AUSTIN, Texas (CN) — After Austinites voted in May to reinstate a public camping ban ended by the City Council, Texas’ capital city is grappling with the change in approach toward homeless people.
Austin’s new ordinance bans people from camping in undesignated areas, laying down around the University of Texas and downtown area, and panhandling at night. Any person found violating the ordinance could be charged with a Class C misdemeanor, which comes with a fine up to a $500.
Since the May 1 vote, Austin has rolled out its plan to acknowledge the voters' decision to bring back the ban and address the homelessness crisis in the city. In a four-phased approach, the city began with a 30-day outreach and engagement period that started on May 11. Austin police have given verbal warnings of changes in enforcement to come and provided resources to those living on the streets.
From phase two to four, the Austin Police Department will slowly become more punitive with people who have already been warned or issued a citation. Arrests are only to occur when a person refuses to leave an area that is deemed dangerous for the public. The city defines those areas as places that are prone to vehicle accidents, flooding or have a risk of fire as dangerous.
A spokesperson for the city of Austin said that throughout the implementation process, officers will educate the people they come in contact with about their housing and rehab options.
Since voters in Austin chose to reinstate the public camping ban, the entire state has changed how it approaches the issue of homelessness. A bill signed into law by Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott last month prohibits camping in undesignated public areas statewide. Passing a statewide public camping ban was a legislative priority for Abbott after the Austin City Council ended its previous ban in 2019.
Austin’s first public camping ban began in 1996 and led to many citations against homelessness people. An audit in 2017 recommended that the city stop banning public camping because it created further “issues for people attempting to exit homelessness.”
The city's new public camping ban with a petition from the political action committee Save Austin Now. As the city’s homeless population became more visible after the first ban was dropped, many Austinites raised issues with where camps were erected, their impact on the local environment and the safety of those housed and unhoused around the camps. That's when Austin residents Matt Mackowiak, chairman of the Travis County GOP, and Cleo Petricek, an Austin Democratic Party activist, founded Save Austin Now.
Petricek said the goal of reinstating a citywide public camping ban is to make communities safer and drive those experiencing homelessness to seek services. As a parent and member of the community, she said she was alarmed by the illegal activity she had witnessed taking place in these encampments.
“I was highly concerned that children were walking to school and seeing illicit acts or unsafe behavior" inside the encampments, Petricek said in an interview.
Having successfully worked to reinstate the ban, Petricek is pleased with the rollout so far but wishes that the Austin City Council would listen and communicate with people like herself who seek an end to unregulated camping in the city.
For the two years that Austin was without the ban, Petricek felt that the city was in anarchy.
“I will give the City Council credit, for now, we have a phased approach, with actual dates, and that feels like we aren’t living in chaos,” she said.
The city now faces the task of implementing the new ordinance while finding solutions to house Austin’s unsheltered citizens. The state capital already has limited housing and finding a place for people to go has become complicated.
Earlier this week, the City Council discussed acquiring land to develop an approved camping area. However, with the new state law banning public encampments going into effect on Sept. 1, the city might not be able to acquire the land and develop it in time.
A short-term solution for people being directed off the streets is still up in the air.
Petricek believes the solution lies with organizations that have existed in Austin for years that help provide services to homeless people. Groups like The Other Ones Foundation, or TOO, and Mobile Loaves and Fishes, MLF for short, act as a link for people to get a meal, find housing and receive training or rehabilitation.
Max Moscoe, community engagement coordinator for TOO, detailed in an interview the type of work done by the foundation. The group has adopted a “workforce first” program, where homeless people are connected to low-barrier employment.
“This employment comes in the form of invasive species removal and environmental cleanup in local parks, and people are paid a living wage of $15 [per hour], transportation to job site[s] and provided lunch during their shift," he said.
Moscoe declined to comment on how the public camping ban has impacted the work at TOO, but said, "We are just keeping our heads down and continuing our work on this site.”
MLF President Amber Fogarty said in an interview that both before and after the vote, the stigma surrounding homelessness is noticeable. “The stereotypes and misconceptions are so strong and so well ingrained,” she said.
"If you think about some of the things that we are taught, that there is sort of this American way of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and people really buy into that and I often say it is hard to pull yourself up by the bootstraps if you don't have boots," Fogarty explained.
She said a common misconception is that some people have decided to live on the streets. Fogarty says that in her 17 years of working with homeless people, she has not met one person who truly wanted to be on the streets.
“I have met plenty of people who in the course of conversation will try to tell me, ‘no this is good, this is where I am at, this is where I am going to say.’... but when you have that deep conversation, you come to understand that as a coping mechanism,” she said.
These and similar groups see the new public camping ban as having little impact on their day-to-day functions. Many of them have been around before the last public camping ban ended and they remain focused on helping to end homelessness in Austin, regardless of the political debate.
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