April 1, 2021 | Plan for migrant teens at Freeman Coliseum

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Join us now as we go on, Speaker 2: Welcome to on the record.

I'm Jonathan Gurwitz this week, San Antonio and bear County officials opened the door to the Freeman Coliseum for hundreds of migrant children who have crossed the border in the latest surge.

Local non-profits will take care of many of the children's needs.

The federal government will pay the city and the County for housing them joining us is bear County, judge Nelson Wolf, judge Wolf.

Thank you for joining us today.

Yeah, I heard you talk the other day about, pretty passionately about why the County and the city is doing this.

Speaker 1: Well, first of all, I think we need to remember we're all immigrants.

We came from somewhere else.

And, uh, so when we have immigration coming in and we vet people and they seek asylum and we determine they're a good person.

And then we do allow them in here because of the violence that they're running away from, whether it's in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, uh, uh, that's a process we've always had and one that we should recognize.

Now these are young boys, uh, solve all yesterday, uh, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 years old, and got to remember, they came across the border Southern border of Mexico, DEMA Guatemala.

They come over a thousand miles up here and they were stuck in not very good camps on the Mexico side.

So president Biden did make an exception.

The only one that I know that he did that if a young man wants to come over a young young boy or young lady and seek asylum, he let them come across.

And so I think they got more than they thought they were going to get.

And, uh, so they were stuck down there.

And so the work became a working.

We take them to a safe place.

Uh, I felt that we should step up and be a part of that.

We've got 250,000 square feet out there.

So we, uh, made the decision that we'd work with health and human services and bring them in.

And, and they're there now.

And, uh, we got about 495, I believe, uh, probably some more start arriving in the next day or so, but had a chance to go through, talk to the caseworkers, talk to the people that are working with them, actually see the kids.

Um, I must tell you, I thought they would be angry maybe because of the way they were treated and the things that happened to them.

But I saw hope on their faces and, uh, good kids that I could tell.

And when we said a few remarks, they broke out into a big applause.

I love he died of States.

And so we should give them a chance.

You give them a chance to seek asylum.

And, um, they all, I think most of them have relatives here.

Many from Honduras, there's 800,000, maybe a million Honduras that are now citizens of the United States.

And, uh, so they have relatives here and most of them all will be placed with a relative history, go through the process of seeking a solemn.

Speaker 2: The County took the lead in the negotiations with the federal government, with health and human services.

What, what kind of reimbursement, how has this been?

How is this care being paid?

Speaker 1: We're mostly concerned about what kind of services they would be provided there and whether volunteers could help supplement those.

Uh, they, they, they are providing the, uh, uh, caught, uh, a, uh, uh, pad on top of the pot pot or blankets pillows, two pair of jeans, two pair of shirts, five pair of socks and underwear.

Uh, we have shower facilities out there.

Uh, so, uh, they've done the very basic things, three hot meals, two snacks, a dining room.

And so people are stepping up to do something extra.

Uh, I think we had 200 people out there Saturday and other 200 out Sunday, helping set everything up.

Uh, Catholic charities is out there doing the work of getting all the clothes ready and help them get to the clothes.

And then I know there's other groups that want to donate and help would have to go through health and human services to be able to do that.

Uh, we make some makeshift soccer fields back there.

We watched them play soccer.

I called Bobby pedis.

I said, Hey, I think a couple of these guys maybe were better than the guys that are playing for you.

You ought to sign them up.

So, uh, uh, hopefully everything's going to go, okay.

It's not an easy thing to manage when you've got that many young boys together, but we're crossing our fingers and hoping that, uh, uh, everything goes okay.

We're just trying to be help to the federal government and, and, and to health and human services.

We got, we got Homeland security out there.

Uh, uh, so there's, uh, various federal agencies out there.

Uh, we met with CDC officials to make sure we handle it COVID cases, right?

So, uh, I think, we think, think they're gonna do it right.

And we're going to try to work with them and help them any way we can.

Speaker 2: And you mentioned, you mentioned Catholic charities, uh, you're coordinating the County and the city, or, or working with local nonprofits to coordinate the additional support.

Speaker 1: You have to go through health and human services, they to approve it.

And if groups stand up and say they want to do something, then we give that to the local person who happens to live here.

Jose Gonzales, he's doing a great job out there, but, uh, just hoping everything's going to go okay.

As we get more of them here and then get them resettled.

Their goal is to get someone resettled within about five to nine days.

And, uh, like I say, they think up to 80% will have a relative here or a close family member here, uh, that they can stay while they're seeking asylum.

It be all different parts of the United States.

Uh, so, um, yeah, it's, uh, it's a big problem.

And one that I think we're on the road to trying to solve.

Speaker 2: You said, there's, I think there's close to 500. Who are there now is HHS telling you to expect more?

Speaker 1: Well, we, we have set up to handle 2,100 in the facilities that we've got there.

And then in a separate facility, uh, we can handle up to 300 that may have a COVID, uh, and hold them.

There is a required period of time where they can come back in and join the general population.

Uh, I don't know that we'll get that many, but we are best the most we can handle.

Speaker 2: And, uh, are there federal dollars coming to San Antonio?

Yes.

Speaker 1: Local taxpayers dollars are being spent on this effort.

We're getting reimbursed for everything they're paying a rent like anybody else would pay, uh, for the facility.

Um, uh, so, uh, there is not any money out of local taxpayers dollars, all the other things that may be offered to them.

Uh, but the minimum services that are being provided by HHS.

Speaker 2: Well, judge, thank you for your leadership on this issue.

Thank you for the leadership.

You've demonstrated over the last year with the pandemic and there, thank you for joining us here today.

All Speaker 1: Right.

Thanks a lot, Jonathan.

Thank you.

Speaker 2: Joining us now is Antonio Fernandez, CEO of Catholic charities of San Antonio.

Antonio.

Welcome conflict to Catholic charities is one of the nonprofits that's providing services at Freeman Coliseum.

Tell us what you're doing there.

Well, we have been, um, uh, lucky to serve, to have all these, these people in San Antonio as the entity in charge of volunteers.

So, uh, supporting the government, someone needs to, uh, to help provide them background checks and everything else that we do.

So government employees can actually work on, have people to support them, to take her to the caves and do basic functions, uh, just helping with donations and things like that.

So we just valued your support.

And this isn't a new role for Catholic charities you've been involved in providing the services to migrants for a long time.

Correct.

So I think since 2014, that was the first search that we had in San Antonio.

Uh, Catholic church has involved just helping them with anything that they need from a humanitarian point of view.

And, you know, for us kids, our kids, families, our families, and we'll help anyone who is here in San Antonio, Uh, for those people who aren't familiar with Catholic charities.

Tell us a little bit more about what you, the work you do, the broader scope of work.

Sure.

So Catholic charities had who had 40 programs in San Antonio.

We have different shelters for homeless people here in San Antonio, as well as children, as well as food pantries, clothing rooms.

Uh, we help, uh, with assistance with lawyers, nurses, parenting programs.

So to some degree we work from birth to natural death.

I mean, we help everybody who is in the diocese, who is in the city of San Antonio all the way to different counties to the Rio.

Um, and again, we don't care about ethnicity background, um, you know, religion or anything like that.

We just have everybody who walks through our doors.

Hmm.

And you've been over to the Coliseum, correct.

Tell me what's going on there?

Well, uh, for the last four days, we've been, you know, uh, the Coliseum for two days, we were actually setting up the cards and setting up everything for the children when they were arriving.

And, uh, for now two days we have our children.

Um, so it's over 500 kids were there last night.

I assume that we have no more now.

And he's just, you know, kids are coming, they're being processed just to be sure that they have a final destination with a sponsor families in the U S but while they are here, we're helping them as much as possible, you know, with like toys, you know, with, uh, soccer balls, anything, they need food, clothing, you know, and so on.

So it's, it's a good collaboration just to ensure that while they are in San Antonio that had being treated, you know, from a Bay humane point of view.

Hmm.

And the Archbishop he's, he's involved, he's, he's, he's involved with what's going on.

Well, uh, the two this week is, is the week.

Yes.

So it's a busy week for him and he has committed himself to actually say mass on Sunday afternoon.

Yeah.

I assume it's going to have two or three minutes in the morning at the cathedral, and then hopefully we'll go there.

Uh, just for these children, uh, we were able to put, um, a couple of weeks in there where the Lopez, um, over there, and he was amazing to see so many children praying.

Um, and for us, you know, prayer is good.

I mean, it's, you're healing the inside of your spirit.

And I think it was a Bay, very patched to the end to do again, we're not here trying to compare people to be Catholic, or now we're giving it to everybody.

If anyone wants, then we've tried to provide for them as much, as much.

Well, as a nonprofit, you're working with volunteers, how has COVID affected, uh, the work that you're doing that you do Tremendously, as you think 2020 was a very unusual year for us and for everybody.

Uh, we used to have over 10,000 volunteers, uh, in the past per year.

So last year I was on stop.

We didn't have a lot.

And that actually was a problem for us because we have so many people asking us for food.

So, so many people asking us for emergency assistance for, you know, to pay the rent mortgage.

Um, so legal Belita.

We started having more volunteers again, which was a great theme because we have almost 500 employees in all the entities that we have.

But again, we depend on volume tier.

So it COVID has been a stopping point for us, but also we made that reevaluate how we do business and to be better.

And you've got protocols in place for volunteers who are going to the Coliseum.

Oh, wow.

Absolutely.

So, uh, from temporary checks, you know, we background checks, you know, uh, whatever we do to ensure that people are actually good people, as well as then Coby tests, you know, they have to actually have a face mask on.

We have, you know, all the, um, you know, um, liquid gels and everything for them.

So we try our best to maintain everybody's safe.

And I know at a personal level, you, you have been directly involved in helping migrants in the past when we've had some of these surges, correct?

Yeah.

We, San Antonio has been a very generous city, has helped us, um, support our, our campaigns with donations.

So we were able to actually get two mobile units, uh, the first, uh, USDA food pantry, clothing room.

So we have a one unit called hope.

And then we had the first mobile shower truck in San Antonio that we got two years ago in which we can go to the homeless people and just serve them.

So I have twice a week homeless people can come and then actually take a shower at Catholic charities in this mobile units during the winter storm that we have last month, you know, we were able to be out there and provide for all those homeless people under the dispressed ways and the camps.

And, you know, they don't want to go to a shelter.

They want to stay there.

Well, at least we were able to get a soup coffee, you know, something to eat clothes.

So the migrants for us are human base.

We went to the Rio, we've been to Macallan.

We've been to Laredo the same way that when Harvey happened, we were helping in Houston or when in Lake Charles this past year with the hurricane, we were helping with thousands of dollars of wildlife.

So, uh, the migrants for us are human beings and we will help them.

And we pre unified.

Then when they came the parties on the cheer, more separated, the government actually chose us as one of the entities to unify them.

And it was a blessing because San Antonio rally behind Catholic charities.

So we were very lucky, Antonio, thank you for the work that you're doing.

And thank you for joining us today.

Thank you so much for having me joining us now is Dr. Robert LeBrons, the chief medical officer of the physician multi-specialty group at UT health San Antonio, Dr. Levins.

Welcome.

Thanks for having me today, Dr. LeBrons, over the last year, we've added words like social distancing, pandemic, and super spreader to our lexicon.

Now we're in a new phase and with new phrases and one of them is vaccine hesitancy.

Tell us about what that is.

That's a great question is, you know, hesitancy Speaker 1: Has existed long before the COVID vaccine came on the scene.

It exists really with, with all vaccinations that we put forward.

In fact, typically, uh, we, we get about 50% of the population to receive the flu influenza vaccine each year.

So it's, it's not unique to the COVID vaccine at all, where it's particularly important with the COVID vaccine with this new virus on the planet, is that in order to achieve the herd immunity that we're looking for, we're going to have to get above that 50% Mark that we typically achieve with the flu vaccine.

And so that's really the challenge here before us Speaker 2: Is our community, or is Texas an outlier on this issue of vaccine hesitancy?

Speaker 1: It's a, it's hard to know that for sure, Texas is a little bit behind the rest of the country when it comes to immunizing its population.

I think for the nation we're at about 20% of the adult population is vaccinated and we're closer to 12 to 15%.

So there, there could be more vaccine hesitancy here, accounting for that.

Also we have that winter storm here that closed down most of our vaccine hubs for a good week, and that clearly was a handicap as well.

So there's certainly other factors, so hard to know the answer to that, but it very well could be, there might be more, Speaker 2: And there are all sorts of motivations for max, a vaccine hesitancy, but we also know that there are certain communities, minority communities, the African-American community, that Hispanic community that have lower rates of, of folks getting vaccinated as well.

Speaker 1: Absolutely.

But that's also been true for the previous vaccines as well.

So I'm not sure that that aspect is, is unique.

That there's a certain demographic where there's less trust with the technologies we afford, uh, through, through healthcare.

And that's why really one of the, uh, the arrows in our quiver, when it comes to addressing vaccine hesitancy is getting relevant information out.

Now that's not the magic bullet.

There's gotta be other things that we need to do as well, but you can understand, you know, we did use relatively new technology.

It was ushered fairly quickly.

Uh, the kinds of things that any reasonable human would be concerned about before somebody sticks a needle into your body and injects you with somebody.

So, um, so some hesitancy is it's, it's, it's fair.

And, and we need to get that information out to hot, to help combat.

Speaker 2: So speaking of that kind of information, the CDC just came out with a report this week about the efficacy of them RNA vaccines.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

And in fact, I would have to say, I feel more optimistic now than at any other point in this vaccine effort, because as, uh, as we go along and as we gather even more data on these Mr. And a vaccines, they're looking stronger and stronger as you have alluded to, we knew early on back November that these MRNs vaccines prevented illness from COVID.

And that was great, but a lot of questions were left on answered, you know, does it prevent you from spreading COVID if you were asymptomatic?

And what about these new variants, you know, are these vaccines effective against these new variants?

And fortunately the answer to both of those questions, they've come to us in recent weeks, uh, through a number of studies.

And it looks now as if these vaccines do prevent the asymptomatic spread of COVID and that's incredibly important.

And we're very happy with that.

In addition for the common variants that are out there today, uh, all of the current vaccines that are available, uh, do a good job at preventing severe disease.

What I mean by that is hospitalization or death.

And at the end of the day, that's what we're really talking about.

So, and the safety data continues to be strong for these vaccines.

You know, now we're three, four months into the vaccination effort and millions of people have been vaccinated around the world and the safety data looks quite strong.

So I would have to say I'm more optimistic now than I've ever been in regard to these vaccines really ultimately ending this pandemic.

Speaker 2: Dr..

Thank you very much for joining us today.

Speaker 1: All right.

Well, thank you for having me Speaker 2: And now joining us for the reporters round table is Ben Allevo editor of the San Antonio, Aaron Ben, thanks for joining us.

Thanks for having me, Jonathan Dan, you had an interesting story recently about a development near the Pearl two 10 Josephine.

Tell us about that.

So two 10 Josephine is a partnership between the Lynn company and the San Antonio housing authority.

And the reason it's gotten a little bit of attention is because, um, the housing authority, because of, uh, because of its involvement, um, that development is going to be getting a full property tax exemption.

And there's a lot of housing advocates who say that if the housing authority is going to be providing that to a developer, that the level of affordability should be much, much deeper than what it is right now.

It's half market rate and half, um, 80% of the area, median income, and a lot of folks don't consider 80% of the AMI to be truly affordable because the AMI is for the region, not like San Antonio is true AMI.

And there's a, a type of entity that's involved here, a public facility corporation.

Correct.

What, tell us what that is.

So, um, yeah, it can get a bit complicated, but basically a public facility, corporations or PFCs they're nonprofits that are created by governmental entities.

So the city of San Antonio has one, the housing authority has one, which is what the Linde, uh, partnership is.

Um, Hemisfair has one and Alma college's district has one.

And basically if a PFC partners with a developer, it could be a for-profit or non-profit, it doesn't matter if they partner with a developer whatever's built on that land.

That land does not, they do not pay property taxes, um, at all.

And this is under state law.

It's a state law that passed, I believe in 2011.

And, um, the practice of PFCs was actually pioneered here in San Antonio.

So, um, I believe between the four institutes I described now that the city's PFC is officially called the San Antonio housing trust public facility corporation, right?

And they've built something like 16 developments totalling like between four or 5,000 units and been like that.

So the area that we're talking about two 10 West Josephine is near the parol.

There's a lot of development going on in, in the area is that part of the issue is why they're offering incentives for this area.

So th th th the matter of location is a great, um, point because opponents of PFCs will say that, um, they're being built in areas that maybe are more impoverished.

Um, and therefore their mere presence is causing gentrification to happen and causing property values, to rise and therefore taxes to rise for the people who've lived there.

Meanwhile, the developer does not pay any property taxes, um, but they also argue that there are some locations, for example, the one that you're talking about on Josephine street, near the Pearl, there's also one on Jones and Avenue of, uh, I'm sorry, Jones and Broadway.

It's a huge structure that's being built.

It's, it's like, uh, a few blocks from the Pearl, right?

That's a PFC partnership between San Antonio's housing trust, PFC and NRP group.

And folks would say that that's prime real estate, and that would have happened with, or without the property tax exemption Differences, that there are incentives to reach, uh, or requirements rather to reach certain percentages of AMI.

So talk about what those are.

Sure.

So the state law says that half of the units that you build have to be a market rate, which means the developer can charge whatever they want for those units.

The other half has to be 80% of the area, median income.

Um, and again, because the area median income is a, is a lot of folks believe it's inflated.

It's not the true San Antonio median income, which the census Bureau puts at about 54,000 compared to 72,000, which is the area median income for a family of four.

So there's a huge gap there.

Um, now the San Antonio housing trust PFC about half of the units they produce so far have been market rate and 80% AMI, which is sort of that more expensive, um, elk.

They have produced 60% AMI and below meeting folks who make up to that can can In dollar terms, what are we talking about here in San Antonio?

Well, I mean, uh, the is 72,000 for a family of four.

And so I think when you go down to 80%, I think it's like 57,000, something like that.

And it kind of goes down from there.

Um, but, but the issue is that, you know, the city has identified, uh, the fact that it needs truly deeply affordable units.

The mayor's housing policy task force came to this conclusion back in 2017.

And so housing advocates are criticizing PFCs because they're saying developers are getting this huge, huge tax break.

I mean, it's not even a, it's not even a huge tax break.

It's the tax break.

They pay no property taxes at all, versus we should be getting more deeply subsidized units.

Uh, I work in the parole area.

I've seen how that's changed over the last 10 years.

Um, I guess the counterargument is that without those requirements, you would have complete gentrification.

I mean, there are some requirements there.

So it, the counter-argument that the developers would would say is without these, without what we're doing, we would have a more homogenous looking neighborhood.

Sure.

And I, you know, I think there's some truth to that, you know, and, and, and just for the record, I, I am not for, nor it gets PLCs.

I'm just, I'm just regurgitating the arguments that I hear.

Um, one of the things I hear from developers though, I hear that point, but I also hear, um, what they say is that without the property tax exemption, we can't make these projects work financially.

They need that incentive.

And so, and, and the issue though, was that, you know, we requested their financial documents and every single time they've challenged our open records requests with the Texas attorney general.

So it's hard to know whether they're being genuine or not.

I mean, we, we take them for the, we take their word for it, right.

And they're having politicians, you know, that the San Antonio housing trust PFC board it's composed that the board is composed of five city council members and race all done.

It used to be on the board.

And he, he made comments, you know, back when he was on the board saying, you know, we're, we're basically taking their word for it.

And so, so that's, that's the way that's where that stands.

Right.

Thanks, man.

Thank you for joining us.

Thank you for joining us on this edition of on the record.

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