The new interim homeless strategy officer in Austin recently discussed the city’s homelessness and vagrancy crisis, its ongoing response initiatives, and the alleged shortage of city resources.
“When we look at our homeless response system holistically, the key challenge here is our system needs to scale,” David Gray told Fox 7 Austin. “We know that we need an additional 772 emergency shelter beds to get people into shelter.”
Gray was hired as interim homeless strategies officer last month.
“Recently, the city doubled our capacity at our bridge shelters, which is the North Bridge and the South Bridge Shelters,” he said. “We also opened up the Marshalling Yard, which has a capacity of 300 beds. … We’re working with The Other Ones Foundation to expand their capacity at Camp Esperanza. But even after all of that work is said and done, we still have that gap of 772.”
Gray said the city was about halfway toward its goal of having more than 1,400 beds by 2025.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Austin residents have decried homelessness and vagrancy in their city and claimed that an ineffective city council and “radical left” anti-police policies have exacerbated both homelessness and crime.
In Dallas, more than 80% of city residents have said they are frustrated with homelessness, vagrancy, and panhandling, according to a survey conducted by The Dallas Express.
Meanwhile, San Antonio’s Haven for Hope has been credited with reducing homelessness by 77% in the city. Haven for Hope utilizes a “one-stop-shop” strategy in which housing and supportive services, such as counseling, addiction rehabilitation, and job skills development, are offered on a single campus.
Such a strategy has polled favorably among Dallas residents. Mayor Eric Johnson visited Haven for Hope in August, but it remains to be seen whether the mayor or council members will pursue such a strategy.
Gray said Austin is working to address homeless encampments through a “Homeless Encampment Management Team.”
“It’s a cross-departmental collaboration,” Gray explained, per Fox 7. “We’re working as one city to engage with unsheltered individuals to clean camps and ultimately to move people into shelter or into housing. So it’s a significant amount of work, and we’re going to continue to do that work.”
Gray acknowledged the “strong correlation” between homelessness, mental health issues, and substance abuse.
“I will say that’s not everybody’s challenge, and some people’s challenges can be quickly resolved,” he said. “However, the longer they’re allowed to stay on the street, and the longer they live on the street, the more traumatic their homelessness experience becomes.”
Gray argued that Austin’s homeless response system needed to “scale up to meet the challenge.”
“That’s for mental health and substance use disorder. That’s for housing and shelter services. That’s for helping people get state IDs. Every part of the system needs to be more heavily invested in and scaled up so that we can help the community that is unhoused,” he said, per Fox 7.