The Austin City Council is poised to ban camping in four areas of the city that have been overtaken by people experiencing homelessness – but will try to make it happen without any of the tools typically used to enforce such a ban.
In a watered-down amendment to a heftier proposal to get people off the streets and into supportive housing, Council Member Ann Kitchen made clear Tuesday that policing and citations are no longer on the table as potential punishments for disobeying the ban.
The removal of potential legal consequences represented a shift by Kitchen and five council members who co-sponsored her plan. Kitchen unveiled it last month to mixed reviews, with community members saying they are weary over the city s growing crisis and activists saying it s cruel to punish someone on the basis they cannot afford a home and have to sleep outside.
KUT
A Days Inn in Central Austin is one of four properties the city s leased to house homeless Austinites during the pandemic. On Wednesday, the Austin City Council restarted efforts to purchase hotels on a more consistent basis to house Austinites who are transitioning out of homelessness.
After hours of debate, the Austin City Council OK d the purchase of a hotel to ultimately house Austinites experiencing homelessness, while delaying the purchase of another until next week.
The two hotels – one in North Austin s District 7 and another in the more northwesterly District 6 – would collectively cost the city $16.2 million and could house at least 148 people.
KUT
The Days Inn on I-35 in Central Austin is one of a handful of hotels the city rented or bought to shelter homeless Austinites during the pandemic. The city plans on closing and consolidating some sites.
Last Wednesday, Helen Davis was in St. Louis, tired, sore and 825 miles from home without bus fare or a place to stay.
As cars whizzed by, she wracked her brain, trying to think of an excuse – something to tell the bus driver so he d let her on for free. She d tried to pay in pennies that morning. It didn t work.
Hours earlier, she was sheltered in Austin at one of five hotel properties the city set up to safely house homeless Austinites at-risk of COVID-19. She was told the facility was closing and her best bet was a Greyhound ticket to St. Louis, where she d lived a couple years back. So she took the ticket, fearing the prospect of once again sleeping outdoors.
The millions of dollars the city of Austin promised to live music venues who ve been pummeled by the COVID-19 pandemic has yet to be delivered after two months, raising an already high degree of discomfort to clubs struggling to keep their lights on.
But the assistance is coming soon, the city insists, and it ll end up being more than originally planned through additional resources that at one time were thought to have been out of reach.
Last week, the Austin City Council threw a lifeline to venues by offering a tax reimbursement program that could make landlords think twice about proceeding with eviction for non-payment. The program will make use of Chapter 380 incentive agreements named for the portion of the state s local government code that authorizes them - to offer tax breaks to landlords who are willing to renegotiate lease agreements.