Flood Watch

Airbnb activates free housing program in San Antonio in wake of Texas floods

With Texas battling torrential rains — and the accompanying catastrophic flooding — online rental marketplace Airbnb announced it is activating its evacuee housing program in 52 of Texas' 254 counties.

Earlier this week, the Llano River reached peak levels, destroying one bridge and causing massive flood damage to homes in Texas Hill Country towns like Marble Falls and Kingsland, and neighborhoods around Lake Travis. At least one person has died due to the flooding, according to the Austin-American Statesman.

Currently, San Antonio is under a flash flood watch through October 19 at 9 pm.

In order to help aid evacuees and rescue and aid workers, Airbnb is running its free housing program now through November 8, according to a release. To begin, the company is asking hosts to volunteer their homes on the site. As of press time, more than 100 local Airbnb properties have been made available to flood victims at no cost.

To find a property, evacuees and relief workers can go onto Airbnb's Texas flooding homepage and search for available housing. Likewise, those local hosts looking to make their homes available to victims and helpers can do so by going here.

How do hosts know if it's a victim or aid worker rather than, say, someone in town for the Tricentennial? An Airbnb rep says the company tries to get ahead of this by encouraging hosts to communicate directly with their prospective renters, ask questions, and manage expectations. Like any Airbnb transaction, all the same protections for both hosts and tenants apply.

Currently, the evacuee housing program area stretches from Waco through Austin and south to San Antonio, and covers the following 52 counties: Atascosa, Bandera, Bastrop, Bell, Bexar, Blanco, Bosque, Brown, Burnet, Caldwell, Coke, Coleman, Comal, Comanche, Concho, Coryell, Dimmit, Edwards, Erath, Frio, Gillespie, Gonzales, Guadalupe, Hamilton, Hays, Karnes, Kendall, Kerr, Kimbie, Kinney, La Salle, Lampasas, Llano, Mason, McCulloch, McLennan, McMullen, Medina, Menard, Mills, Real, Runnels, San Saba, Schleicher, Sutton, Tom Green, Travis, Uvalde, Val Verde, Williamson, Wilson, and Zavalia.

The Airbnb evacuee housing program began in 2012 in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, a superstorm that battered the East Coast, killing 159 people and destroying hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses. Since then, the program has been activated more than 250 times around the world in response to natural disasters.

Airbnb is offering free housing in this area.

Courtesy of Airbnb

Airbnb is offering free housing in this area.

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Hold Your Horses

San Antonio City Council considers plan to phase out horse-drawn carriages

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A scant majority of San Antonians like the idea of ending the practice.

In a special session on Thursday, October 31, the San Antonio City Council will deliberate on possibly phasing out horse-drawn carriages. A proposal called "A Just Transition from Horse Drawn Carriages" has led to a one-to-three-year plan for replacing the horses with electric carriages.

An early project proposal in November of 2022 — written by District 2 Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez and District 3 Councilmember Phyllis Viagran — laid out concerns for the horses' wellbeing, quoting the Animal Welfare Institute. Concerns included exposure to traffic and pollution, long periods standing and walking on hard surfaces, and extreme weather, among other things. In addition to the effect on horses, the request also mentioned environmental effects from slowed traffic.

It proposed completely stopping any new use of horse drawn carriages and letting any existing permits expire. The request also mentioned pedicabs as an alternative alongside the electric carriages, but the pedicabs seem to have fallen away from the public discourse.

Following up on the proposal, a city survey that concluded in August of 2024 found that of 50,476 respondents, a scant majority (51.98 percent) said they liked the idea to "Transition horse-drawn carriages to electric carriages and pedicabs and ban horse drawn carriages completely." Other options like changing hours and location of horse-drawn carriage use were unpopular, and 29.01 percent said they wanted to continue with the current system of use.

A majority of respondents (53.83 percent) had never ridden in a horse drawn carriage at all, and an strong majority of those survey takers cited the treatment of the horse as the reason they hadn't tried it. Those who had ridden on the carriages mostly liked it for the "historical and cultural experience," with examples including feeling nostalgic and learning about San Antonio's history.

The survey did not disclose how many of the people who rode on the carriages were tourists, but tourists made up 21.66 percent of respondents.

In addition to the survey, council members also unanimously voted on August 19, 2024, to have a plan drafted by city staff that would phase out the horse-drawn carriages in one to three years.

The only item on the special session agenda (aside from approval of minutes) is a briefing and possible action on the proposal, meaning that a decision is not guaranteed.

More information about city council meetings is available at sa.gov.

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