Press and Updates

May 11, 2020

[Excerpt] COPS/Metro, a network of grassroots community and religious organizations, wants $200 million of the city’s and county’s stimulus funds to underwrite what it describes as a GI Bill for the working poor. After beefing up the city fund for emergency housing assistance, COPS/Metro...

May 04, 2020

[Excerpt] While it likely won’t address every need that arises from the economic downturn, [a new City program that provides $25 million in financial relief for San Antonio residents] has been touted as an example of how local government can partly fill a gap for families...

April 27, 2020

[Excerpts below] With a 10-1 vote, City Council increased its housing assistance program Thursday by nearly $25 million to help as many as 20,000 families pay rent, utilities, and internet bills and provide cash to purchase groceries, gas, and medicine as they cope with...

April 15, 2020

[Excerpts] COPS/Metro representatives will be making the rounds with City Council staffers this week, pushing for a rent-control measure to reduce the stress weighing down working families during the COVID-19 outbreak. With stay-at-home policies shutting down much of our business activity, the biggest victims have...

April 11, 2020

[Excerpt] COPS / Metro focuses on arming residents through community organizing, and [Rev. Frédéric] Mizengo has been handed the baton to continue that legacy. .... When Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller shuttered the archdiocese’s churches in mid-March to help stop the spread of COVID-19, Mizengo began...

May 14, 2019

The funeral of Andres "Andy" Sarabia, the first president of COPS, was held Tuesday, May 14, 2019. Livestream video coverage was provided by NOWCastSA. https://youtu.be/RHKZ-2n5_4E

December 20, 2018

[Excerpts below] In August 1974, the same month that President Richard M. Nixon resigned amid the Watergate scandal, COPS members marched on City Hall and demanded better drainage. Some areas of the city lacked paved streets, running water, sanitary sewer service, adequate police protection...

December 05, 2018

[Excerpt below] Project QUEST, the nonprofit workforce development organization created more than a quarter-century ago by the COPS/Metro Alliance, has been awarded a $1 million grant that the organization says will allow it to serve more San Antonians with expanded job training programs. The...

October 30, 2018

[Excerpt below from Oped by Amanda Gonzales] In August, my kids went back for another year at Beacon Hill Dual Language Academy in the shadow of a crumbling, vacant school building abandoned 20 years ago. Old pipes stick out of the wall, as if...

October 29, 2018

[Excerpt below] Victoria Cavazos, of Communities Organized for Public Service Metro Alliance, has a daughter in kindergarten at Beacon Hill Academy. Cavazos said the old building is not only cutting into the children's green space, but as of April, the children haven't been allowed...