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Survey shows affordable housing, street repairs and encampment cleanup top San Antonio priorities
Summary
City survey results presented to council ranked affordable housing highest, followed by street maintenance and encampment cleanups; councilmembers used the results to argue for prioritizing those services amid projected budget shortfalls.
City staff presented results of a community priorities survey and told the City Council affordable housing rated highest among residents, with street and sidewalk repairs and cleaning homeless encampments also scoring near the top.
Alana Reed, director of community engagement, summarized the outreach methods (online and paper surveys and in‑person cards) and said the survey ran from May 12 to June 6 and was available in English and Spanish. Reed said the survey used standard confidence margins and geographic weighting to ensure district representation and reported an approximate 2.83 percentage point margin of error at 95% confidence for citywide results.
Reed said “housing affordability is nearly 40%” in the priority scoring and that cleanliness/encampment cleanup and streets rose to the top among needs identified across districts. Councilmembers repeatedly referenced the survey during discussion, using the results to justify protecting funding for homelessness services, affordable housing programs and street repairs while asking staff to identify cost‑effective and equitable ways to allocate one‑time resources.
Several councilmembers emphasized equity in prioritizing investments, noting historically underserved neighborhoods in south, east and west San Antonio and asking staff for district‑level breakdowns and a dashboard to track investments over time. Councilmembers also urged staff to coordinate capital projects, code enforcement and drainage improvements to reduce repeated street repairs.
Next steps: staff said survey materials and district dashboards were available to council and that the engagement office will continue to refine outreach methodology. Council asked that survey results be included in the August proposed budget materials and that staff show how prioritized investments would affect residents by district.
No formal policy change occurred during the session; the presentation informed the broader budget discussion.
