven for Hope partnership with Endeavors, Walsh added.

“Our system will add temporary shelter capacity and extended street outreach hours starting tonight for the cold weather,” Patrick Steck, assistant director of San Antonio’s Department of Human Services, told the Current.

In total, the emergency shelters amount to an additional 230 beds for the city’s unsheltered population. Another 100 could become available based on need and weather conditions.

When asked if Wednesday’s and Thursday’s expected precipitation and increased chances of hypothermia will cause DHS to reassess, Steck said, “Most likely, yes.”

“We opened this number based on what we’ve historically seen,” Steck said, noting that the 100 additional beds “may not be necessary, or it may be necessary later in the week.”

However, statistics suggest that the true need far exceeds the addition of 230 emergency beds. The 2024 Point-in-Time (PIT) count, the annual census of homelessness citywide, recorded a total of 3,372 homeless individuals in San Antonio, including 888 who were unsheltered.

And as the Current reported last year, the shelter system is already beyond capacity with a waitlist of thousands of households. The 2024 PIT count showed a 6.8% increase in the homeless population over the previous year, and a 17% increase from 2019’s pre-pandemic levels.

As the shelter system struggles to keep pace with the rapidly growing homeless population, this also creates friction with the city’s plans to remove homeless encampments.

Activists began raising the alarm on social media a few days ago about planned camp sweeps scheduled to occur during this week’s cold front. Advocates argue the sweeps often take away necessary warming items such as blankets and tents and leave people exposed while the system doesn’t have enough beds to accommodate them.

Steck confirmed with the Current that five to six homeless encampment sweeps were scheduled for every day this week as part of the city’s weekly abatement schedule.

This week’s abatements are currently suspended due to weather conditions, Steck said. However, he added that some are likely to occur next week instead.

As is often the case, this rare San Antonio freeze is proving to be a test of the city’s emergency preparedness, shelter capacity and ability to coordinate across city, faith and housing organizations to develop stop-gap solutions for the unhoused.

“We plan for this every year and try to get better every year,” Steck said.

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This article appears in Dec 26, 2024 – Jan 1, 2025.

Stephanie Koithan is the Digital Content Editor of the San Antonio Current. In her role, she writes about politics, music, art, culture and food. Send her a tip at skoithan@sacurrent.com.