San Antonio is pulling its financial support from the downtown Holiday Inn that has been serving as a low-barrier homeless shelter, and the clock is ticking for the operator to figure out what happens next before the lease expires this fall. The shelter is currently using about 150 to 175 rooms and had roughly 106 people staying there this week, according to the operator. With both city and county budgets feeling tight, the future of the site now rests on emergency grants, help from Bexar County or some other short-term deal.
City officials plan to let the city’s share of the lease run out on Oct. 31 and have not committed to continuing funding after that, as reported by KSAT. Nikisha Baker, president and CEO of San Antonio Metropolitan Ministries, told KSAT the nonprofit wants local government to stay at the table because “we don’t want to see it go away.”
According to city budget documents, the city shifted $4.8 million from its general fund this year to keep covering the lease after federal pandemic relief money dried up, while SAMMinistries has taken on the operating costs. Those same documents report the shelter served 526 people in its first two budget years and that more than half of clients left for housing or treatment, a rate city staff point to as a sign the model has worked for many residents…