K-LOVE CLOSER LOOK: Homelessness Tackled Through Haven for Hope

Closer Look.

Thanks for joining us for another edition of Closer Look.

I'm Felipe Aguilar.

Homelessness is a concern in communities throughout the country.

I'll be talking about this with Terry Bailey,

Director of Communications with Haven for Hope in San Antonio.

So with the recent unstable economy coming out of the pandemic,

inflation and rising housing costs,

we are seeing more people seeking services at our shelter.

We are the largest homeless shelter in San Antonio,

serving approximately 85% of those experiencing homelessness in San Antonio.

I have been to the Haven for Hope campus.

I was pleasantly surprised with what you are doing.

Often after people have toured Haven for Hope,

they tell us, wow, it's almost a city within a city.

So we are situated on 22 acres near downtown San Antonio.

And we were fortunate to work with the city of San Antonio

back in 2008-2009 to acquire some abandoned warehouses

and some property around those warehouses

where we were able to do some renovations

and repurpose many of the buildings,

but also construct some new buildings

for our clients to have access to dormitory-type settings.

We're more than a shelter.

We're a transformational campus.

So if you can imagine,

we are obviously providing,

a safer place to sleep at night.

Okay, we're providing three meals a day,

access to showers, toiletry, laundry services.

But we're also providing assistance for housing,

income and skills development,

mental health services,

access to medical vision and dental care,

ID recovery, benefits assistance.

A lot of our clients may not realize,

especially our clients who are also veterans,

may not realize,

what benefits they are entitled to.

So we have programs and we work with

about 70 community partners,

many of whom are onsite at Haven for Hope every day,

to provide all of these resources

and wraparound services to our clients.

Tell us about your approach and your philosophy

to addressing homelessness.

So we take a very person-centered approach

where our staff is trained to recognize

the trauma that individuals are going through

and help them work through that trauma.

So we're wanting to get to the root cause

of why somebody is experiencing homelessness.

Homelessness is a very complex issue.

No two people are having the exact same situation.

So whether someone is fleeing domestic violence,

they had a medical emergency and lost their income,

loss of a spouse or a partner,

whatever it is, when they come through our doors,

we're gonna sit down with them,

determine what has caused their homelessness,

what have they struggled with,

and find the right program for them.

So when I say we take a person-centered approach,

we also recognize that people will access resources

on their own time.

For instance, if somebody is dealing with

a substance use problem or a mental health problem,

but they aren't currently taking medication

or seeking treatment for that issue,

we're gonna meet them where they are.

So we have two different programs.

We have what is called the courtyard,

which is a low barrier emergency shelter.

Clients in the courtyard tend to be more

of the chronically homeless population,

but they're also a population

that sobriety is not a requirement.

They are not allowed to use or have any weapons,

guns or drugs on our property,

but they do not have to be sober

when they come through our doors for shelter,

meals, showers, et cetera.

They have access to all of the wraparound services and resources, but it's an optional experience for them.

For instance, if they come in and they're just looking for a place to lay their head at night, they want safe indoor sleeping, we provide that.

But our staff is also going to talk to them about the other services that are available to them and encourage them to take advantage of those services.

But if they're not ready, that's fine.

We will continue to work with them and hopefully get them to a point where they're ready.

And we also have the transformational campus where we have dormitory type settings.

We have a sober living program through our partner, Pay It Forward.

And we have different dorms, men's dorms, women's dorms, a couple's floor.

We have a program for young adults.

And then that's where all of our families stay.

They stay on the transformational campus.

The expectation is that they will actively engage.

And a housing and an income plan.

It's quite an operation.

And I encourage anyone, if they haven't toured Haven for Hope, to come out and take a tour and see for themselves how we're transforming lives.

If you just joined us, I'm Felipe Aguilar.

I'm speaking with Terry Bailing, Director of Communications with Haven for Hope in San Antonio.

As I was looking through the Haven for Hope website, I noticed that you listed some core values as to how Haven for Hope.

How Haven for Hope approaches homelessness.

And they included radical compassion, servant leadership, driven by hope, and the pursuit of excellence.

And I certainly witnessed a lot of that during my tour of Haven for Hope.

But expand on those core values for us.

Sure.

So everyone who works at Haven for Hope, our community partners, we all kind of live by those core values.

They're hanging on banners.

They're in framed pictures hanging on the walls.

It's something that we remember.

We remind ourselves of every day.

20% of our staff have lived experience.

That is a key to what I believe is part of our success.

Being able to sit across from someone who has been there and knows what you're going through makes it easier to open up and to be willing to talk about taking a path and accessing resources to transform your life.

So that's where some of that radical compassion comes.

And then servant leadership.

Everyone who works at Haven has that passion, has that ability to look at each of our clients with compassion, put ourselves in their shoes, and try to help them have a better life for themselves.

And when I visited the campus, you mentioned that the Haven for Hope model, if you will, is something that organizations from different parts of the country have gone to see and witness and hopefully be able to apply.

In their community.

Tell us about that.

Sure.

So in most cities and towns, you might have a food bank on one side of your city, low-income health care services on the other side of the city.

So if you're experiencing homelessness, you do not have reliable transportation.

Maybe you're in a city that does not have a robust public transit.

You're not going to necessarily know how to navigate all of the sources available in your community.

So when Mr. Bilgeri, he...

And Mayor Hardberger looked at what did they want for San Antonio and what did we want Haven for Hope to look like, we wanted it to be a one-stop shop.

Have access to all of the resources that somebody would need all right at the same location.

And we were so fortunate to be able to build that where we are.

So we do have a lot of cities, counties, community leaders from across the country that will come and tour Haven.

Learn about our model and try to find ways to replicate it in their own communities.

Each community is going to be different.

You may not have the ability to replicate our exact model, but we are open and willing to talk to anyone who's interested.

There's got to be a lot of collaboration taking place between Haven for Hope and your partner agencies.

We could not do what we do without the collaboration of our community partners.

Probably about 70 or so.

We have a lot of co-agencies that we work with on a regular basis.

And 20 of them have dedicated office space at Haven for Hope, St. Mary's University.

Their law students will come on a regular basis and meet with our clients and help them with things like ID recovery, help them with issues that they might be trying to deal with.

On their record, our housing team is working with the landlords and the property owners to convince them that just because somebody has a previous eviction,

doesn't mean that they aren't going to be a good tenant.

Working through all of those issues and barriers that our clients are facing is really key to how we're able to provide as many services as we do.

That's Terry Bayling, Director of Communications with Haven for Hope in San Antonio.

I'm Felipe Aguilar.

This is Closer Look.

Going back to my visit, my tour of the Haven for Hope facility campus.

The first thing I did was go to the reception building, I think it was.

And I was met by a very helpful person.

A very helpful and compassionate volunteer.

You have many of those at the campus.

We have volunteers who serve at Haven on a regular basis.

Then we have organizations who like to bring in a group and do a volunteer project for their team building exercises, their community service programs.

Everything from sorting donations to landscaping, painting, whatever it is that we need.

Terry, thank you very much for talking to us here on Closer Look.

For those who may want to learn even more, what's the best way for them to do that?

I encourage people to visit havenforhope.org.

And thank you for the tour.

Absolutely, anytime.

For Closer Look, I'm Felipe Aguilar.