The meeting was called to order at 2:02 PM on Wednesday, August 20, 2025, with Mayor and Council present. The work session focused on proposed budgets for three departments: Homeless Services and Strategy, Neighborhood Housing Services, and Animal Care Services.
Mark Carmona, Chief Housing Officer and Director, presented. The department was created to elevate and coordinate the city's response to homelessness. Key points:
Veronica Garcia, Director, presented. Highlights:
John Gary, Director, presented. Achievements and budget:
Council members raised several issues and requests:
No, I don't. Good afternoon. The time is now 2 02 p.m. on Wednesday, August 20th, and the City of San Antonio budget work session is called to order. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Councilmember Corr. Councilmember Castillo Angiano. Councilmember Villagran. Here. Councilmember Mughia. Councilmember Castillo. Councilmember Galvan. Councilmember Alderete Gabito. Here. Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez. Councilmember Spears. Councilmember White. Mayor Jones. Mayor, we have Core. Great, thank you, Madam Clerk. This meeting is to hear about budgets for the homeless services and strategy department, neighborhood housing services department, and the animal care services. Eric, are you ready to begin? Definitely mayor and council. Um, in the order that you just stated, Mayor, we'll start off with um uh Mark Carmona on homeless strategies and services, transition to Veronica with Neighborhood and Housing Services, and then end with John with Animal Care Services. So floor is yours, Mark. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Mark Carmuna, the Chief Housing Officer and now Director of the New Homeless Services and Strategy Department. For the last three budget surveys, residents ranked services to assist the homeless in the top two priority investment ratings for our community. During the last point in time count, the number of individuals counted as experiencing homelessness was 3,625, a slight increase from last year. As socioeconomic costs such as housing and health care continue to increase and impact our local homeless response system. The City of San Antonio will now focus its efforts to address homelessness in our community. I want to recognize some members of the homeless response system that are with us today, Nikisha Baker from SAM, Katie Wilson from Close to Home, Erica Borrego from Corazon, and David Hewitt from Haven for Hope. The work of the homeless response system has increased and improved over the past few years. We will need to expand and further align these relationships moving forward. Through the work of the 43 staff members, the department will direct its efforts this year to reduce unsheltered homelessness, reduce family homelessness, and prevent homelessness. The department will work, will focus its work to align efforts across city departments and external community partners. We must build new cross-system partnerships with health care systems, the local behavioral health system, Bear County and its specialty courts, the community court system, housing developers, and social service systems, just to name a few. We will continue to work upstream in the areas of prevention and diversion of homelessness to include financial assistance, case management, housing stability services, and legal services. We must engage in deeper data analysis to better understand the needs and challenges of the people we're serving. This will allow us to develop a long-term program and funding plan to address the comprehensive needs of the local homeless response system. The plan should address both operational and capital needs. We will need elements of housing to include emergency shelter, transitional bridge housing, supportive housing, and affordable housing as we work to prevent homelessness. To carry this out, we will work on building a business case for the various types of housing needed for the unhoused. Recently, the neighborhood housing and services department concluded its housing bond stakeholder sessions where there seemed to be a growing consensus in the community for transitional and bridge housing. The department was created to elevate and better coordinate the city's response to its homeless residents. We're leveraging existing resources from the Department of Human Services, and we will lead coordination with various cities departments and our homeless response system partners. Our new department is carried out in six areas through our street outreach team, which we'll talk about some today, our encampment abatement coordination, our community connections hotline, through outreach shelter and housing contracts, and through coordination and administration. But you can see the city of San Antonio carries out its planning and policy development function, public safety, coordination and facilitation. We invest financially in this area and provide direct services. Close to home is our HUD HUD designated lead continuum of care agency.