San Antonio now has Safe Haven Baby Boxes ready at three city fire stations, giving parents in crisis a secure and anonymous place to surrender a newborn. The boxes are at Fire Stations 7, 18 and 24, and the San Antonio Fire Department blessed them at a ceremony on Tuesday. The rollout follows years of advocacy and a long stretch of delays.
According to KSAT, the boxes are at Station 7 on South St. Mary's Street downtown, Station 18 on South W.W. White Road on the east side and Station 24 on Austin Highway on the northeast side. The blessing took place at Station 7, which Fox San Antonio lists at 1414 S. St. Mary's St.
Fire department spokesman Joe Arrington said the three locations were chosen because they are in areas where babies have been surrendered in potentially unsafe circumstances, per KSAT's reporting. He also encouraged mothers who need to surrender a baby to use the boxes.
How the boxes and alarms work
Per KSAT, the boxes are climate-controlled bassinets in a designated area of a fire station, and they are electronically monitored. An alarm sounds when the outside door is opened, and a second alarm goes off when a baby is placed inside. The door locks when it is shut.
When an alarm sounds, firefighters inside the station and emergency dispatch are both alerted, KSAT reports. Arrington said firefighters and paramedics immediately monitor the child. If crews at Stations 7, 18 or 24 are out on a call, dispatch serves as a backup and sends the closest appropriate engine or ambulance to assess the baby and arrange care.
The program's own website, Texas Safe Haven Baby Boxes, says an interior door allows medical personnel to promptly and securely retrieve the baby once the exterior door has locked.
What Texas law allows
The boxes operate within the state's Baby Moses law, which KSAT notes allows the legal surrender of an infant who is 60 days old or younger and unharmed. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services describes the law as allowing parents to surrender such an infant anonymously and without legal repercussions. KSAT adds that every San Antonio fire station is already a safe haven location.
Safe Haven Baby Box founder Monica Kelsey, who was abandoned as an infant in 1973, told KSAT she believes the boxes will save many lives in San Antonio. Back in 2022, Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales asked the Texas attorney general for an opinion on whether state law authorized newborn drop-off devices at city-owned sites, the City of San Antonio said.
Years of advocacy and a stalled budget
San Antonio City Council approved $438,000 in the fiscal year 2024 budget to buy and install a dozen baby boxes at fire stations, as KSAT Investigates reported in early 2025. A city official told the station at the time that the money was sitting available but had not been spent.
Pamela Allen, CEO of Eagle Flight Advocacy, has pushed for the boxes in San Antonio for the past three to four years, according to Fox San Antonio. The path to installation also shifted along the way. An October 2025 report from Fox San Antonio said the first three boxes were planned for Stations 24, 18 and 4, with installation by the end of November. Later reporting from News 4 San Antonio listed the stations as 24, 18 and 7.
Why the boxes matter statewide
Texas has seen relatively few surrenders under its safe haven law. The Texas Tribune reported in 2022 that just 172 infants had been relinquished since 2009, with 21 in 2020 marking the most in a single year during that span.
Kelsey told KPRC 2 in July that her organization had recorded nine surrenders in a span of roughly 23 or 24 days, compared with a normal average of 20 to 25 per year. That came after a newborn was surrendered at a box at The Woodlands Fire Department's Station 6.
