Family Endeavors

The first expansion aligned with the rise of two San Antonio brothers to national political prominence during the Obama administration, with Rep. Joaquin Castro’s (D-TX) election to Congress and former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro (D) becoming Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). ^{4 5} The latter expansion coincided with a leadership change at Family Endeavors to the organization’s current CEO, Charles “Chip” Fulghum, who had been the Chief Financial Officer of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in the Obama administration. ⁶

Founding and Original Mission

The organization today known as Family Endeavors was originally founded in 1969 as the San Antonio Urban Council by a coalition of five Presbyterian churches to provide services to homeless and low-income residents of San Antonio, Texas. ¹ Two years later, the coalition had expanded to 35 churches and was renamed San Antonio Urban Ministries. ⁷

Over the succeeding decades, the organization expanded its scope of programs for local residents, opening homeless shelters for teenage boys and girls, creating job-training programs for people with disabilities, launching the San Antonio Food Bank, creating after-school programs, and partnering with organizations such as the Salvation Army, Habitat for Humanity, and the United Way. ¹

Expansion and Mission Shift

For the first four decades of its history as a locally focused human service organization in San Antonio, Family Endeavors depended financially on support from local churches, charitable donations, United Way campaigns, program revenues, and relatively small amounts of state and federal government funding. ⁸ It then went through two periods of dramatic growth fueled by federal grant programs, first in the 2010s as it shifted its focus to providing federally funded services to military veterans and their families across the country, and then again in the 2020s as it became the recipient of billions of dollars in federal grants to provide services to illegal immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. ⁹

From 2010 through 2022, Family Endeavors’ budget underwent a more-than-2,000-fold expansion thanks almost entirely to federal grants, growing from $3.9 million to $1.9 billion during that time before falling back to $509.9 million in 2024. ⁹

Veterans Services

Family Endeavors’ dependence on government grants increased dramatically in the 2010s, growing from $1 million in 2011 to $1.8 million in 2012 and $3 million in 2013, then accelerating sharply to $11.4 million in 2014, $16.7 million in 2015, $18.9 million in 2016, and $21.2 million in 2017. ⁹

This growth period for Family Endeavors’ federal grants is coincident with the move of San Antonio Democratic politicians Joaquin Castro and Julian Castro to roles in the federal government, with former Joaquin being elected to Congress in 2013 and his brother Julian, who had been mayor of San Antonio from 2009 to 2014, becoming Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) from 2014 to 2017 during the Obama administration. ^{4 5}

During this time, thanks in part to support in Congress by Joaquin Castro, Family Endeavors became the largest national contractor for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Supportive Services to Veteran Families (SSVF) program, which coordinated closely with housing programs operated by Julian Castro’s HUD. ^{10 11}

Migrant Services

During the first Trump administration, Family Endeavors largely retained its role as a major nationwide provider of services to veterans and their families, while expanding into disaster recovery. ¹ That shifted during the Biden administration as Family Endeavors’ budget exploded from $52.6 million in 2020 to $625.2 million in 2021, due almost entirely to grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. All told, Family Endeavors received roughly $3.2 billion in contracts, grants, and subgrants under the Biden administration. ¹²

The largest of these contracts was a $75 billion “Indefinite Delivery Contract” to provide services to unaccompanied migrant children. ³ As of the end of 2024, the government had already paid $238.8 million to Family Endeavors and its subcontractors under this contract, with another $188.9 million obligated to be paid. ¹³ These payments were part of $1.3 billion in approved projects and services under the contract, potentially expanding to $3.3 billion. ¹⁴

In 2023, one of Family Endeavors’ Influx Care Facilities in Pecos, TX did not house any immigrants for six months, operating in what HHS referred to as a minimally staffed “warm status.” ¹⁵

An internal Family Endeavors presentation laying out the Pecos facility’s services to immigrant children was acquired in 2023 by right-of-center litigation and advocacy organization America First Legal Foundation. ² These services included 30,984 sessions of art therapy, 1,656 sessions of horticulture therapy that included “people-plant interactions,” and 287 sessions with therapy dogs between April 2021 and March 2023. ¹⁶

Family Endeavors also received grants from other federal agencies under the Biden administration, including a $131.4 million contract from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to operate “Emergency Family Reception Sites” at the U.S.-Mexico border. ¹⁷ At the time this grant was awarded, former DHS Chief Financial Officer Chip Fulghum was serving in the same role at Family Endeavors. ⁶ Fulghum, who joined Family Endeavors as its CFO in 2019, would quickly rise to become its president and COO in 2022 and then CEO in 2024. ¹⁸