A local nonprofit that houses hundreds of people experiencing homelessness in San Antonio is grappling with the aftermath of an accidental fire that scorched its Northside apartment complex two months ago.
On Tuesday, Bexar County Commissioners Court approved $300,000 to assist SAMMinistries’ services and operations while the nonprofit rebuilds. It’s unclear how much the plan to renovate the Hudson Apartments, which started long before the fire, will cost.
“This was a very crucial step in getting us to move forward,” said Nikisha Baker, president and CEO of SAMMinistries. She estimates it will take about seven months to renovate the damaged apartments.
In November, the county allocated nearly $2 million of its coronavirus recovery funds to rehabilitate and upgrade 36 of the Hudson’s 60 apartments, which house people who have been chronically homeless and have a disabling physical or mental health condition. This kind of housing is called “permanent supportive housing.“
An electrical issue inside a faulty rooftop air conditioning unit sparked a fire in March, damaging 22 of those units. Because they are all connected to the same utility lines, none of the 36 apartments are inhabitable, displacing 23 people, Baker said. Residents have since either moved to a hotel that SAMM operates as a shelter or are sharing apartments at Hudson with other residents.
That means SAMMinistries is not collecting federal housing subsidies for those residents and has lost roughly $35,000 per month since the fire.
“The hope is that insurance covers the damage,” Baker said, but she anticipates a “tug of war” with the insurance company over how much is paid out.
The repair estimate for the 22 damaged apartments is still being developed, but renovations on the 14 that were unaffected will continue. Commissioners Court also approved a contract and plan Tuesday that will fund that work immediately while allowing SAMMinistries to return later with an updated scope of work — and possible funding increase — for the fire-damaged apartments.
That adjustment was necessary, according to county documents, “to ensure compliance with federal law” as the funding comes from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
“At least eight of the units that were originally proposed as a part of this project were going to be upgraded to be ADA accessible,” she said. Insurance won’t cover enhancements — just what it costs to return the property to the condition it was in before the fire — so the county’s funding is still needed.
The deadline to allocate ARPA funds is Dec. 31 and the current expenditure deadline is Dec. 31, 2026. Bexar County has about $17 million left to allocate, not including the roughly $1 million reserved for the second phase of repairs at Hudson.
SAMMinistries will likely return to the court this summer for approval of funding for that second phase, Baker said.
The adjusted contract and phased approach to funding received unanimous support from all four commissioners and Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai.
Commissioner Grant Moody (Pct.3) praised SAMMinistries’ work but later abstained from voting on the additional $300,000 to support the nonprofit’s services and operations.
“If you could get to the insurance payout first, before coming to us, I think it would give us a little more clarity in terms of what the gap is that we can fill,” Moody said.
SAMMinistries purchased the Hudson in the Shearer Hills/Ridgeview neighborhood in late 2021. As part of the redevelopment, SAMM will build a roughly 4,000-square-foot service center that will house a clinic, counseling services and addiction recovery programs.
Permanent supportive housing is a key pillar of the “housing first” model to address homelessness that prioritizes housing over sobriety. The approach is to provide housing first, with no strings attached, while offering case management, recovery and other services.
SAMMinistries has operated scattered-site permanent supportive housing in various apartment complexes and homes for more than a decade and has more than 180 units in its inventory, but the Hudson is one of just two single-site permanent supportive housing projects in San Antonio.
The nonprofit received county funding this year and city funding in 2023 to build a 201-unit permanent supportive housing complex, called the Commons at Acequia Trails.
