SAN ANTONIO — Over the holidays, Opportunity Home San Antonio brought back its Golden Gala.
It’s a celebration housing agency Opportunity Home puts together for its disabled and elderly residents. It returned after a five-year hiatus, and Jose Mascorro feels this is a new chapter for the organization.
After working in housing in Miami-Dade County, Mascorro returned to San Antonio and is the chief operating officer of Opportunity Home.
“When you are working with families in New York, or families in Miami or Los Angeles, San Antonio has the same issues, just at different scales,” Mascorro said.
One of the biggest issues in the city is the long wait list for public housing. It went from 70,000 families in 2022 to 115,000 in 2024. The current number is at 65,920.
Mascorro said that his staff sifted through the list for months to see how accurate the numbers were.
“Our staff was reaching out to the families who had applied years and years ago,” Mascorro said. “Making a determination if they needed a spot on our waiting list.”
He said the need for housing is still there, but many people he talked to said they no longer needed housing, while others couldn’t be reached.
About 24,000 applications on the waiting list are from people who don’t live in the city.
Mascorro says technology gives people the opportunity to apply from wherever.
“With technologies changing, organizations' processes need to adjust and change as well, so new technologies require new administration procedures,” Mascorro said.
He says Opportunity Home receives about 16,000 to 18,000 applications every year. He believes it is vital for the waiting list to have accurate numbers.
“It’s not just a numbers game; it’s really about giving families hope. If they see movement on the waiting list, then they see there’s an opportunity, a real opportunity, they will get housed,” Macorro said.
He believes this can provide hope for future applicants, but says there’s still work to do.
“That’s still 65,000 families. That’s still a high number. That’s why we say we need to continue to improve our processes,” Mascorro said.
