Housing in San Antonio
San Antonio has a long progressive history of housing for low-income families and individuals. Some of the first public housing constructed in the United States was built on the West Side of San Antonio. In this spirit, Texas Housers has long considered San Antonio a priority area for our work and have proudly partnered with community groups there for decades who have built community and fought for their neighborhoods.
Historically, our goal in San Antonio has been to center tenants as well as homeowners looking to empower their communities. Whether that is through knowledge shared in our San Antonio Renterzine, listening to community tenant groups, or advocacy in local policy, Texas Housers continues our work in SA until all communities hold a shared equality and people power.
San Antonio has long been a home to those who fight for renter’s rights. We have proudly worked beside groups like Esperanza Peace and Justice Center to preserve housing on San Antonio’s Historic West Side. Ensuring that public housing like the Alazan Apache Courts, which are nearly a century old and still stand today, are kept standing strong is work we are immensely proud to be a part of.
Our efforts have also included working to pass a historic housing bond in San Antonio, working with community groups, city counselors, and more who all are tirelessly pushing to ensure low-income households have an opportunity to to live in a safe and decent affordable housing. This also includes ensuring that housing that exists is not needlessly demolished, which we document in our Ousted report.
We aim to empower tenants all over San Antonio with documents like the San Antonio Renterzine, so if any renter should run into problems with their home, they have a document that tells them where to turn. We also are in contact with local officials to launch the San Antonio Tenant Bill of Rights to codify protections for renters that many are not even aware they do not already possess. A strong renter community is a happy renter community, and once all of our San Antonio renter partners and friends recognize their numbers and power, nothing can stop them from achieving true equity.