An estimated 170 people are sleeping on the streets of Cattleman Square, a Near West Side San Antonio neighborhood where the homeless population has jumped 126 percent since 2023, and a coalition of nonprofits and city-backed agencies now says it wants to move all of them into housing within nine months. The effort could cost as much as $12.6 million and take up to three years to fully play out.
The push is being coordinated through the San Antonio Housing Trust, a nonprofit founded by the city to create and preserve affordable housing, which is leading a broader revitalization initiative for the 192-acre neighborhood, according to the San Antonio Express-News. Cattleman Square sits between the Bexar County Jail and the Haven for Hope homeless shelter, and it also includes part of the University of Texas at San Antonio's downtown campus and VIA Metropolitan Transit's Centro Plaza, according to the same report. Close to Home, the nonprofit agency that coordinates the region's homelessness response, will serve as the backbone of the effort and is tapping donors and seeking nonprofit partners to help fund it, the paper reports.
The scale of the growth is stark. Close to Home's point-in-time count found 61 people living on Cattleman Square's streets in 2023; by 2025 that number had climbed to 138, with an estimated 170 now sleeping there, per the Express-News account. Development projects in the neighborhood have failed in part because of the growing homeless population, the outlet notes, and city officials have said folks want a path forward, according to Pete Alanis, who said moving homeless people into housing is a key part of the revitalization effort.
A Temporary Pause on Encampment Sweeps
To give outreach workers room to work, San Antonio will temporarily stop clearing homeless encampments in Cattleman Square for several months, the report states. That pause runs against the backdrop of Texas House Bill 1925, which since September 2021 has made public camping a statewide Class C misdemeanor punishable by fines up to $500 and requires officers to redirect unhoused people to shelter or nonprofit resources during enforcement, according to the Texas Tribune. San Antonio has also maintained its own municipal camping ordinance since 2005.
Corazón Ministries outreach workers are in Cattleman Square five days a week, providing water and information about medical, mental health, addiction-recovery and housing-assistance services, the Express-News reports. Lacey Maderas, who works for Corazón Ministries, is part of that daily presence, and the organization has ramped up its outreach work in the neighborhood over the past year. Erika Borrego said people experiencing homelessness are interested in accessing services and leaving the street, and she is hiring a nurse practitioner, a social worker and a driver to expand that outreach.
Housing Assistance Numbers Take Shape
The housing assistance plan under discussion could house 169 people for as much as $12.6 million, or a scaled-back version could house 112 people for about $9.5 million, according to figures cited by the Express-News. The effort currently has $4.8 million in local resources committed. Intensive outreach work could begin within six months once funding and partners are in place, and homeless people in Cattleman Square could move into housing within nine months, per the same report.
Once people are moved off the street, nonprofit outreach workers and other agencies will increase their work to quickly place newly homeless people in shelter, housing or recovery, and area nonprofit outreach workers will move people into addiction recovery centers, shelters or affordable housing, the newspaper reports. Close to Home will maintain a list of all homeless people in Cattleman Square to track progress. Bexar County Jail will also dedicate staff to coordinate with homeless outreach nonprofits, connecting people discharged from jail with housing-placement services.
Katie Wilson said, “Ultimately we don’t want to see anybody sleeping on the street,” capturing the goal driving the coalition's work, per the Express-News account.
The Commons at Acequia Trails and a Master Plan
A key piece of the housing puzzle is the Commons at Acequia Trails, a soon-to-open low-cost apartment complex with social services that will reserve 80 affordable housing units specifically for Cattleman Square's homeless population. Local officials broke ground on the $56.2 million, 201-unit permanent supportive housing project on San Antonio's South Side in April 2025, according to KSAT, which reported the project run by SAMMinistries combines $34.7 million in private funding with city housing bonds and ARPA grants as part of San Antonio's goal of adding 1,000 permanent supportive housing units by 2031. Whether 80 units on the South Side, several miles from Cattleman Square, will be enough or convenient enough to meet the neighborhood's immediate housing need remains an open question.
Meanwhile, the Housing Trust has purchased several buildings in Cattleman Square over the past two years, prioritizing land and vacant buildings near bus stops for potential affordable housing projects. Those acquisitions include 811 W. Houston St., the National Grocer Co. building at 421 Medina St. for $4.2 million, and the 900 W. Houston block, bought using $5 million in CDBG funds, according to the Express-News. Pete Alanis has said the trust is still deciding what to do with each acquired property. The trust's moves come after Westside advocates and the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center pushed to protect historic structures like the threatened Rich Book Building from demolition.
The Housing Trust is also developing a master plan to guide Cattleman Square's future growth and redevelopment, with Urban Alchemy Collective selected in August 2025 as the lead urban planning firm overseeing design, economic feasibility, historic preservation and community outreach for the project. That master plan could be released as soon as December. Ahead of it, the Housing Trust launched Project DC, or District of Cattleman, in March, an outreach initiative seeking public input that leaders explicitly named in contrast to the city's Spurs arena proposal known as Project Marvel, according to the San Antonio Report. Separately, the Housing Trust selected consulting firm 8th and Home, LLC last September to craft a specialized Homeless Response Action Plan meant to serve as a companion to the neighborhood master plan; that firm has advised Bexar County's homeless response system on initiatives like Built for Zero since 2015.
A Citywide Surge Behind the Local Numbers
Cattleman Square's growth mirrors a broader trend. San Antonio and Bexar County's total unhoused population rose 7.5 percent year-over-year to 3,625 individuals in the 2025 point-in-time count, with nearly half experiencing homelessness for the first time, according to Texas Public Radio. That surge coincided with Haven for Hope facing a projected $10 million budget shortfall as federal pandemic relief funds have sunset. A year earlier, San Antonio recorded 3,398 homeless individuals in the 2024 HUD count, ranking second among Texas metro areas behind Dallas and ahead of Houston and Austin, with local leaders attributing the increases largely to rising housing costs and the post-pandemic expiration of eviction moratoriums.
Close to Home received a $22 million Continuum of Care grant from HUD in January 2025, a 25 percent increase over its 2023 funding, to expand rapid rehousing and supportive housing initiatives across Bexar County. That funding will help underwrite the kind of rapid placement work the Cattleman Square plan depends on, even as shelters across the city continue to absorb rising demand.
