Bexar County is home to over half a million children, a number expected to keep growing as development in the area blooms and even more folks move in.
But having more children also means more demand for services, and Bexar County’s youth already face some of the highest rates of poverty, food insecurity and lack of education compared to the rest of Texas.
Children At Risk, an organization advocating for the wellbeing of Texas children, recently partnered with the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University and Family Service, a San Antonio-based nonprofit, to release a 2026 report focusing on child mental health, nutrition and kindergarten readiness.
Nonprofit leaders and public health experts from in and outside of Texas met on Wednesday at a Family Service location on the West Side to discuss the future of San Antonio’s children.
Robert Sanborn, president and CEO of Children At Risk, said the city faces unique challenges when it comes to wealth inequality. “There’s high levels of kids that are growing up in low income families, and that always presents the biggest challenge in terms of when you look at your futures,” he said.
Sanborn also pointed to ongoing immigration enforcement efforts, intensified after President Donald Trump, adding “extra stress” in communities like San Antonio, which is majority Latino. More than 64% of the city’s residents are Hispanic or Latino, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
But the bright spot lies in San Antonio’s residents themselves, which Sanborn described as one of the most community-oriented and civically engaged groups in Texas.
“There’s a lot of civic pride,” Sanborn said. “And that translates.”
By the numbers
Bexar County has over half a million residents under the age of 18, and 31% of those children are under age 6.
Meanwhile, 21.1% of children are food insecure, which is very similar to the state average, and about 80,000 kids in Bexar County are uninsured, meaning medical issues are potentially going untreated.
Food insecurity can lead to increased rates of chronic disease like obesity and diabetes, putting even more strain on health care costs and resources. Even people with access to food may still be affected by the food deserts that exist in low-income areas and the county’s geographic extremes.
“There’s a much larger number of people who may not be food insecure but are not getting the proper nutrition,” said Carmen Valdez, associate dean of research and partnership at the University of Texas School of Public Health San Antonio.
Bexar County’s child obesity rate was 15% in 2022, the most recent available data. The average child obesity rate was 14% across Texas, and 12% across the country.
Health experts also emphasize the need for more mental health and counseling resources. While fewer San Antonio teens have reported instances of self-harm and suicidal thoughts, Children At Risk say Bexar County youth are still being underserved.
The report shows that the student counselor to caseload ratio in Bexar County is 1 to 425. Last year, the ratio was 1 to 411. Experts recommend a ratio of one school counselor to 250 students.
San Antonio children are also likely experiencing added stress due to ramped up immigration enforcement efforts, Sanborn said. In Bexar County, 19% of children come from a mixed status household, meaning one or more of their parents may be an immigrant, or the child may be an immigrant too.
Less than half — 49%— of children are considered kindergarten ready in Bexar County, a smaller number compared to past years.
The low rate of kindergarten readiness could be linked to the shortage of available childcare seats in Bexar County, an issue that’s especially pronounced in ZIP codes on the South Side of San Antonio.
Even if there were more seats, low-income families may not be able to afford them. The Children At Risk report showed that for every 100 low-income working families, less than a quarter of childcare seats are subsidized.
At the same time, Bexar County currently has about 1,700 different nonprofits using both volunteers and paid staff, and most focus on community health and wellness. But these groups are usually working with limited resources and may not be well known or recognized by the people they serve.
Barriers to access and solutions
While the large number of groups with civic missions may be a silver lining of the Children At Risk report, several barriers to access remain.
As part of their report, Children At Risk interviewed several community members who could benefit from the services offered through Bexar County’s nonprofit sector.
The report found that residents often come up against these three barriers: service deserts, meaning a service like childcare, for example, isn’t physically offered in their neighborhood, transportation issues and a hard time navigating complex systems without consistent help.
Service providers also face uncertainty with cuts and threats of cuts of federal funding, which nonprofits often rely on through special grants.
Notably, the City of San Antonio stopped accepting families applying for childcare subsidies as programs around the country are being investigated by the federal government for alleged fraud and abuse. San Antonio’s Metro Health services are also bracing for funding cuts to programs that serve economically disadvantaged children.
Still, Sanborn and other nonprofit leaders in San Antonio see a way through the funding uncertainties and the barriers keeping residents from accessing the resources that are available.
Children At Risk recommends creating “one-stop” locations to prevent referral disconnections and meeting families where they’re at, coordinating workforce strategies to meet the demands for mental health services, partnering with groups that offer low-cost or free services so more community members can have access, investing in infrastructure that eliminates transportation barriers and reaching out to residents in areas with large foot traffic to keep communities informed of where they can turn for help.
Sanborn also said there’s ample opportunity in Bexar County for nonprofits, local government and the private sector to work together to address children’s issues — a sentiment echoed in the Children at Risk report.
“Bexar County possesses strong community assets and a history of cross-sector collaboration that can be leveraged for impact,” the report reads.
Valdez, an expert in public health who moved from Austin about two years ago, suggested that nonprofits use “place-based” models, where people can access a variety of services in a single location, since the challenges Bexar County residents face often intersect.
“It’s focusing on a particular part of the city as ZIP code or specific neighborhood,” she said. “And working with the community holistically, rather than in a specialized and siloed manner.”
