Photo Credit: Linda Taylor, San Antonio Current

[Excerpt]

Miller points to the formation 50 years ago of Communities Organized for Public Service, now COPS/Metro, as a turning point in the city's willful neglect of low-income, non-Anglo neighborhoods. The grassroots group organized residents to demand drainage, sidewalks, curbs, libraries and other basic services which wealthy parts of town appeared to have an easier time accessing.

While COPS/Metro's organizing power forced the city to correct course, there's still work to do, Miller said. Complicating matters, San Antonio's flooding problems are only likely to worsen due to the climate crisis.

[Excerpt]

"Catholic social teaching isn't ideological," [Bob] Fleming said. "It says, 'Go out to the people, talk with them, understand them, let them tell you what's going on.' "

....[Sr. Pearl] Ceasar shares Fleming's sentiment about the compatibility of Texas IAF's work and Catholic social teaching. In the 1960s, she studied the documents of the Second Vatican Council, which she said greatly impacted her outlook on the responsibilities of individual Catholics and the Catholic Church.

"Vatican II didn't address the doctrines of the church; it addressed the relationships in the church and who we are to be as Catholics," Ceasar said. "Meaning that we are to be engaged with people, we are to be engaged in the community."

For 50 years, Texas IAF Organizing Group Has Drawn on Catholic Roots, National Catholic Reporter [pdf]

[Photo Credit: Ronald Cortes, San Antonio Express News]

[Excerpt]

"...not enough San Antonians are landing jobs through the city sales-tax funded program, say leaders with the interfaith grassroots advocacy group. The city has failed to meet its goal that 80% of Ready to Work participants will find employment paying at least $15 an hour within six months of finishing their training.

[Photo Credit: Reform Austin]

[Excerpt]

"More than a hundred people marched from St. Michael's Catholic Church to the Alamodome on Saturday to hang around 2000 t-shirts in front of the parking lot. 

[Photo Credit: Today's Catholic Newspaper]
[Excerpt]

"Along with Texas Impact and Mission Presbytery, COPS/Metro drew almost 500 working-class people from 61 groups all over the city to St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church on the city’s Southeast Side.

In a prelude to events, or what they called an action, at the Alamodome [that] weekend, they invited public officials and business leaders and probed their commitment to solving neighborhood problems, especially those involving public safety."

On November 19th, the city of San Antonio ran a voluntary gun buy back program that allowed residents to safely dispose of firearms in an effort to reduce the number of gun related deaths in the city by reducing the concentration of firearms.

The effort was spearheaded by District 9 Councilman John Courage who spotlighted the Memorial to the Lost that was organized by COPS/Metro the day prior.

Trade in Firearms for HEB Gift Cards with New Buyback Program in San Antonio, Spectrum News 1 [pdf]

[Excerpt]

[A] new coalition of neighborhoods, churches and others formed Communities Organized for Public Service, or COPS, in 1974....

“That was the perfect storm that planted the seed that allowed COPS to flourish,” said Father Mike DeGerolami, also a leader for COPS/Metro Alliance.

...Garza said needed projects and improvements only proceeded after the community demanded that a piece of the city budget be spent on the West Side.

Struggle, Determination Mark History of Westwood Square, KSAT [pdf]