OPINION
BY Mike Burnett
San Angelo, It’s Time to Roll Up Our Sleeves — Our Neighbors Need Us Now.
Every January, volunteers across the nation take part in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Point-in-Time (PIT) Count; a one-night snapshot of how many people are experiencing literal homelessness.
Here in Tom Green County, the 2026 PIT Count, conducted Jan. 22, found 194 people experiencing homelessness in a single night.
Of those, 65 were chronically homeless, and 13 were veterans — men and women who once wore our nation’s uniform and now sleep under bridges, in tents, or in doorways across our city.
But let’s be honest with each other, these numbers are only the tip of the iceberg.
The PIT Count is not designed to identify everyone who is homeless — not the families doubled up on couches, the teens rotating between friends’ houses, or the adults sleeping in garages, storage units, or cars where they’re less visible to the community.
In reality, the true number of people without stable housing is often two- to three-times higher.
For San Angelo, that means somewhere between 400 and 600 individuals fall into this expanded number experiencing homelessness on any given night.
And that doesn’t even touch the thousands of San Angelo households living in poverty, or the thousands more in the United Way ALICE population — Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed.
These are the folks who are one flat tire, or one missed shift away from homelessness. They’re doing everything “right,” but still can’t get ahead.
The Most Meaningful Thing We Can Do
So yes — homelessness is here, and it is growing. But we have a solution staring us in the face.
The Concho Valley Rock Rose Community Campus is not just another program. It’s a transformative project led by the Concho Valley Homeless Planning Coalition and Concho Valley Community Action Agency that will provide wraparound services, transitional housing, workforce support, and more!
These are the things that actually keep people from falling through the cracks in the first place.
This campus offers hope not only to the homeless population but to the thousands more living on razor-thin margins across our region.
A campus like Rock Rose isn’t speculation or a dream. These models work.
Cities that build community-service campuses see reduced homelessness, reduced homeless-related crime, and reduced reliance on emergency services that cost taxpayers far more than a proactive solution ever would.
San Angelo is a generous city. We rally around kids with cancer. We fill boots for firefighters. We donate to veterans’ groups. We show up when there’s a need, like we did in a big way last July.
But when it comes to homelessness — especially helping people in visible poverty — the “Not-In-My-Backyard” or NIMBY mentality is stopping progress in its tracks.
A recent proposed location for the Rock Rose campus has faced significant backlash.
People want the problem solved … but not near them.
And here’s the hard truth we’ve got to face together: every time we say “not here,” what we’re really saying is “push them further away.”
Push them into the dark corners of town. Push them into the brush, along the riverbeds, and into the alleyways — the places we don’t have to see, even though they’re already living on the physical fringe of our community, because we’ve left them on the social fringe for years.
We can’t keep pretending that shuffling people from one hidden spot to another is a strategy.
It’s not compassion — it’s avoidance. And it absolutely will not solve homelessness.
Being Homeless is Like Having Three Full-Time Jobs
I can’t talk about this issue without thinking back to Mike’s Night Out, when I spent the night out there in some of the same conditions too many of our neighbors face every single day.
You can read statistics and reports all day long, but nothing prepares you for the moment the sun drops, and the temperature with it. Nothing prepares you for the silence between the wind gusts, or the way the world seems to forget you’re even there.
What hit me hardest that night wasn’t the cold or the discomfort — it was the invisibility.
That feeling of being pushed out of sight, tucked into the shadows, treated like a problem that should stay in the dark corners.
But I got to go home the next morning. Our homeless neighbors don’t get that luxury.
That night changed the way I carry this work. It reminded me that no spreadsheet, or map, or public meeting can ever capture the reality of what it means to be abandoned on the physical and social fringe of a community you still belong to.
This is why the Rock Rose project matters so deeply. Because it will pull people back into the light — into connection, safety, and new possibilities.
And I’m just going to say it plainly: we can’t fix homelessness if we’re too scared to let the solution exist.
Many Hands Make Light Work
Recently, teams of Mennonites have been in San Angelo, helping rebuild homes damaged by the July 4 floods.
It is amazing to see them working together, making incredible progress in very short timespans. And they know how to do it right.
When I lived in Indiana, near Mennonite and Amish communities, I was amazed to see how they tackle a challenge. When a barn needs to go up, the community doesn’t sit around debating property values or worrying about who parks where. They show up. They grab tools. They raise the barn in a day.
Not because they’re superhuman — but because they understand that community means stepping up.
We’ve got to be honest about something that’s holding San Angelo back. There is no perfect place for a project like Rock Rose — because a perfect place doesn’t exist.
Every possible location comes with pros and cons. Every site will have neighbors. Every proposal will have someone who says, “not here… put it somewhere else.”
But if we really want to help our neighbors — these veterans, our chronically homeless, and families teetering on the edge — then it has to be somewhere.
And we cannot let fear, frustration, or the loudest NIMBY voices decide the answer should be “nowhere.”
We can’t claim to care about solving homelessness and then fight against the very tools that solve it. At some point, a community that truly wants change has to say, “Alright. Let’s build this. Let’s make it work.”
And that’s where each of us comes in.
Just Help However You’re Able
We don’t need everyone to give a lot, but we do need everyone to give something — a donation, a supportive voice at a public meeting, or prayer over the project, a willingness to push back on misinformation, or simply a refusal to give in to fear.
Many hands make light work. Many small gifts make big projects possible.
And right now, one of the most important projects in our region’s history is sitting on the launchpad — but it can’t take off without the support of the people who live here.
This is our moment, San Angelo. Right now — not next year, not after another round of public debates or another winter scrambling to provide emergency shelter when the temperature drops.
Right now — we have the chance to change the future for our neighbors. If we act, the Rock Rose Community Campus becomes more than a proposal on paper; it becomes a lifeline.
It becomes the place where people who have nowhere else to turn finally find stability and support.
It becomes the place where ALICE families — the folks working hard, doing everything right, but still living one crisis away from homelessness — can get help before they falter.
It becomes the project that saves us money in the long run, by reducing the constant churn of emergency room visits, jail nights, and crisis-services calls.
It increases safety, strengthens neighborhoods, and helps our entire community breathe a little easier.
And it becomes the place where our homeless veterans get the dignity and the compassion they earned and deserve.
It becomes the proof that San Angelo is not a city content with handwringing — we’re a city that builds, that lifts, that cares.
It becomes the foundation of a stronger, more compassionate San Angelo — the kind our kids will be proud to inherit.
But if we let fear win… if we let stigma steer the conversation… if we let NIMBYism drown out the voices of compassion and common sense… then nothing changes. Nothing.
Except the number of people suffering on our streets — that will change. That number will grow.
And we will have to live with knowing we have the tools to help and chose not to use them.
San Angelo, this is our barn raising moment. This is where we decide what kind of community we are.
I’m asking you — as a neighbor, as a human being, as someone who loves this community — to stand with the Concho Valley Homeless Planning Coalition and CVCAA.
Stand with the data. Stand with compassion. Stand with action.
The time is now. Let’s build hope together.
— Mike Burnett is the Executive Director of the Concho Valley Community Action Agency.
https://conchoobserver.com/2025/06/11/coalition-will-present-homelessness-plan-to-council
https://conchoobserver.com/2025/06/17/burnett-shares-rock-rose-plan-against-homelessness
https://conchoobserver.com/2025/07/28/homeless-housing-targeted-by-executive-order
