Haven for Hope, San Antonio’s largest homeless shelter and resource hub, will start hosting open houses to inspire area landlords to open up their rental homes or apartments to people and families who have experienced homelessness.
“It’s so important for us to break the stigma of homelessness [and] recruit new landlords,” said David Huete, vice president of Transformational Services at Haven. “We want to … bring landlords in to understand what our clients are facing, but also [showcase] what resources are available to them and to their future tenants.”
As San Antonio continues to wrestle with how to respond to homelessness, removing barriers to housing and the stigma associated with the unhoused population are a “big part of the puzzle,” Huete said.
Haven’s first “landlord open house” is scheduled from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 16, and more will be organized in the future. Snacks and door prizes will be provided, and attendees can expect to hear from landlords who have housed formerly sheltered residents as well as partner agencies including SAMMinistries, the housing authority Opportunity Home San Antonio, CPS Energy, San Antonio Water System and United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County.
Attendees can register for the free event here or by emailing ashley.blackmore@havenforhope.org.
Haven currently works with about 150 different landlords across the city, Huete said, but it’s hoping to attract more who will accept tenants who use rent subsidies, have eviction and criminal records, or who list Haven’s address (1 Haven for Hope Way) on an application.
Clients leaving Haven into a house or apartment are eligible for a subsidy that helps pay for application fees, deposits and first month’s rent, he said. They also receive a “move-out kit,” which includes furniture and other home necessities.
“We’ve found that a lot of people who are coming into Haven are underemployed — they just didn’t have enough money saved up to move into their own place right away,” Huete said.
And Haven clients receive an added layer of support from case workers that other tenants may not have, he noted. “We don’t want our clients being evicted … so we’re happy to reach out to that client to intervene on their behalf [if there is an issue] to see what can help that client with, to help them maintain that housing.”
Expanding landlord education
While Haven’s open house had been in the works before the communitywide challenge this year that aimed to house 90 families in 90 days, it’s a “happy accident” that the challenge exposed a need to grow the number of landlords in the homeless response system, Huete said.
Last year, the annual point-in-time count, which deployed hundreds of nonprofit staff and volunteers to survey people experiencing homelessness in Bexar County, found 253 families living in shelters — a 28% increase compared to 2022’s snapshot.
The challenge “really showed us how much more we need to work together,” Huete said.
In December, an average of 70 families were staying in overflow shelter space at Haven. After the challenge, that average dropped to about 40, said Katie Vela Wilson, executive director of Close to Home, the nonprofit that organized the challenge.
While the challenge fell short of its stated goal, the community was ultimately able to house 102 families in 106 days and found significant system improvements along the way.
As a result, Close to Home (formerly known as the South Alamo Regional Alliance for the Homeless) will develop a “centralized landlord engagement program” over the next six months with Haven and other partners, Wilson said.
One of those strategies might be to create a financial incentive for landlords to accept housing vouchers or other subsidies, she said — but ideally, that kind of incentive shouldn’t be needed.
“Our neighbors who have moved out of homelessness don’t create or cause any more issues in the community than the general population,” Wilson said. “With time, there’ll be less fear of the unknown of what it means to work with people moving out of homelessness and I think people will feel good that they’re making a difference in the community.”
