At its most basic, a home offers young people safety, security and community.
Though still on the drawing board, one future home for youth is being praised for those qualities — and the work that’s gone into designing it.
Vecindad is Spanish for neighborhood and it’s the name given to a project that the San Antonio Housing Trust has developed with the nonprofit Thrive Youth Center to create transitional supportive housing for homeless LGBTQ+ youth.
At its annual awards event in July, the San Antonio chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) recognized the Thrive Vecindad project, and the architecture and planning firm Able City, with its 2026 People + Place Award.
Thrive Vecindad received the award in the unbuilt project category, noting the project’s community-driven vision and the engagement process that allowed future residents and community partners to help shape its design.
The center is planned as a collection of five structures in the 1600 block of Buena Vista Street in the Prospect Hill neighborhood on San Antonio’s West Side.
Plans call for two existing homes to be restored and repurposed into communal, instructional and supportive spaces. Three new buildings are also planned with 25 units of housing for young adults ages 18 to 24 who are experiencing homelessness.
Residents will be able to spend three to four years there, learning to build community and sustain themselves.
“This is actually transitional housing, so it won’t be a shelter space because you’ll need to either work, go to school, or volunteer so many hours a week in order to qualify to live there,” said Justin Holley, executive director at Thrive.
Youth homelessness and LGBTQ+ youth homelessness is an epidemic, Holley said.
“If you’re LGBTQ youth, you have 120% more chance of being homeless than your non-LGBTQ counterparts,” he said. “Forty percent of all youth living on the streets today identify as LGBTQ.”
Thrive has been providing emergency shelter for homeless LGBTQ youth and others since 2015. Today, rapid rehousing services are now provided by Thrive through grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which are limited to 12 to 24 months.
The nonprofit sought something more, but it was a long-term goal they didn’t expect to reach so soon.
“We were looking to do one house, and we had applied for a grant with the Housing Trust,” Holley said. Then Executive Director Pete Alanis said to him, “Why are you thinking so small?”
Last year, when Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones created the Special Housing Supply Task Force, the LGBTQ+ population was included.
“And it allowed us to think bigger … and potentially build the first of its kind in the Southwest, a transitional supportive housing for LGBTQ youth,” Holley said.
In 2025, the Housing Trust contracted with Able City to come up with a partner to develop the Buena Vista property, and the firm selected Thrive from among six housing providers as the best fit for the property.
Thrive then selected some of its housing and shelter clients to “let them dream” for six months about what they’d want most in a home, Holley said.
Their dreams — safety, security and community.
“These youth, because a lot of them are running away from bad situations or got kicked out, they want to be around people that are like themselves because they’ve never had that opportunity,” Holley said.
They wanted a patio where they could sit and talk with others, a kitchen to learn how to cook meals, green space. They wanted stability — and a home.
Able City guided those conversations and also met with the neighbors for their feedback on the project, going door-to-door in some cases to introduce themselves.
A set of award-winning designs was born of that feedback.
But it wasn’t the end-product that caught the AIA jury’s attention, said Gabriel De Leon, project manager at Able City. They could see the effort put into it.
“It was such a collaborative approach to everything we did that we felt that the project was very meaningful … for everyone,” De Leon said. “This project has the potential to impact a lot of lives in a positive manner.”
In fact, the judges — three nationally recognized architects from Minneapolis, Tucson and Boston — called it “an emotional project with pragmatic ambition,” said Torrey Carleton, executive director of AIA-SA.
“They were rewarding the design process and social intent, not just the form of the building,” she said.
Such an award carries weight, even from a local chapter, Carleton added, and gives a project momentum as it goes out for funding.
Holley expects Vecindad’s cost to come in about $6 million to $7 million, and be completed in late 2028 or early 2029.
The Housing Trust bought the property from Prosper West and will lease it to Thrive through the development phase. When the lease expires, Thrive plans to acquire the property.
While dedicated to LGBTQ+ youth, the project will serve as a “pocket communities” template for other distinct populations, from veterans to seniors and victims of domestic violence.
Thrive Vecindad also has been championed by District 5 Councilwoman Teri Castillo, who serves on the Housing Trust board. Mayor Jones said she was proud to see the project receive the AIA award as her office continues working to support efforts that expand.
