Austin City Staffers are looking to move faster on the conversion of hotels and motels into shelters.
Through that plan the City’s Rosie Truelove told Austin City Council, the goal is to build out 300 new housing units in short order. The city has approved the purchase of one hotel thus far, the Rodeway inn, which Truelove explains is still in the review phase and she doesn’t know when it will be operational, “we anticipate some minor amounts of rehab and we are working with building services, and with office of real estate services, and our partners at health, to identify what that work really needs to look like.”
Truelove explained the motel strategy is part of the city’s larger effort to create 3000 supportive and permanent housing units. The Rodeway inn, if completed, would add 87 housing units to the City’s homeless shelter supply.
Truelove expects the city to close on the Rodeway Inn sometime in April. But Mayor Steve Adler wanted to know more about when the city could expect to meet their 300 hotel motel room goal. Truelove explained, staff are still on the hunt…hinting they may have one new location in their sights, but would not go any further. Adler retorted, he wants to see some goals an bench marks laid out to show Austinites the city is making real and significant progress on the housing side of the homelessness solution.
(Photo:Shutterstock/Brandon Seidel)
