110. San Antonio’s Model for Homelessness: Why Other Cities Look to Haven for Hope

Bob Rivard [00:00:03]:
Welcome to Big City, Small Town, the weekly podcast all about San Antonio and the people who make it go and grow. I'm your host, Bob Rivard. This week's guest is Kim Jeffries, a longtime nonprofit leader in San Antonio, and one who has served as the CEO of the Haven for Hope since 2021. Kim will soon depart that job and this city to undertake the establishment of a comprehensive homeless shelter and transformation center in Las Vegas. The Haven for Hope, which opened in 02/2010, has long been seen as a national leader in providing shelter and comprehensive treatment for the city's unhoused population. Countless cities have sent teams here to learn more and return home to emulate local operations. There are 75 or 80 partner nonprofits offering services at the Haven campus at any given time on the Near West Side of downtown, including everything from housing and food, clothing, medical care, identification recovery, dental work, and more. Kim, welcome to Big City Small Town.

Kim Jeffries [00:01:04]:
Thanks for having me, Bob. I'm happy to be here.

Bob Rivard [00:01:07]:
And congratulations on your big opportunity that's coming your way in Las Vegas. We'll miss you, but we'll watch that with great interest.

Kim Jeffries [00:01:14]:
Yeah. Thank you. It it's an incredible opportunity, one I just couldn't pass up, but it it is hard to leave San Antonio in this compassionate city.

Bob Rivard [00:01:21]:
And we'll talk about Vegas a little bit later in the, in the podcast, but really let's focus, locally if we can first. Mhmm. You're a nonprofit leader who's been serving families and individuals in San Antonio for twenty five years. As you prepare to leave, would you just reflect a little bit on how you've seen the city and its needs change over that time period?

Kim Jeffries [00:01:43]:
Oh, it's a great question. You know, I think as a native San Antonio, been here my entire life. I until I stepped into the nonprofit space, I don't think I really understood the depth of the need in this community. And so, while we're the seventh largest city in this country, the needs here are are pretty immense. Our poverty rate, as you know, is is high. And so that that lends itself to our neighbors needing, support and help from the rest of us. And being a member of the nonprofit community, it's it's been a beautiful thing to be able to step into that space and help neighbors in need in different ways over the last twenty five years. And seeing the growth in San Antonio, people are attracted to this city for a lot of different reasons.

Kim Jeffries [00:02:29]:
And it's a great place to raise a family, but there is there is immense need. And so, I've seen the growth in San Antonio. I've seen it become a a culinary destination, which is great, for people living here. There's a lot for for young families to do. I think we continue to work on being a place where young professionals want to live, and work in this community, and I think that's a work in progress. And the downtown obviously has changed significantly since, you know, in the last twenty five years, in in positive ways in in many instances, but changed dramatically in that growth. So it's been great to watch it, but it's also been, challenging to be to see the need and be a part of serving that need in our community.

Bob Rivard [00:03:15]:
How about your interaction with other nonprofit leaders, both in your space and in related spaces that are basically serving the city's not only, people living below the poverty line, but so many working class families that are struggling holding two or three jobs, still one paycheck away from trouble. And the pandemic had such a profound experience on the city and so many of its families. And I wonder you you actually took the reins of the haven in '21, so we were probably at that phase in the pandemic where there were vaccines, but it was still having a profound impact on the city. And that must have been, a difficult transition.

Kim Jeffries [00:03:55]:
It was. I I don't think I knew what I was stepping into, fully, both from need and the time that you're talking about being in the middle of a pandemic. I will say, all credit to the CEO before me, Kenny Wilson, who when the pandemic started went to this city and said, you know, we have a thousand people here on our campus. If we don't do something about this, we're gonna be one of those super spreader, locations. And so when I got there, there was a hotel that we were operating in addition to our campus where so we could spread individuals out. And the instances of, COVID at Haven were extremely low, and which was incredible.

Bob Rivard [00:04:35]:
That's remarkable.

Kim Jeffries [00:04:36]:
And it was a testament because it could it could have been very different. So it was a testament to the leadership before I got there. So it was a challenging time to step in. And then how do we fold those individuals, when the funding ran out for

Bob Rivard [00:04:47]:
from FEMA for those that hotel back into campus and and

Kim Jeffries [00:04:47]:
keep them safe, it it was an incredibly challenging time. But, you know, the team at Haven is really wonderful and and had kind of we worked with Metro Health and everybody to make sure that that we had the right structure in place to keep everybody safe when we brought people back in. One of the things that has been interesting to me in the homeless services space versus other nonprofit spaces is in the twenty five years that I've worked in this space, I've not seen the type of collaboration that I've seen in the homeless services space in other spaces in the nonprofit sector. And it started from COVID. There was a a a weekly phone call every other Friday that the city lifted up to say, how are we dealing with COVID? And that continued and that continues today. And now we talk about system wide issues and how are we responding collectively to that and who's doing what in the space. So we're not duplicating services or when we are duplicating services is because the need is greater than each any of us can do on our own. And that we're we're filling the gaps in this system in a in a collective way where we each bring our own expertise to the table.

Kim Jeffries [00:06:02]:
And it's I've never seen anything like it. It's pretty incredible, the coordination and the collaboration in this space.

Bob Rivard [00:06:09]:
Well, shout out to Kenny Wilson is certainly deserved. Not only was he a strong leader at the Haven, but, people may not realize he was fundamental to standing up the Krenkowski Foundation, which has had such a profound effect on the city over the last twenty years. Talk a little bit more about that collaboration. I think we've when we were preparing for this episode, I talked about how impressed I was with a a a summit that was held last year that the city in Central San Antonio put on, and you were there with all of the other, major stakeholders, Corazon Ministries, Sam Ministries, and others. And it was a level of collaborative, work that I had never seen before. In fact, when I I'd say when the haven was first established, there was a little bit of tension over resource allocation and who's who was doing what. But, it seems that people were all in sync, at that summit and and accomplishing much more by working together.

Kim Jeffries [00:07:06]:
Yeah. I think it's been an evolution. Haven is always gonna be the biggest part of the response system just because of the scale. And so sometimes it it sucks all the air out of the room. And I think for a lot of years, it did that. And and the other partners felt like they didn't have a voice always. So one of the things that I focused on when I got there to Haven was was really how do we lift up the partners? Because Haven can't do this alone. No one single organization can respond to homelessness in this scale, on this scale alone.

Kim Jeffries [00:07:39]:
And so our, you know, 80 partners, 40 on campus, and and then those partners in the space that are doing the work alongside of Haven and around Haven and what we do are critical to our success. So if we don't have prevention dollars, more people fall into homelessness and come to our gates. If we don't have housing and housing development like Sam is doing, with their permanent supportive housing and affordable housing development, then people stay at Haven. And so we can serve less people over time. And so the entire system working together, benefits Haven. And so how do I lift up those partners and their needs and how have we? And once we started doing that, we realized we all have something incredibly valuable that we bring to this space. And when we all work in tandem, we have the ability to serve people and transform their lives in a way that we couldn't imagine doing ourselves.

Bob Rivard [00:08:34]:
Well, also, you fundamentally serve people that are willing to embrace sobriety. And you do have the, courtyard where people can sleep at night safely, and, they're not actually inside the Haven for Hope and and in the programs. But the people that are inside and in the programs have accepted sobriety. But there is a hardcore, much smaller population. I've I've heard anywhere from 700 to a thousand people, that are out on the streets that either, you know, have mental health issues or addiction issues. And there's other other entities that are serving them that are alongside the Haven for Hope, hopefully, moving them toward a point where they can become Haven clients, but they're they're not there yet. And those those companies that I just mentioned, well, Sam Ministries is one. Cortisone Ministries is another.

Bob Rivard [00:09:24]:
I'm probably leaving some out.

Kim Jeffries [00:09:26]:
Yeah. I think, you know, the unsheltered population, the visible homelessness that I think most people see, because there's this hidden homelessness. You know, when you talk about 1,650 people staying at Haven, nobody can really imagine that many people needing a place to stay. But there's this visible homelessness, and so we're all doing outreach. So Corazon, Cam, Haven, the city, Sam, we're all doing outreach to to get to those individuals and try to bring them into whatever housing is appropriate for them. So that that might be Haven, that might be Salvation Army, that might be Sam's low barrier, non congregate shelter at the hotel. It could be permanent supportive housing directly from the streets. So it's it's what's the right intervention to get to that individual.

Kim Jeffries [00:10:12]:
I think the challenge that people overlook with the unsheltered population is you're talking about people who many have severe mental illness or are active in their addiction. So you're trying to have a logical conversation with somebody who's not in the cognitive space to do it. And so you have to find the moments and you have to connect. And it takes a long time to build that trust with somebody, who is fighting those kinds of, that trauma and those kinds of demons on a daily basis. And so it's not a you go out and they accept services thing. It takes consistent effort and trust building over time to bring people into shelter, and we're all doing that. And so that means they might connect with somebody at CAM, and that's their person that they connect with. Or maybe it's the city worker or maybe it's the Haven individual doing outreach.

Kim Jeffries [00:11:03]:
And so they have lots of opportunities to connect, and hopefully, we can find that right connection that will bring them safely into shelter and housing.

Bob Rivard [00:11:12]:
So a decade or so ago, it seemed to me that there was this debate among cities over whether you should adopt a housing first, policy or or not. And, San Antonio at the time was not pursuing that at the Haven for Hope. But since then, the city's passed its housing bond in the February and, '22 bond. We'll probably do it again in 2027. You hear terms if you're not in in your profession like permanent supportive housing or transitional housing. Would you just sort of explain where the industry has gone in this regard and what these different levels of housing represent?

Kim Jeffries [00:11:50]:
Yeah. I think San Antonio actually is in a much better place than a lot of other communities that you'll find, our neighbors to the north in particular. Because when HUD went in on Housing First, San Antonio went all in on this massive emergency shelter and transformational center. And so we got to do both. We got the the HUD dollars for housing, and then we got, the the scale and capacity we needed for to get people off the streets in the moment while they're waiting for housing. I think one of the the the flaws with Housing First is it assumes that there's a readily available inventory of affordable housing and permanent supportive housing. So whatever housing intervention somebody needs, it's just there. It's not.

Kim Jeffries [00:12:35]:
And so you need some place to transition people, and why not work on the things they need to work on while they're in waiting for housing? And that's what Haven does. And so we've adopted the housing first model over time, and it fits beautifully into the system here in San Antonio. But I was I was talking earlier, partners like Sam Ministries who do permanent supportive housing. So this is housing for chronically homeless individuals who have a disabling condition. So these are people who are gonna have a very difficult time living independently without some sort of wraparound services and continuous case management. So permanent supportive housing gives them continuous case management while they're in that housing and provides the housing support and the subsidy they need for as long as they need it. Some, that could be their whole lives. Some, it may be a couple years and they can, you know, fight, you know, that addiction, overcome that addiction, and then they can hold down the job and do those kinds of things.

Kim Jeffries [00:13:32]:
And it gives them that runway to do that in permanent supportive housing because they have that disabling condition and because they meet the definition of, chronically homeless. Then there's affordable housing. I think we all need affordable housing. Some people just need a subsidy. That single mom, you know, who's raising three kids and working an hourly job making $14 an hour, is gonna have a really difficult time sustaining housing. And so if she can get a voucher, a housing choice voucher, and use that voucher to subsidize it, she's still paying into it, then then she's gonna have long term sustainability. So we have all these different interventions, whether it's rapid rehousing, vouchers in this community, or permanent supportive housing, to match the right housing intervention to the individual in need. And so Haven gets to do some of that work.

Kim Jeffries [00:14:21]:
Sam does that work, and there are other partners in our community that do that work as well.

Bob Rivard [00:14:26]:
Well, when you, when you hear housing authority, leaders talk about this enormously long waiting list of tens of thousands of people, how much of that is people that just need a a voucher because they're struggling with their budget against how much they're paying for housing versus how many people would be on the streets if if they, if they can't get help?

Kim Jeffries [00:14:50]:
I don't know the answer to that question. I would say, you know, just knowing from how many people are in the homeless, response system who need housing, there's around 3,000 on any given day that of, you know, they have longer waiting lists. So they have a waiting list of people who are at risk, and then you have the our 3,000 that are already experiencing homelessness. And so, like I said, the need is great when you're talking about over 10,000 people who need support to to just, you know, pay that rent and and and stay gain that housing stability. There's so many people who are cost burden, which means they're paying more than, you know, 30% of their income on housing in this community. It's because our housing costs have gone up like this, if you look at the graph, and then, wages and income have stayed like this. And so that gap has gone gotten bigger over time, and that's what we're seeing happen. We were kind of out of the fray of that crazy housing market for a long time in San Antonio, but now we're a desirable place.

Kim Jeffries [00:15:49]:
Texas is a desirable state to move into with no state income tax. And so, the the wages in San Antonio have not caught up with, the the increase in housing, and and that's creating greater need, in this community than we've seen before.

Bob Rivard [00:16:05]:
And and for people that aren't really familiar with permanent supportive housing as a concept, talk about that a little bit more. The city's acquired some vacant hotels to use. On the East Side, we've actually developed a a a center for, permanent supportive housing. This is a place where there is paid staff on scene who are trained professionals for dealing with people, many of whom living there still have addiction issues. And somehow or other, they're creating a a safe environment, I guess.

Kim Jeffries [00:16:36]:
Yeah. So it's it's the concept of, you know, the lowest barrier, so no requirements to to move into housing, permanent supportive housing is. And just so you know and and your listeners know, we've been doing permanent supportive housing work in this community for decades. We've just been doing it scattered site. So that means they're in different apartments all across the community, and we're providing that support there. What's different now with Sam and what they're building and with Town Twin Village, on the East Side is that now we have site based permanent supportive housing. And so I think one of the things we we realized with permanent supportive housing at Scatterside is people were missing community. So being a part of a community is a big part of recovery for individuals.

Kim Jeffries [00:17:18]:
And so if we can get them into a site based permanent supportive housing location, provide those wrap around services, and they have a community around them that can support them, then they they're gonna have much better outcomes. And so that's what San Antonio has really, invested in in the last few years, which is important because we have clients in the courtyard who could move directly and have moved directly into Town Twin Village and some of those other permanent supportive housing sites and need that kind of wrap around support, to be success to stay successfully housed. So whether it's medical, dental, case management, mental health services, substance use support, it's all available to those individuals at those sites. It's kinda like the Haven campus, but, you know, permanent housing instead of temporary housing for individuals.

Bob Rivard [00:18:07]:
Some of those people, readily accept that opportunity, and others decline it and wanna stay on the streets for a lot of complex reasons. In a perfect world, how much more permanent supportive housing would we have available in terms of, I guess, beds? And, also, there I've been told there's there's a, a strong need to build more beds for people that are trying to overcome their addictions and that we don't have enough places for, police and others to bring people to to avoid putting them in jail with mental health issues or addiction issues, but that there's a lack of facilities to to serve that community.

Kim Jeffries [00:18:48]:
Yeah. So the city did a study. The strategic housing implementation plan says we need about a thousand units of permanent supportive housing in this community.

Bob Rivard [00:18:58]:
A thousand more or a thousand?

Kim Jeffries [00:19:00]:
It was a thousand when it when it started. So we've rolled out a couple hundred, at this point. So we and there's more in development. So I think, by the end of this first housing bond, there'll be about 500 units that will have been developed, with the original housing bond. We have about 600 individuals give or take on any day on that 3,000 list that qualify for permanent supportive housing. And so if you take that, we we need that thousand, like yesterday. So there's a little bit of runway. So more people will likely be qualify for permanent supportive housing as we're trying to play catch up a little bit with that.

Kim Jeffries [00:19:37]:
When it comes to substance use treatment or honestly, psychiatric beds in this community, nowhere near enough. And I and substance use treatment, it really is if you have, wealth and money and resources, you can find a bed. If you're unfunded

Bob Rivard [00:19:52]:
It's not cheap.

Kim Jeffries [00:19:53]:
Yeah. It's not cheap. And so if you're unfunded, your options are very limited in this community. And we actually lost some, substance use and mental health beds even on Havens campus with one of our partners due to funding, considerations a year and a half ago. We went from a 40 beds to 45 beds. And so we lost capacity there. In addition to that, when the Nix hospital closed downtown and Texas Vista closed, we lost psychiatric beds. And so you're talking over 200 psychiatric beds in this community.

Kim Jeffries [00:20:24]:
So where do those people go? When that was their need, they needed that level of intervention. It no longer exists. They ended up on the streets. And so you're talking about highly complex cases of individuals who need beds, and and we don't have those resources anymore in San Antonio. And so something we have to work on, on all angles.

Bob Rivard [00:20:46]:
Talk about, the San Antonio State Hospital. We we, were one of the major, Texas cities that received a significant, infusion of resources from the legislature several years ago to build a new state hospital on the campus. That's been accomplished. There's now the older buildings that were long neglected, and they're empty. They're vacant. Legislators have put in, I think, for $60,000,000 this year, with community leaders in an effort to reactivate some of those empty buildings to, be able to house more people that need psychiatric help. I don't know if that's gonna happen or not, and I don't know if that's the solution in your mind or at least an important next step in the process.

Kim Jeffries [00:21:31]:
I think, if if you look at the the numbers so even the beds that have come online at the state hospital, they're all forensic beds. And what does that mean? That means the jail can place people who need psychiatric support and shouldn't be in jail in those beds. They're not community beds. And so, unless we're investing in community psych beds, for our for San Antonio, we're not gonna make any progress with kind of the unsheltered population on the streets, or we're gonna have to filter them all through the jail system in order to get what they need. And, you know, we're we have adopted the philosophy, can't arrest away homelessness in this community. And so if we're not arresting people and getting them into jail, they're never gonna get this the psych support they need, if they're on the streets because there's not community beds. So even even the additional funding, is for more forensic beds, from my understanding in this community. I know that the county has a plan, to to make some of those community beds, but it's, you know, I can't even remember the tune of it, dollars 500,000,000 or something that they need in order to do that.

Kim Jeffries [00:22:38]:
And so we're a long ways off from adding more community beds that can really make have a significant impact on the need here.

Bob Rivard [00:22:46]:
Okay. I wanna ask how you've dealt with perceptions in the community versus reality about homelessness in general and the Haven for Hope. The, the campus has had its critics, including some of the, people on city council, that have that have represented that part of the of the, city. I found all my visits to be very uplifting to the Haven for Hope when I'm gone. You can see that really impactful work is being done, and and there's no question at all that, significant results are being realized because of what's going on there. And I think anyone who travels to other major US cities in the Southwest and on the West Coast can see that San Antonio's Homeless population in terms of scale is relatively small compared to what you would see anywhere from Austin to Portland to to Denver and some other many other cities I could name. And yet the perception is different when, people are polled, citizens or voters. Homeless is is always high up there on their list of concerns with crime.

Bob Rivard [00:23:50]:
It it it's interesting that people don't seem to realize the difference that's being made here. And that I would extend, Kim, to downtown business leaders who feel that, however, the numbers are, the visibility of, people on the street, their sort of stereotypical grocery cart mentally ill person, is having a a a significant negative impact on the urban core. How do you address that? Because I know it's constantly out there.

Kim Jeffries [00:24:21]:
Well, I think it's it's one of my re regrets at Haven is I haven't figured out how to do that extremely well. And I will say, one of the things I've realized being a native San Antonio, I literally had no idea that this many people were sleeping at Haven every night. And and to your point, when you walk on the campus, there's this, underlying spirit of gratitude and joy and lightheartedness that you would not expect, for people who are down on their luck. And it's a beautiful thing. And it's happening every day behind the scenes quietly in San Antonio. So we haven't been loud enough, to share this is what's happening on this campus every day. I think the other thing is, like anything, once you have something good, you take it for granted. So I keep saying that Haven's kinda like the Alamo.

Kim Jeffries [00:25:12]:
Nobody in town appreciates us, but everybody comes from around the world to see this amazing thing because it is. We're a national model. And so I think, we've been taken for granted just quietly doing this work. More than 53,000 people have been helped since Haven opened. 53,000. So if you're if you're at the Frost Bank Center and you're standing in center court, you would fill that thing not once, not twice, almost three times with the amount of people that Haven has helped in the fifteen years it's been open. That's an incredible feat. That's why you're you're not seeing it.

Kim Jeffries [00:25:44]:
So we haven't done a good job of sharing that and really talking about the impact that Haven had because it's kind of the invisible homelessness. People only see what they see on the streets. They only think homelessness is that. They don't think it's, you know, the guy who the elderly man who had a stroke and then couldn't, you know, work and lost everything that he had. That person is on our campus today. It's, you know, the single mom who can't afford childcare or had to pay for childcare to go to the job and said, I gotta do that over housing, lost her housing. So we had to help her pay for childcare. You know, it's the, the veteran who comes back and nobody really understands, you know, who they what they experienced over there and they can't relate.

Kim Jeffries [00:26:24]:
And so they turn to substances, and then fracture all the relationships in their life. It's it's all of these different people who are me and you, and we haven't done a good job of painting, you know, giving the true faces of homelessness in this community. For the downtown business owners, I think it is, is it's an what we haven't done is given them an invitation into, the how to help us. How can they help support the work that we're doing in this homeless services response space. And and there's there's things that they can do other than funding. And there are people, and I won't name them, who are downtown developers until, I got here at Haven and I asked them, have you ever toured Haven? Nope. Many of them had never toured. The minute they step on that campus, they see the other side of this issue and what's being done in San Antonio, and there's a different kind of appreciation for it.

Kim Jeffries [00:27:21]:
But you can't have everybody come to the Haven campus, so it's it's incumbent upon us to share that impact. And and I would say, just generally, Haven hasn't done a good job of that over the last fifteen years because we've just been doing the work.

Bob Rivard [00:27:34]:
We need to send Erica Rimpel, our videographer over there to, to tell some stories.

Kim Jeffries [00:27:40]:
Absolutely. But,

Bob Rivard [00:27:40]:
you know, another reality, Kim, that's outside your responsibility is the impact that fentanyl and other Mhmm. You know, illicit pharmaceuticals have had on the population. I I experienced something myself on East Houston Street today with somebody who was just absolutely out of their mind and in the middle of traffic. And that kind of visibility, impacts, you know, people, whether they're they're visitors, conventioneers, or people going to work. Certainly, you know, women around, around downtown worry about, you know, their their their safety and and with good reason. And that's a difficult thing because, again, it's it's not something that necessarily, you know, the police can arrest out of and deal with it, and yet it's it's kinda beyond, everybody's understanding of exactly how to respond to this crisis in in in the way drugs are impacting people.

Kim Jeffries [00:28:33]:
Yeah. And I I do think there is we you can't arrest away homelessness, but if somebody is committing a crime, you know, then there should be a response to that. And as sad as it is, as we were talking about earlier, our criminal justice system is the funnel for people to get treatment. So, you know, that may not be the the hammer we wanna use and the route we wanna go, but it's our option right now. And so how do we balance you know, we can't arrest away homelessness, but if somebody is committing a crime, how do we, you know, give them the option to to get treatment, in lieu of going to jail or whatever that may be, or going through the drug course or doing those things. If we don't continue to find a way to to help those people get treatment, and sometimes that is, you know, mandated treatment, through whatever system that might be, then we're gonna we're gonna be in the same situation five, ten years from now in a worse situation, because we haven't done what we needed to do on that end. In addition to that, I think we have to be innovative. We have to what are we we're doing the same thing, you know, with outreach, you know, and we're trying some different things.

Kim Jeffries [00:29:41]:
CAM and Corazon are doing some different things around, bringing psychiatrists out onto the streets and bringing street medicine onto the streets. So let's be innovative in that space. And we are in San Antonio. So, like, let's follow that and see what happens there, and what other innovations can we bring. Houston's got a great model where they go into encampments, bring the entire encampment into to shelter, and then work to prioritize those for housing. So it's a, a movement of the entire group so they get to stay together. So there's some things that we can do, and we've studied and and gone to Houston to to talk to them about their model and learn from it that we can continue to bring to San Antonio. So we're not doing the same thing, you know, every day and expecting different results.

Bob Rivard [00:30:27]:
Glad you brought up encampments. None of us like them. One here is I don't know if this is supported by the data that they're breeding grounds for crime and drug dealing and and sexual abuse and and other problems. Is the word sweeping is generally used in the media to describe, interventions where the camps are broken up episodically and then they reform in other places. What's the right strategy? What are people thinking in your profession about how do we deal with this perpetual, presence of of encampments?

Kim Jeffries [00:31:01]:
Yeah. I think, you know, if you look at how many encampment sweeps the city did last year, I think 700, and they're on on schedule to do more than that this year.

Bob Rivard [00:31:13]:
You mean remove?

Kim Jeffries [00:31:14]:
Remove. Yeah. Sweep. Abate it. So that you know, abate it. But those individuals, come back and are there again. So if you're having to do 700 and more this year, then, the intervention we're using there isn't working. Even though all of our outreach teams go out ahead of those, we get the schedule of those sweeps.

Kim Jeffries [00:31:33]:
We go out ahead. We try to bring people in. I think it goes back to how are we being innovative? And so, yes, I think from a public health standpoint and a safety standpoint, there are some issues in encampments, in many of those encampments. Not all of them, but in many of them. And so how do we balance, again, the kind of law enforcement side with the services side with how do we build trust with that group and and bring them in as a community. They form communities, right or wrong, you know, and whether it's a good community, that supports their needs or not, in a healthy way. They're like family and they create these families out there. So how do we embrace them as a family and take them together and and work to bring them in? And I think that's the missing piece of what we're doing because we can sweep the encampment or abate the encampment, whatever you wanna call it.

Kim Jeffries [00:32:24]:
But it's going to pop right back up if we're not, you know, working with those individuals to to get them into treatment services, or in a community where they can feel like they can still be who they are in some aspects and and not have a lot of requirements and and gradually move them from where they are today into housing.

Bob Rivard [00:32:48]:
Is it important, though, nevertheless, to keep up those sweeps? We look at Los Angeles and other areas where for a long time, there weren't any sweeps, and the communities kind of became not only sort of semipermanent, but they just grew in scale and scope to where it was very difficult for for local authorities to to sort of decide how are we gonna deal with these.

Kim Jeffries [00:33:09]:
Yeah. I think, you know, it's there's differing thoughts on this issue because there's public health issues and there's been research on that for in people in those camps. And then there's there's f impacts and effects for the people when the sweep is done. So there's research on both sides that there's positive and and negative impacts for those. I think it it is important to demonstrate in San Antonio, not that we need to keep sweeping the encampments, but, like, we could and should do better than that. For citizens to be living in a tent on the street and think that that's their best option, like, then we failed. We have failed as a city. And so I think going continuing to go in and talk about services, and that's that's what happens ahead of the sweep, is the important piece of that.

Kim Jeffries [00:33:56]:
And how do we get people engaged in it? And and yes, before it becomes this massive tent city, where we're now saying, yes, it's okay, and it's okay for you to continue to do that, It's it's not okay, and nobody should be living on the street. We we need to have better options, and we need to do better as a community. So I do think the balance of is important of, you know, making sure we're not saying that we we condone and believe that that is the best option for somebody that and and sweeping is a part of that, whether you like that or not or believe in that philosophy because the services are offered in advance of that and, of course, after that.

Bob Rivard [00:34:35]:
You know, for many people, their experience with a homeless individual occurs at a traffic light and somebody panhandling. I need food. I'm hungry. I'm again, this is outside the Haven for Hope, but you're our expert, and we have you in the studio, so we're gonna ask you about everything. What's the appropriate response? I have been told that don't confuse empathy with feeding addiction. And so do not give a dollar or spare change to that person to help them, eat because you're only buying their next, you know, heroin hit or or bottle of booze. That we have an anti panhandling ordinance that was recently passed when that really became a much more visible problem in the city. But as far as I can tell, I don't know if it's had any impact, but I see the same people at the same intersections, week after week, month after month.

Bob Rivard [00:35:26]:
And I've kind of adhered to the to the belief that you shouldn't help them because you're not helping them. Yeah. Fair or not fair?

Kim Jeffries [00:35:35]:
Fair. I think in enabling is a better word, for most individuals, not all. But and so just so you know, the panhandling ordinance is only in certain areas. So there there's very specified areas that where it's illegal to panhandle.

Bob Rivard [00:35:50]:
Why is that?

Kim Jeffries [00:35:51]:
I don't know, and that's that was that's beyond me.

Bob Rivard [00:35:54]:
Okay to panhandle along the expressways, but

Kim Jeffries [00:35:57]:
not downtown. Like, too close to a bank or something where I mean, you can't aggressively panhandle where you're, like, you know, washing the windows and doing that kind of stuff. There's some I don't know all the regulations, but there's some places where it's technically okay to panhandle in our community. I will say

Bob Rivard [00:36:13]:
That seems nuts.

Kim Jeffries [00:36:14]:
It it does. But I will say for individuals that are, on the corner, that becomes a face of homelessness, which is not the true face of homelessness. It's one of the faces of homelessness. But I before I got to, Haven, I, you know, I'm a pastor's granddaughter. I was like, you know, you you're here to serve others. I would give them money. I no longer do that. I carry water and granola bars and socks because it's the number one requested item in my car.

Kim Jeffries [00:36:44]:
And so if I offer somebody socks or water or, a granola bar, something like that keeps in my car, I'm gonna get a better indication of if there's somebody who's looking for help or not because they will tell you no. They will tell you no if they're looking for money or cash. They're like, no, no, I'm good, because that's not what they want. And so if somebody accepts it, then I get to have a conversation with them about help and what that could look like for them. And if they're not, then I'm gonna assume if I gave them money that I would have just been enabling whatever it was that they're they were trying to do. Some people, they're paying their rent that way. I'm not kidding you. I asked one guy and he said, oh, no.

Kim Jeffries [00:37:25]:
I'm just panhandling to pay my rent. Another lady, she's like, well, I got a ticket panhandling, so I gotta panhandle to pay it off. And I'm like, okay. The logic isn't making sense, but, but when you offer something like a meal or, socks or something like that, you get a better indication. So that's my suggestion always to people is if you want to, because some people don't feel comfortable doing that. But if you have that empathetic spirit and you want to do something, water, granola bar, socks, and see what their response

Bob Rivard [00:37:56]:
is. You'd probably agree with me that, people would be better off in the long run if they would just give once and give to the Haven for Hope instead of people on the street. And I wonder if you'll talk a little bit about you're one of the biggest nonprofits in in our community. What your annual budget is, and if we look at that classic pie graphic, where the money comes from and and and, in fact, how you're doing and the situation that your successor will inherit.

Kim Jeffries [00:38:21]:
Yeah. So, right now, about 65% of our income, our revenue annually comes from government sources. So local government, state government, federal government, the rest comes from the community. So What

Bob Rivard [00:38:37]:
what what's your total?

Kim Jeffries [00:38:38]:
About 30,000,000.

Bob Rivard [00:38:39]:
30 million dollars a year?

Kim Jeffries [00:38:41]:
Yeah. So we have to we have to raise about $10,000,000 a year from the private sector. We get money from United Way. We you know, other funding that come foundation support us, those kind of things, the corporations in San Antonio, although those are dwindling some days, it seems like. And then the other comes from government funding. I will say, here's the thing. Haven is an incredible resource to our community, and we're bringing in a lot of additional funding to this community. And I say that because in the first fifteen years, twenty seven percent of the funding for Haven has come from the local government, so city or county.

Kim Jeffries [00:39:20]:
The other 73%, Haven has brought to the table to address this issue. And so

Bob Rivard [00:39:24]:
That was an imbalance really with more private funding than public.

Kim Jeffries [00:39:28]:
And the the public private partnership is important because it gives us the flexibility to meet clients where they're at. We don't we are not prescriptive. We don't have to do one thing and one thing only or treat people a certain way or go through a certain path. So it's important. But I think the the balance of it is without Haven, then, you know, our local community would have to invest significantly more in this in order to address homelessness. And so contributing to Haven, is important for all of San Antonio because we're lifting up the entire system as as the largest piece of it. But it is a challenge, raising that kind of additional money or private money every year. And we had some help with Neustar, until

Bob Rivard [00:40:14]:
Incredible help from both Bill Greer. Incredible. I mean, Bill Greer, we should give him credit for really being the catalyst that even, you know, got the haven for hope into existence and what he personally gave from his family foundation and then the kind of volunteerism and funds that Neustar gave. And now Neustar has been sold and acquired, and and mister Grehe is aging out of active, presence in in the leadership community. And I've meant to ask you what kind of impact that's having on your your budget.

Kim Jeffries [00:40:43]:
Yeah. Mister Grehe still supports us. He just gave a gift in December. So he's I

Bob Rivard [00:40:48]:
saw that.

Kim Jeffries [00:40:49]:
He's still, an incredible support to Haven. And, obviously, this is a huge part of his legacy in San Antonio. I think with, companies getting acquired or moving out of San Antonio, we're we are facing, a more of a challenge. We've had these statesmen kind of in San Antonio, the Red McCombs, the Bill Grehies, the Harvey Najums, you know, the Mays, all of these people who kind of held up San Antonio from a philanthropy standpoint, and they are all aging. And so who's the next generation of statesmen or women, who are gonna continue to lift up this community? And so I think until we answer that question, we don't have some of those significant people. When you think about what Red and the Mays family and Greehi and all of these people, Meijam, have done for San Antonio, it's pretty incredible. And over the next decade, those that's gonna change in San Antonio. And so how are we preparing ourselves for that? So unfortunately, my successor has to inherit that and the loss of Neustar and work to garner support for Haven in a more profound way over the next few years to to make sure this huge piece of our response system stays, stable.

Bob Rivard [00:42:08]:
Of course, those are the big gifts and they make the headlines, but you need plenty of donors that are giving a hundred or $500 or whatever they can afford every year because that adds up too.

Kim Jeffries [00:42:18]:
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Bob Rivard [00:42:20]:
Well, I want to, I don't wanna end the program without, talking about your future. And I know that, the governor of Nevada was directly involved in in a, you know, a funding initiative to make possible what you're gonna do in Las Vegas. So talk a little bit about that. It's maybe might surprise people that in the gambling community or capital of The United States that there's the same homeless, you know, challenge that there is in in other major US cities. And so you're going there, as I understand it, to to kind of, build for that city what we've built here.

Kim Jeffries [00:42:56]:
Yeah. It's an incredible opportunity. They came down. So the casino industry largely, with elected officials, came down to Haven multiple times over the last few years to look at the Haven model and and to determine, is this something that might be a fit for our community? And they went to other communities as well and and landed on the Haven model. And so, they obviously who better to run it than, you know, start it than somebody who's been in the trenches with it. And so, came to me with that opportunity and I just couldn't pass it up because the profound impact, whether people know it or not, that Haven has had on San Antonio, to have that kind of impact on another community is just, you know, a dream. And to be able to take all the lessons from Haven over time and learn, you know, that we've learned and start at a different baseline there, to give Las Vegas, you know, the gambling capital of the world, an opportunity to address this on a larger scale is just is really incredible. They have about three times as many people in their point in time count experiencing homelessness in Las Vegas.

Kim Jeffries [00:44:01]:
So it's desperately needed there, and I think the impact will will be pretty incredible. And and without the governor and the casino industry supporting it, it wouldn't have the revenue it has to to build it or to operate it.

Bob Rivard [00:44:16]:
Is that, is that an exception to the rule that there are three x of San Antonio? Or, I mean, the Las Vegas population, we're 1,500,000 people, I guess. And can you do you know off the top of your head what the official population of Vegas is? I think it's about 700,000 or so maybe not even quite half our size. It's

Kim Jeffries [00:44:37]:
Yeah. And it depends. And I don't know if that's Las Vegas proper because there's foreign municipalities that make up really Las Vegas, things I've learned over time. But yes. So it's disproportionately a larger percentage of the population in Las Vegas than it is here in San Antonio. So they have a a challenge. They they tend to have to attract more people, more people coming in just because it seems like there would be a lot of opportunity there. And so I think while there is, there's also

Bob Rivard [00:45:10]:
Can't handle the high roller. There's also a lot of challenge. And so, the the task

Kim Jeffries [00:45:12]:
is in Las Vegas, challenge. And so, the the task is in Las Vegas and from the governor is to help the people of Nevada. And so, citizens of that state, to help support them and move them not just off the streets, but like we have in San Antonio for the last decade and a half is transform their lives and get them stably housed so they don't return to homelessness.

Bob Rivard [00:45:36]:
Well, you talked about a higher baseline, and and, all of us have an image of casino owners having very deep pockets, and then you have the governor personally invested. Will the business model then be different for you there? Is the state more invested in that because of the governor than, say, Texas or, the presence of the casino owners that you sort of have a a guarantee of private sector money that maybe you haven't had here?

Kim Jeffries [00:46:00]:
So when they came, they listened. One of the things I talked about was financial sustainability for the model. So they have, their state is investing in operation not just the capital funding, but operational funding. Operational funding. And then the local government is also investing in operational funding. So they have the $30,000,000 in operational funding already secured in perpetuity. As long as each party does their part, then the funds are there to do it. So the private sector doesn't have to pick up.

Kim Jeffries [00:46:29]:
They picked up a significant piece of the capital, and they'll pick up some, but the heavy lifting is being done by the state and the local governments.

Bob Rivard [00:46:38]:
So So you're gonna have the luxury of actually focusing on professional services and less on development.

Kim Jeffries [00:46:43]:
Wow. Can you imagine that? Yeah. And what how we can really, really transform lives and programs and things we can do where we have to beg for our dollars here, but those dollars will be available there. And then you can and you can enhance with private sector dollars and do innovative things and some different things that, you know, we sometimes don't have the luxury to do here because we're we're trying to just get our operating, you know, money every year, going.

Bob Rivard [00:47:10]:
Well, we'll watch from afar with great interest, Kim, but, we'll we'll finish by saying thank you for all the great service you've given the community over the years and in particular, your last four years leaving leading the Haven for Hope. And thanks for coming on to Big City, Small Town.

Kim Jeffries [00:47:25]:
Well, thank you. It's been it's been my pleasure to be a part of, San Antonio for all of these years, and I'll definitely be back.

Bob Rivard [00:47:31]:
We'll expect you to move back in due course. Thank you. Please share this episode with friends and colleagues, and do sign up for Monday Musings, our weekly newsletter, at bigcitysmalltown.com. Big City Small Town is brought to you by Western Urban, building the city our children want to call home and geek them where startups are born and smart ideas become businesses. Our producer is Corey Eames, video by Eric at Rempel, and sound engineering by Alfie de la Garza, Sound Crane Audio. We will see you next week.