The Austin City Council has a busy week ahead of it. On Thursday, council will meet for the final time before taking its summer break, and a handful of homeless issues are expected to be addressed.
Way down near the bottom of this week’s agenda is ITEM 177, which seeks to spend $8.6-million on the purchase of a plot of land and a building off of Ben White Boulevard, near Banister Lane. The agenda item reads as follows:
“Approve an ordinance amending the Fiscal Year 2018-2019 Office of Real Estate Services Capital Budget (Ordinance No. 20180911-001) to increase appropriations by $8,600,000 to acquire a building to provide shelter and support services to those experiencing homelessness. Related to Items #178 and #179.”
Agenda item 178 will declare the city’s “official intent to reimburse itself from proceeds of certificates of obligation to be issued for expenditures in the total amount of $8,600,000 to acquire a building to provide shelter and support services to those experiencing homelessness.” Item 179 with authorize the negotiation for the land, which totals 1.66-acres in size.
Back in January, the city council approved a new emergency shelter, which was given a September 30 deadline to be open and in operation. However, the city said recently it will miss that deadline due to an inability to find the right location.
There have been no new homeless shelters constructed in Austin since 2004 when the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless, also known as the ARCH, was opened in downtown. That shelter has since become a lightning rod of controversy due to a rise in rampant drug use, violent crime, and filth, all of which have also had an economic impact on the Red River District as a whole.
If the land purchase is approved, the new South Austin shelter is expected to house 50-100 people, each of whom will be given case management services and a pathway toward long-term, permanent housing in the future. Each person will spend an average of six months in the new shelter, according to City of Austin officials.
Annual maintenance costs are estimated to be around $2.3-million. The land itself is valued at $3.6-million, according to the Travis County Appraisal District.
Unlike the ARCH, the South Austin shelter will not allow people to hang around its exterior during the day, nor will people be allowed to camp out at night.
The issue of repealing Austin’s sit-and-lie and panhandling ordinances will also again come up for discussion. Some city council members believe repealing those ordinances is the best way to prevent the “criminalization” of homelessness, but numerous business owners and even the Downtown Austin Alliance have come out in staunch opposition to any repeal.
Austin’s homeless population has exploded over the past five years. According to the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, the number of unsheltered homeless people has risen by 142-percent within that time. In just the past two years, the number of sheltered homeless people has risen by 10-percent.
