Eight people experiencing homelessness have taken up an offer by the Texas state government to take shelter on five acres of state-owned land located off US-183 near Montopolis Drive.
Governor Greg Abbott announced the establishment of the site for the homeless Nov. 7, following a cleanup campaign under highway underpasses, where many homeless have been living.
John Wittman, Abbott’s spokesman, said the site is an improvement over the underpasses.
“It’s going well. I think there or eight or so folks out there at this point. Mrs. Abbott, the First Lady, dropped off a ton of blankets, sleeping bags, pillows, and sweaters and things like that today,” he told Honest Austin.
The state has installed portable toilets and hand washing stations at the site and charities have agreed to deliver food daily.
The Department of Public Safety is providing 24-hour security and the Texas Division of Emergency Management is helping to manage the site, Wittman said.
There aren’t shelters on the site but there are some covered areas, which are open-door vehicle bays that are not being used. “The folks that are out there each have their own kind of little covered area. They’re like these bays or mini-hangers, and that’s where folks are,” said the governor’s spokesman.
Wittman says that the homeless are better off staying at this state site than living under an underpass: “There’s shelter out there, there’s food being brought out daily, and there’s security. It’s certainly better than the previous vision – and as you know, TxDOT is cleaning up the underpasses and they’re going to do it weekly.”
The next cleanup will take place tomorrow. Cleanup crews will be accompanied by CapMetro, Wittman, said, “to offer rides out to the new place for folks who want to go.”
Mayor Steve Adler has expressed worries that the state’s cleanup campaign under the highways could “scatter” the homeless into areas where they might not receive services or where they may cause environmental problems.
“If we’re cleaning those areas [underpasses] with an intent to so disrupt people’s lives and make it so hard for them that we chase them back to the woods, then we are making it harder to solve homelessness, and we are making our city less safe. And we are making them less safe,” he told Texas Monthly.
“I guarantee you there is no one picking up trash and putting it into dumpsters in those really remote areas,” Adler added.
Governor Abbott and Mayor Adler have exchanged barbed remarks on social media over homelessness. Abbott initially threatened state intervention in Austin over changes made by Adler and City Council to the state’s ordinances governing public camping and aggressive panhandling.
Although the state has partially rolled back its changes to these ordinances, which it first relaxed in June, Abbott went ahead anyway with plans to have the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) clear out homeless camps under highway underpasses.
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