Haven for Hope has been assisting with homeless encampment cleanups in San Antonio, with its staff reaching out to camp dwellers to encourage them to accept help from the organization.
Pete Barrera, Haven for Hope’s outreach manager, told KSAT that over the past several months, a large part of his job has been spreading the word about the city government cleaning up homeless and vagrant encampments.
He said such encampments have “been increasing for a while.”
“Right now, a lot of these are recurring sites, and they’re mostly the same people,” he said. “It’s our job to continue to visit with them.”
Barrera travels throughout the city and tells encampment residents about city cleanups, hoping they will accept help from Haven for Hope.
“You meet them where they’re at, no matter where they’re at,” he said, per KSAT.
Encampment cleanups and outreach to the homeless are reportedly two of the City of San Antonio’s top priorities. The city’s new FY 23-24 budget allocated taxpayer funds toward 700 encampment cleanups over the next year.
City Manager Erik Walsh has said one of his goals is to have encampments cleaned up within two weeks of residents reporting them to the city.
“We had a big improvement from the year before, and we’re going to continue improving on that,” added Andrew Gutierrez, director of the solid waste management department, according to KSAT.
“We’re going to focus on trying to clean up some more of the homeless encampments and more illegal dumping,” he continued. “We’re doing it in drainage ditches, wooded areas, you name it … wherever there’s a homeless encampment, our crews go in there and clean it up.”
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Haven for Hope is a homeless outreach nonprofit in San Antonio that functions as a “one-stop-shop” for homeless services, offering both housing and supportive services like counseling, rehabilitation, and job skills development on a single campus.
The organization’s model has been credited with a 77% reduction in homelessness in San Antonio. The model has also polled favorably among Dallas residents.
Mayor Eric Johnson recently visited the campus, but it remains to be seen whether the City of Dallas will pursue a similar “one-stop-shop” strategy.
Meanwhile, more than 80% of Dallas residents say they are unhappy with the amount of homelessness, vagrancy, and panhandling they encounter in the city.
