Beginning in fall 2020, Mosaic assisted Bexar County to prepare its 2021-2025 Five-Year Consolidated Plan, 2021 Annual Action Plan, and an Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice. With twelve participating jurisdictions, hearing from community members throughout the area was important to the County, and made particularly challenging by restrictions on in-person meetings due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

To meet this challenge, Mosaic held virtual community forums in each of the County’s four precincts and invited County Commissioners to attend and encourage their constituents to join. Over 120 members of the public participated in one or more of the virtual meetings, discussing housing and community development topics in small group breakout rooms. Each meeting had English and Spanish language channels with simultaneous interpretation between the two provided by County staff. We also held virtual focus groups touching on affordable housing, homelessness, public services needs, and fair housing and equity, with about 100 stakeholders joining one or more group.

Out of this engagement effort grew a set of plans that responded to diverse needs among the County’s participating jurisdictions, including assistance for new and existing homeowners, rental housing rehabilitation, homelessness prevention, and targeted public facility and infrastructure improvements. Mosaic also assisted Bexar County with its 2019 program year CAPER, going beyond HUD’s template to provide an engaging profile of the housing and community development projects the County completed.