The homeless services nonprofit Haven for Hope in San Antonio released its impact report for FY 2023, which noted that the organization served more people that fiscal year than any other since it opened.
Between October 2022 and September 2023, Haven for Hope serviced 9,457 “unduplicated individual clients.” Roughly two-thirds (6,236) of its clients received services at Haven for Hope’s low-barrier shelter, while the remainder (3,221) received help at the organization’s transformational campus, according to the report.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Haven for Hope uses a “one-stop-shop” model of homeless services, providing things like drug counseling, job training, and mental health services on the same site where it maintains transitional housing. The model has been credited with a 77% reduction in unsheltered homelessness in San Antonio’s downtown area.
“There has been a marked increase in the number of families experiencing homelessness in our community,” the report noted.
“Haven operates a 92-bed family residential dorm (FRC) in addition to a Family Emergency Services (FES) program designed for 25 ‘overflow’ families. In FY 2023, we served an average of 60 FES families a day. Contributing factors leading to the sharp increase in families include inflation, rising rent prices, and the discontinuation of the eviction moratorium,” Haven for Hope said.
At its transformational campus, Haven for Hope served 1,085 children and 193 veterans over the course of FY 2023. The average length of stay was 122 days. Its low-barrier shelter saw 298 veterans stay for some length of time, and the average length of stay among all 6,236 clients who received services there was 51 days.
Additionally, the report noted that 91% of its clients that the nonprofit helped get housed in FY 2022 remained housed one year later, and 79% of those who left Haven for Hope in FY 2022 “did not return to any homeless services within the community the following year.”
Haven for Hope’s “one-stop-shop” model has polled favorably among Dallas residents. However, polling also indicates that people in Dallas think homelessness and vagrancy continue to be “major” problems throughout their city.
