Four25 San Pedro is officially open just north of downtown San Antonio, and the first wave of residents is moving into the 80-unit complex that city leaders are treating like a prototype. The permanent supportive housing project mixes larger family apartments with on-site case management and shared community spaces, all built around one central goal: keep people housed for the long haul.
“Our number one job is making sure our clients stay housed. Everything else is secondary to that,” David Urdiales, a SAMMinistries case manager, told San Antonio Report. The nonprofit will staff the property with one full-time and one part-time case manager, run a resident food pantry, and partner with Opportunity Home San Antonio to reserve 25 apartments for families exiting homelessness.
Developer Franklin Development brought the project to life with help from the San Antonio Housing Trust and the city. The financing stack is as complicated as it sounds: low income housing tax credits, bond funds, and a mortgage backed by vouchers, according to a City of San Antonio news release. The leasing site lists the address as 425 San Pedro Ave. and leans hard on family sized two and three bedroom units plus a package of on site amenities.
A Blueprint City Hall Wants to Copy
Housing officials are not shy about the bigger agenda here. Four25 is being sold as a model for pairing deeper affordability with built in social services across San Antonio. One likely candidate for that treatment is the Commons at Acequia Trails, a permanent supportive housing project with a roughly $56 million price tag, as reported by Express-News.
Architects who worked on Four25 say the design intentionally puts accessible, kid friendly apartments right alongside service spaces and community areas, according to Alamo Architects. In other words, the support is baked into the building, not treated as an afterthought.
From Neighborhood Pushback to Sign-offs
The road to opening day was anything but smooth. The site went through a long stop and start saga in which state school rating rules and nearby residents helped force a redesign that shifted the project to mostly one bedroom units, before planners eventually brought family apartments back into the mix, according to Virtual Builders Exchange.
Developers and the housing trust say that back and forth, plus the hunt for subsidies and extra neighborhood outreach, ultimately produced a version of Four25 that tries to split the difference between local concerns and long term affordability goals.
““What we’ve learned from here, we’re now taking and we’re applying that throughout the city,” Pete Alanis, executive director of the San Antonio Housing Trust, said of the Four25 model, according to San Antonio Report. Supporters point to results from other SAMMinistries projects, where the nonprofit has reported a housing stability rate of roughly 97 percent in similar developments, as noted by Express-News.
