Austin turns to emergency shelters to address homelessness

What they're saying: "Additional shelter beds can't come fast enough," Mayor Kirk Watson wrote in a newsletter earlier this month.

• "Our encampments have grown in both numbers and size. The conditions in these encampments in many cases pose a danger to the people living in them. The encampments also violate the public camping ban reinstated by Austin voters as well as state law."
• And city officials in a Wednesday press conference said emergency shelters were key to keeping people experiencing homelessness safe in the triple-digit temperatures.

Driving the news: City Council members this month approved items aimed at easing the homelessness crisis, including:

• Converting part of the city-owned Marshalling Yard, a convention-center warehouse just on the other side of the U.S. 183-Texas 71 intersection from the airport, into a temporary emergency shelter with 300 beds.
• Creating space for an additional 130 people at the Northbridge and Southbridge shelters by shifting rooms from single to double occupancy.
• Leasing and re-opening the downtown shelter that the Salvation Army closed in March.

Details: The $1.2 million, 12-month Salvation Army lease and the $9.1 million needed to convert the Marshalling Yard will be paid for with federal COVID-19 stimulus money.

• "Homelessness continues to be a challenge, rooted in the lack of available housing," interim city manager Jesus Garza said this month. "Keeping the doors open and ensuring resources are accessible at the Salvation Army's former site is another step toward our commitment to creating a safer and healthier environment for all of our community members."

Between the lines: Watson campaigned on providing housing that could bridge the gap between encampments and permanent units — and the issue is certain to come up in next year's mayoral election.

• "The narrow approach we inherited has been to create more permanent supportive housing, almost to the exclusion of anything else," Watson wrote in his newsletter.

Meanwhile: The city has continued closing down encampments. On Tuesday it moved people experiencing homelessness out of the Gaines Creek area in southwest Austin.

• "With evidence of campfires for cooking or warmth, wildfire protection was a critical priority," council member Paige Ellis, who represents the area, said in a statement. "This relocation is a positive development for the community that will promote public health and safety while connecting many to the vital services they need to strengthen their quality of life."

The other side: Some housing advocates have said the new shelter approach has been rushed.

• "Austin has a need for emergency shelter, but even our emergency plans should be designed with proper planning and input," João Paulo Connolly, organizing director with the Austin Justice Coalition, told the Austin Chronicle last month.
• He warned that not properly vetting shelter providers could lead to crises such as the abrupt closing of the Salvation Army shelter.

By the numbers: Austin has the lowest number of beds for people experiencing homelessness compared to all other major Texas cities, per the city's Homeless Strategy Division.

• The findings were presented to the Downtown Austin Alliance, a key coalition of downtown business owners, at its safety forum on Thursday, part of the city's messaging effort as it swings behind the emergency shelter approach.

The bottom line: "All extra resources around housing definitely helps," said Antony Jackson with We Can Now, an advocacy group that provides outreach to the city's unsheltered population, told KXAN.

What's next: The city currently has at least 1,500 permanent supportive housing units — and still aims to provide permanent housing for an additional 3,000 Austinites by the end of 2024.