Austin Half-Asses Its Homeless Problem

The problem with posting about Austin’s ongoing homeless problem is where to stop gathering data and throw up a post, since the left-wing politicians who created the problem refuse to do anything about solving it. So let’s just dig in:

When last we checked, Austin’s downtown areas had become increasingly overrun by homeless drug addicts thanks to Austin mayor Steve Adler and the City Council repealing the urban camping ordinance. After watching this clown show, a little over a month ago Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared that if Adler wouldn’t fix his own problem, the state would. As per his word, last week the Texas Department of Transportation started clearing homeless camps from underpasses.

In between then, faced with obvious evidence of a how massively they screwed up, and that actual citizens hated their newly trashed city, Adler and the city council boldly decided to half ass the issue:

After the Austin City Council voted to lift a ban on homeless camping, sitting and lying, city leaders have decided to make some changes at a council meeting Oct. 17.

The changes mean camping on all city sidewalks will be banned, but sitting and lying down will not – unless it is 15 feet from an operating business. Camping, sitting or lying downtown around the ARCH will be banned, within a quarter mile of the area. That rule will eventually apply to the South Austin homeless shelter when it is built.

Camping, sitting and lying will also be banned in high wildfire risk zones, which is 14% of the city, or if it is endangering the health or safety of the public. It was approved by a 7-4 vote.

The four nays were Kathie Tovo, Leslie Pool, Ann Kitchen and Alison Alter, who supported a more specific plan that would add bans in more areas and make the ordinance clearer for enforcement.

Underpasses were not addressed in the changes on Thursday.

So transients camping on business sidewalks are right out, but open public spaces next to ordinary citizens are evidently A-OK to camp and shoot-up on.

Two days ago, the Texas Department of transportation opened a camp for the homeless near 183 and Montopolis Drive. (Montopolis is one of the last ungentrified black neighborhoods in Austin.) DPS troopers are patrolling the camp 24 hours a day. My prediction is that this will help some, but the majority of homeless won’t avail themselves of it because they won’t be permitted to buy and use drugs there.

The City Council is also considering buying a motel for $8 million to house the homeless:

The Austin City Council on Thursday will consider allocating $8 million to purchase an motel in South Austin to provide housing for people who are homeless.

The property is a Rodeway Inn at 2711 Interstate 35 South, between Oltorf Drive and Woodward Street, with 82 units.

“The property is an ideal location given the proximity to areas where individuals who are experiencing homelessness live, accessible by public transportation, close to major arterials, and within reasonable distance of health care facilities,” city documents say.

That seems to be about four times what it’s actually worth:

I’m sure property owners in the Riverside/Oltorf area, which had been undergoing gradual gentrification from it’s immediate sleazy past, will be happy to have drug-using transients imported into their neighborhood on a permanent basis.

Chuck DeVore, who fled California’s dysfunction only to see it crop up again in Austin, has some clear-eyed observations on the problem:

Last summer, the all-Democratic 10-member Austin City Council voted to lift the city’s ban on sleeping or camping on public property, such as sidewalks and parks – except for City Hall itself.

Immediately following the vote, Austin’s visible homeless population soared, with people passed out in the doorways of businesses, erecting tents along busy parkways and, according to police, getting hit and killed by cars.

Responding to criticism from city residents, including Republican Gov. Greg Abbott (who lives in downtown Austin in the governor’s mansion), the City Council passed an amendment to its homeless camping ordinance last month. The new rules made it illegal for the homeless to camp within a quarter-mile of a large downtown homeless shelter.

The amended ordinance quickly pushed more of the homeless into the city’s business district, leading a manager of one of Austin’s famous food trucks to note that the increased chaos on the streets was threatening to his customers.

In his Fox News interview, Adler, a Democrat, repeatedly said the homeless problem can only be solved by giving people homes. He blamed the homelessness issue on the high cost of housing.

Adler also claimed that the new ordinance didn’t create more people experiencing homelessness, but rather simply drew them into the open from the woodlands and greenbelts where they had previously been staying, mostly out of sight.

However, a Fox News reporter recently interviewed a homeless man in Austin who had a different take, saying: “This is a famous place to live on the streets. Everybody knows that. If you want to live on the streets, go to Austin. You don’t even have to buy food. Everybody feeds you, give you money. You can party, it’s a blast.”

Adler referred to getting the homeless into homes at least a half-dozen times during his interview, mentioning medical care once. This is what’s known in policy circles as a “housing first” strategy. The mayor’s intent was made clear when, near the end of his interview, he claimed that Austin needed “no barrier housing.”

What is “housing first” and “no barrier housing”?

“Housing first” is a federal policy that prohibits nonprofits receiving federal grants from requiring the people they serve to comply with service participation requirements like sobriety or job training – this is also the “no barrier housing” to which Adler referred.

So, in short: Sturdy beggars comes to Austin to get high and mooch off bleeding hearts. We should start calling them “Adlers.”

Because up to 75 percent of unsheltered people struggle with substance abuse disorders, a one-size-fits all “housing first” policy often ends up harming the very people it purports to help – recovering addicts and domestic violence survivors – by placing them in close proximity to addicts and abusers. This incentivizes program models that don’t work.

Unlike the Trump administration’s successful approach to the opioid crisis – which recognizes individual needs – “housing first” failed to address the root causes of homelessness. For many people, the root cause of their homelessness is drug addiction and untreated mental illness. In that sense, “housing first” threatens to undermine the progress being made on the national opioid crisis.

So why haven’t Adler and the City Council reversed course despite huge public opposition to their move? Some say because of all the money to be raked off for the “Homeless Industrial Complex”:

Here’s how the process works: Developers accept public money to build these projects to house the homeless – either “bridge housing,” or “permanent supportive housing.” Cities and counties collect building fees and hire bureaucrats for oversight. The projects are then handed off to nonprofits with long term contracts to run them.

That doesn’t sound so bad, right? The problem is the price tag. Developers don’t just build housing projects, they build ridiculously overpriced, overbuilt housing projects. Cities and counties don’t just collect building fees, they collect outrageously expensive building fees, at the same time as they create a massive bureaucracy. The nonprofits don’t just run these projects – the actual people staffing these shelters aren’t overpaid – they operate huge bureaucratic empires with overhead and executive salaries that do nothing for the homeless.

Many examples of how this works in California snipped.

Recognize that a special interest, the Homeless Industrial Complex – comprised of developers, government bureaucrats, and activist nonprofits – has taken over the homeless agenda and turned it into a profit center. They are not going to solve the problem, they are going to milk it. Their PR firms will sell compliant media a feel-good story about someone who turned their life around, living in a fine new apartment. What they won’t tell you is that because of the $400,000 they charged to build that single apartment unit, dozens if not hundreds of people are still on the street with nothing.

For examples of what Adler and company’s decisions have wrought:

More:

And it’s had extreme negative effects on Austin businesses:

Even former mayor Lee Leffingwell (hardly a conservative) says that the repeal of the camping ban was a huge mistake.

More complaints from the citizenry:

And Rep. Dan Crenshaw weighed in as well:

And today Austin is getting its first seasonal hard freeze, with homeless shelters expecting an influx.

None of the actions Adler and the Austin City Council have taken since repealing the camping ban have addressed the central issue: their actions made Austin streets a Mecca for sturdy beggars and drug-addicted lunatics. Either they restore the ban, or Austin voters need to recall and/or vote them out.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 12th, 2019 at 7:57 AM and is filed under Austin, Crime, Democrats, video, Welfare State. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Austin Half-Asses Its Homeless Problem”

  1. martywd says:
    November 12, 2019 at 11:45 AM

    Crenshaw: “Thankful our governor was willing to solve problems…”

    WTF? This ain’t freaking ‘solving’ the problem(s). It’s just moving it/them to another location. Texas really is turning Blue. :-(

    Talk about disappointing ==> Crenshaw! And Abbott as well for that matter.

    Yeah, I know, Abbott’s got a re-election coming up next year. But still disappointing.

    .

  2. Austin Update For January 17, 2020 « Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog says:
    January 17, 2021 at 4:01 PM

    […] just naturally assume the money was handed out as graft to members of the Homeless Industrial Complex, Greg Casar’s leftwing cronies, and various antifa/#BlackLivesMatter riot instigators (I’m sure […]

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