SAN ANTONIO – Staff at the Santa Monica Hotel are concerned about homeless encampments around their business. They say they have been having issues with them for years.
“That’s a needle right?” one person behind a camera said as someone from the hotel shot footage of what looks to be a man injecting himself with a substance.
“Yup he’s gonna stick it in between his fingers,” another person behind the camera said.
Their business is right next to the West Commerce Street Bridge and on North Medina Street. We reached out to the city to see what was being done about it.
“We are doing outreach engagement with them regularly,” Assistant Director with San Antonio Human Services Patrick Steck said.
Currently it is illegal to have a tents set up without a permit. Patrick Steck told me they do site abatments in this area every other week depending on how many tents spring up. This means they offer services to homeless people but also take down encampments.
“Again we provide the transportation if folks are willing to go into shelter, if they decline through, our outreach efforts, then they generally speaking are allowed to relocate,” Steck said.
We asked why this area. Steck told me it could be connected to services provided to the homeless. The San Antonio Metropolitan Ministry is right next to the Historic Santa Monica Hotel just a few blocks north is the Via Centro Plaza where someone can catch a bus and the Haven for Hope homeless shelter is a few blocks north.
“We know that there are folks who have been on the streets for a long time and may have a significant distrust of systems, we do know that there are folks out there with mental health and substance use issues and overcoming those can be a real challenge especially the longer that folks have had the experience untreated,” Steck said.
He says they have multiple partners working to address the issue using outreach workers to build relationships with these individuals and get them the help they need. We will have more on what the county and city might have planned for the area.
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