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Posted Apr 19, 2010, 8:44 AM
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Loving SA 365 days a year
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: San Antonio
Posts: 3,891
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One year later and it's open.
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It is a historic day in San Antonio as the highly anticipated Haven for Hope campus, which is already touted as the national model in the fight against homelessness, is being officially dedicated. After nearly three years of construction, the 37-acre, 280,000-square-foot homeless transformation campus is ready to open its doors, and the first residents will begin moving in at
the end of April.
Haven for Hope employees, elected officials, Haven for Hope’s social service partners, community leaders and other dignitaries will gather today to celebrate its completion. The festive dedication will be punctuated as local and state elected officials join Haven for Hope Chairman Bill Greehey in releasing over 1,000 live butterflies. Because Haven for Hope’s mission is the transformation of the lives of the homeless, the butterfly, an iconic symbol of transformation, has been adopted as a symbol of Haven for Hope.
“Haven for Hope is a window on the soul of San Antonio,” San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro said. “It reflects our city's strong sense of compassion and a belief in the power of an individual to transform himself or herself.”
Greehey praised the partnerships and mutual cooperation among public and private sectors that helped fund and build the $100 million project.
“This is one of the biggest public-private partnerships in San Antonio’s history, and it would not have been possible without the dedication, commitment and investment of countless individuals in both the public and private sectors,” said Greehey. “We are so grateful to the City of San Antonio, Bexar County and the State of Texas for dedicating funding, resources and other support. And we have been overwhelmed by the generosity of the hundreds of private donors who have helped us raise over $58 million, which puts us within $2 million of our fundraising goal!
“This is so important because we can’t solve the homeless crisis without everybody working together, and Haven for Hope is proof of the great things that can happen when the government and private sector work together toward a common goal,” Greehey added. “Together, we’re not just going to transform lives, we’re going to save lives.”
Also joining in the celebration was former San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger, who in 2006 appointed Greehey to head a committee to study the homelessness issue in San Antonio and recommend solutions to the problem. The committee conducted extensive research and examined the best practices of homeless transformation facilities across the country.
Combining the best practices from the leading transformation centers, the committee then developed the concept for Haven for Hope, which focuses on transformation and involves a one-stop campus in which individuals will have access to all of the services they need to turn their lives around.
“As a city, we should all be proud of this grand achievement,” said Hardberger. “Not only will Haven for Hope have the most innovative facilities and programming, they will treat our community’s most vulnerable population with the dignity and respect they need and deserve, and help put them on a path to a better life. Haven for Hope will be a place for second chances and for redemption, and who among us isn’t in need of some level of redemption?”
Haven for Hope will begin with a “soft opening” at the end of April as single men begin moving from SAMMinistries shelters onto campus.
Approximately 10 men will move in each day for the first two weeks, and then the numbers will ramp up after that. Women and families from the SAMMinistries facilities will begin moving onto campus in early June, and the entire campus is expected to be completely open to the public in mid June. The campus will have approximately 940 beds, plus an outdoor sleeping area known as Prospects Courtyard that can accommodate 400 initially, but could accommodate many more in inclement weather.
While Haven for Hope has not yet officially opened its doors, lives have already begun being transformed and saved on the campus. The campus medical, dental and vision services all started early last year. Through the end of February 2010, approximately 15,000 homeless and low-income patients from throughout the community have received about 53,000 treatments, valued at well over $3.2 million.
And the Restoration Center, which is run by the Center for Health Care Services of Bexar County and provides critical drug and alcohol dependency and mental health treatment at Haven for Hope, has provided tremendous taxpayer benefits by making better use of valuable police time and more economically and effectively treating individuals who otherwise would have gone to jail, courtrooms or emergency rooms. But most importantly, the facility and its staff have transformed and saved many lives that were once considered lost. For example, one homeless individual who had suffered from drug addiction for 40 years, made it through treatment and counseling at the Restoration Center. He is now living a happy and productive life with a job and a place to live, and he has been clean and sober for nearly a year.
“Haven for Hope is filling a critical void in our community that has existed for too long,” said Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff. “We have already seen the benefit to our community in terms of lives transformed and taxpayer dollars saved, and that impact will further grow as they open the campus.”
Among the more obvious transformations has been the campus itself. An area previously plagued by graffiti-laden abandoned buildings, has been transformed into a beautiful, landscaped campus with safe, secure and attractive buildings.
“When we proposed Haven for Hope, we promised that the facility would be something that would revitalize the community, and we’ve worked hard to make sure that happened,” said Greehey. “Now we look forward to living up to our promise of transforming and saving lives.”
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The sheer scope of the Haven for Hope campus, where officials plan to gather today in celebration of its imminent opening, is remarkable even to Bill Greehey, the San Antonio businessman who was instrumental in raising public and private funds necessary to fuel the $100 million initiative.
“I knew what we needed to do” to help the homeless, Greehey said. “I just didn't realize the extent of all the services we would have to provide in order to change their lives.”
The 37-acre transformational center, which will house about 1,400 residents, has been under construction for three years. Its first residents — 10 men from the SAMMinistries emergency shelter — are scheduled to arrive on April 26.
Residents and others in need will have access to 78 social service providers on the campus. Its medical, dental and vision providers have been operating since early last year and already have served more than 14,800 homeless and low-income patients, according to Haven for Hope staff.
A throng of local officials — among them former Mayor Phil Hardberger, a central player in the center's creation — plan to converge on the center today to speak and release 1,000 live butterflies in a symbolic celebration of the campus's transformational potential.
Greehey said he's excited most of all by the state's $6.1 million investment in the center, which illustrates the campus's influential stature among other cities in the United States and beyond, he said.
Texas “wanted Haven for Hope to be a model for other cities to follow,” Greehey said. “We're going to be saving lives nationally and internationally.”
Greehey called the center unprecedented in its ambitions to change lives.
“Let's face it, we're going to have some problems,” he said. “But we're trying to do everything we can to avoid that by slowly moving these people in.”
Greehey said he expects the homeless population to embrace the opportunities at the campus.
“These are really good people who have had some unfortunate situations that have made them homeless,” he said.
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