EYE ON SAN ANGELO
Concho Valley Community Action Agency Executive Director Mike Burnett has been making the same pitch for a few years now, and he still believes the best solution to homelessness is simple; just give them a place to live.
Speaking to community meetings whenever he gets the chance, Burnett emphasizes the reality of life on the street.
“You can’t get a job without an ID, can’t get an ID without mail, and you can’t get mail without an address,” he points out.
The idea of providing people with immediate housing relief — however humble — is called “Housing First.”
Housing First is not a new concept; it’s worked in big cities like Austin (pop. 961,000), and in smaller, regional cities like Little Rock, Arkansas (pop. 202,000).
A survey of 22 housing first projects across the U.S. showed a clear pattern of success, with an 88 percent increase in housing retention as compared with previous methods.
In an opinion published last year, Burnett wrote:
“The Housing First model reverses the traditional approach. Instead of demanding sobriety or employment before offering housing, it provides stable shelter first—and then offers holistic care: services from social service agencies, faith-based organizations, and other entities working to meet each individual’s unique needs.”
The Rock Rose
They call their project the Rock Rose Community Campus, which will initially house facilities to hold events, along with several micro homes and the facilities residents would need.
People would be referred to Rock Rose from other agencies, and local shelters, as a first step out of homelessness.
Burnett talked about the evolution of the project.
“My first job at the agency was as case manager during COVID for housing, he explained. “At that time, we helped people in 375 households avoid eviction and housed 67 homeless folks. Made some mistakes along the way, did a lot of good at the same time.
“Then in early 2022, is when Navigation Day came into effect.”
“Navigation Day” at First Presbyterian Church in San Angelo is a project that organizes several non profits, community agencies, churches, and healthcare providers. It’s organized by CVCAA and other partner agencies to help not only homeless people, but to help those who are near homelessness avoid eviction or other pitfalls.
“I was thinking, Navigation Day is so good, what if we could do this more than once a month?”
He explained that at that time, San Angelo was lacking in even congregant shelter for homeless people, after the Salvation Army was closed.
“Our homeless neighbors have to be somewhere,” he says.
Burnett says the project has been in various planning stages for almost five years now.
A New Opportunity
In San Angelo, the project is inching closer to reality.
The agency has announced its intent to purchase a sizeable lot on the edge of town along Gas Plant Road. The agency has launched a fundraising campaign, and says they are halfway to their goal.
While Burnett said it wasn’t their first choice, the property has become the best possible choice.
Far larger than the original 14-acre plot off 14th Street, 10 times larger, and it solves a few key problems right off the bat, he said, since there are existing structures on the property that can be adapted to house people and services in an existing 200,000 square feet of space.
This fact alone has brought cost estimates down significantly, compared to the outlay that would have been required at the previous property.
Burnett also says that additional city shelters could one day occupy the space, noting that during the floods in July 2025, the San Angelo Coliseum, the city’s usual shelter spot, was dealing with flooding itself.
The space would give people a home, a residence, both to store their possessions, and to give them the ability to get a steady job. But also, to restore that dignity Burnett continues to emphasize.
Infrastructure
Asked about its remote location, being 5 miles south of the city center near the city limits, Burnett said it was a challenge they could meet.
Many of the services residents need to get access to, such as healthcare, community markets, education services and job training, will be housed on campus, making trips into town less necessary.
Burnett says that plans are in the works for expanded bus and shuttle services to the campus.
A few key infrastructure problems are solved with the new location as well, including improved access to city services and utilities.
Many more of these questions will be explored in further detail as the hearings are made at local government in the coming months. Burnett remains confident, however, that the campus will be able to house at least 200.
A Continuum of Care
Not all shelters are the same, and traditional, congregant shelters exist for people on the street who need help and shelter.
Often a homeless person’s first interaction will be with a first responder from emergency services, or a someone with the Salvation Army, who are working to take care of their immediate needs.
Group shelters have to impose strict rules to maintain order and are unable to offer full privacy.
Additionally, the people staying there don’t have any place to keep their few possessions, forcing them to carry them around at all times.
Housing first acknowledges that while congregant shelters fill a vital need, the homeless ultimately need a place to live more than anything else.
“Theres a lot of dignity that goes along with that,” says Burnett, “our homes are places where a piece of us also resides.”
A person can’t legally reside at a shelter, so they can’t receive mail, and will find that though they may be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, the shackles of homelessness are still keeping them chained to the ground.
According to Burnett, San Angelo Police Department has expressed interest and support in the model, not only to keep people off the street, but in the hopes that housing first will reduce the number of homeless who require emergency services and medical attention.
San Angelo Struggles With Poverty
CVCAA and the First Presbyterian Church in San Angelo operate a monthly workshop called Navigation Day on the last Tuesday of each month, a place where the homeless or housing-insecure can come to receive some help. In winter, or during the blazing hot days of summer, the event provides many with shelter.
Burnett is tasked with trying to prevent people on the margins from making a “tailspin” into poverty, and he said the numbers grow each year.
CVCAA says they’ve identified 16,273 residents of the agency’s 11 county service area, most from San Angelo, that live in poverty. Of those, 2,649 are seniors and 5,279 are children.
Furthermore, the United Way has it’s own designation for the people who work all the time and can’t quite seem to get ahead: they call them the “asset limited, income restrained, and employed,” or ALICE, for short.
They estimate that 43 precent of all Concho Valley residents meet this definition.
These people are overworked and underpaid, and usually they are a missed paycheck or two away from homelessness. It can be devastating for these people to deal with unplanned expenses.
“For a family of four: mom’s working, dad’s finding work part time, you’ve got two kids, but now one is old enough to watch the other, but you’re just getting by… a car breaking down, or an unexpected medical bill — these things can send an ALICE household into a tailspin,” he said, “but if we can help these individuals avoid being homeless in the first place…”
Thats the job, and through the help of many partner agencies, CVCAA says they plan on breaking ground on the new site by Fall of 2026.
Misinformation Abounds
According a Facebook post made by Tom Green County Commissioner Chad Decker on July 12, a few residents have misinterpreted the numbers given by CVCAA to smear the effort. He wrote that some constituents feared that the campus would bring up to 14 thousand homeless people to the city each year.
Besides the fact that it would be impossible to house that many people on a plot of land this size, the agency plainly says that the campus might serve up to 12-14 thousand people per year through the social services that would be housed on campus. The campus itself could house up to 250 people.
The proposals will arrive at city government soon.
