Commentaries at the San Antonio Report provide space for our community to share perspectives and offer solutions to pressing local issues. The views expressed in this commentary belong to the author alone.
I’ve spent much of this year talking about local housing challenges to people who have never given the topic much thought.
That’s part of my job. Here at the H. E. Butt Foundation, our Know Your Neighbor program exists to share stories of the deep gaps in economic opportunity in San Antonio. This year, we released “Everyone Needs a Home,” a 40-minute documentary on local housing challenges, including rising prices, evictions, development hurdles, and the emergence of San Antonio as a global real estate market even as local families cannot find affordable places to live.
We’ve been showing the film all across town, from community centers to large and small churches to gatherings of affiliate groups and informal networks of friends.
A common response we’re hearing from people who see the film: “I had no idea.”
They had no idea about our city’s past — how San Antonio was designed to be divided by race and class, and how countless neighborhoods are struggling to overcome the consequences of those divisions. They had no idea about our present — how many of their neighbors are unable to secure adequate, safe homes they can afford.
Housing is one of those things that touches all of us, but unless you’ve experienced your own housing insecurity, you may have no idea just how difficult it is for tens of thousands of your neighbors. If you don’t know, you don’t know. The invitation we’re making is to get curious and start paying attention, from wherever you’re starting.
But many people, including the four city council members who recently voted against a housing project that could have been a step in the right direction for San Antonio, do know about these challenges.
Vista Park is the name of a proposed 84-unit apartment complex that was slated to be built on a vacant lot on the North Side. Along with real affordability for families, it offered a pre-K and resources for financial literacy training, workforce development and health and wellness. A public-private partnership, Vista Park had already been awarded $20 million in competitive tax credits.
The project could have been a model of new possibility for families in San Antonio, a proof case of the kind of development we need in neighborhoods across the city.
But 30 people who live within 200 feet of the proposed unit voiced opposition. Despite broader, more vocal and more informed community support in favor of the project, four “no” notes were enough to kill the project.
San Antonio faces severe housing challenges, with over 95,000 cost-burdened households and a deep shortage of homes people can afford. This city remains one of the poorest in the country; according to the United Way, over 40% of local families are unable to make ends meet.
Both city leadership and local voters have been working to address those challenges for several years. We have a Strategic Housing Implementation Plan, adopted in 2021. We passed our first-ever housing bond in 2022, a sure indication that voters want the city to be investing in and supporting projects that create more opportunities for San Antonio families.
But we must follow through, year after year, project after project. Our good intentions won’t matter if a handful of people can block the aspirations of our community.
San Antonio is growing and poised for more growth. As we grow, all of us need to be asking what kind of city we want to be. Do we want to be known as a place that creates opportunity for all kinds of families? Or do we want to continue to be known as a city with some of the deepest economic segregation in the country?
I want us to be a city whose success is measured by how much opportunity we create for families.
I don’t want us to keep being a city where over 40% of families are unable to make ends meet. That’s unconscionable, and it’s also unnecessary. We have ways to address economic hardship. We have tools like Vista Park.
We can’t keep choosing not to use those tools.
I asked a friend who was involved with supporting Vista Park if there was anything else we could do.
“I don’t think so,” she said. This particular project is dead.
But she had another idea: “Teach people compassion?”
Clearly, we are going to need lots more of that.
