Stephanie Koithan
Volunteers at Close to Home count the number of unhoused people in Bexar County on Jan. 23.
The number of people experiencing homelessness in the San Antonio area jumped 6.8% this year, according to the latest point-in-time count tallied in January by federally funded group Close to Home.
However, a closer look at the data shows that this year’s count of Bexar County’s unhoused may not be as bad as it first appears.
On Jan. 23, volunteers at Close to Home wandered Bexar County, tallying a total of 3,372 people experiencing homelessness — a 17.4% increase from 2019, a count carried out before the pandemic. However, of this year’s number, 2,484 were living in shelters, an 8.9% improvement from last year.
“While the overall increase is true, we have seen a 25% reduction of individuals in unsheltered settings during the night of the count since 2019 and a 47.4% increase in those in sheltered settings during the night of the count since 2019,” Close to Home Director of Communications and Development Katie Hubble said, “meaning more people are getting off the streets and receiving services.”
A total of 888 people were unsheltered, meaning they were living in cars, on the streets or other non-traditional living arrangements, as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
That’s an increase of 1.8% from last year, but a 25% decline since 2019.
In other words, this year’s count shows more people are unhoused. However, more of those individuals are in shelters rather than living on the streets.
The rise in homelessness in Bexar County in the years following the pandemic can be attributed to inflation, rising rents, population growth and the end of COVID-19 eviction pauses, Hubble said.
Indeed, rents soared 14.5% in San Antonio between 2019 and 2021, according to data from Apartment List. Moreover, a study published this year by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies found that more than half of San Antonians were “cost-burdened” by housing.
Those escalating costs could explain why the number of chronically unhoused people — those who have been homeless for more than 12 consecutive months — jumped 35% in this year’s count.
Even so, the amount of space available to the unhoused in Bexar County rose by more than 10%, and more space is coming. Nonprofit SAMMinistries plans to build a $43 million, 200-apartment shelter on the South Side for those who are chronically homeless and for youth aging out of the foster care system.
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