Austin City Council’s New Initiative for Tackling Homelessness through Reallocation of Police Budgets.

Homelessness is an ongoing battle in all major cities across the country. Many initiatives have been briefed but none have been executed to make critical impacts into tackling this epidemic. The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness states that an estimated 25k people are experiencing homelessness in the state of Texas alone. This number is projected to increase yearly given the effects of COVID and other issues that plague the society. However, Austin City Council’s new initiative to provide supportive housing gives light to possible measures that can help end this epidemic.

On January 27th, the Austin City Council voted to purchase a hotel and convert it into permanent housing for people experiencing homelessness. Further details in this plan show that the city will spend approximately $6.7M from its Housing and Planning Department’s bond and a recurring $6.5M fund will be taken from the police department’s budget to provide annual services to the residents of the hotel. Council member Gregorio Casar said “In the wake of Black Lives Matter protests this summer, we made a significant cut to policing dollars and reinvested that in things like this.”

The vote to purchase the hotel confirms the Council’s missions to make a lasting impact for their city. The hotel will include 60+ rooms with full kitchenettes and amenities for residents. With another proposal in line, the next plan of action is to purchase two more hotels to support the increasing number of people experiencing homelessness. Austin’s actions for this new initiative are just a fraction of the reallocated funding in which they immediately cut approximately $20M from the police department’s budget.

Actions like this prove the point that reallocating funds from the police department will make a significant change in bettering our community. The Council members hope this initiative will encourage other cities around the country to focus on shifting excess funding from the police department into other more important measures that will benefit us all.

Resources:

https://www.usich.gov/homelessness-statistics/tx/#:~:text=As%20of%20January%202019%2C%20Texas,and%20Urban%20Development%20(HUD).

https://theappeal.org/austin-police-budget-homeless-housing/