Austin Mayor Steve Adler and a handful of city council members are expected to attend another public town hall on homelessness Tuesday evening. City leaders have attended a couple of other forums recently, but the public outrage over their decision to allow homeless people to camp in most public spaces continues to grow.
Tuesday’s forum will focus on South Austin, including a new shelter that is planned near 290 and Banister Lane. A previous South Austin forum was held back in August, but no member of the city council, nor the mayor, chose to attend. That left Chief of Police Brian Manley to field a host of questions from the more than 100 people who had filed into the town hall in search of answers.
This latest meeting comes just days after Adler released a city memo outlining some of the proposed restrictions that may be placed on public camping, including some that could be modeled after Austin’s dockless scooter regulations. Those require a minimum of three feet of space to allow for pedestrians to traverse a sidewalk or other walkway. Complaints have exploded on social media since July about encampments and tents beginning to encroach upon those walkways.
Another proposal from Adler is to model Austin’s restrictions after some in Berkeley, California, which limit the size of any given encampment to no more than nine square-feet.
Along with Adler, other panelists will include:
- Mayor Pro-Tem Delia Garza, District 2
- Council Member Ann Kitchen, District 5
- Council Member Sabino “Pio” Renteria, District 3
- Council Member Kathie Tovo, District 9
- Jo Kathryn Quinn, Executive Director, Caritas of Austin
- Darilynn Cardona-Beiler, Director of Adult Behavioral Health Systems, Integral Care
Tuesday’s forum will kick off at 7:00 p.m. inside the Ragsdale Center at 3001 South Congress Avenue. The public is invited to attend, although all questions must be submitted ahead of time.
