United effort needed to house Austin's homeless

Austin will no longer use nuisance laws as a hammer against people who have no safe place to sleep at night. The changes to three ordinances, which the City Council approved around 2 a.m. Friday after hours of impassioned testimony, mean people won’t be cited for camping outside, sitting on the sidewalk or asking for money, as long as their activities don’t endanger anyone.

Being homeless won’t be a crime.

We welcome this more sensible, humane approach to homelessness, the most pressing problem Austin faces, officials and residents at Thursday's council meeting agreed. But more difficult efforts lie ahead. At this critical moment, Austin has the political will and public support to tackle homelessness in a bold way. The council must show it's ready to make the tough decisions to move the city forward.

We’ve agreed people experiencing homelessness should not be penalized for being where they are. We still need to figure out a better place for them to be: A safer place than a busy underpass or a drainage structure that could suddenly fill with water. A sanitary place where restrooms and bathing facilities are available. A hopeful place where people can get on the pathway to the housing, health care and other services they need.

In August, city staffers are expected to bring options to the council for approved camping sites and parking lots where people may sleep in their cars. One of those sites may be near your neighborhood.

Council members also expressed support for establishing a homeless shelter in each council district. One of those may be in your neck of the woods, too.

Soon it will be time for Austinites to walk the walk. If addressing homelessness is indeed our city’s top priority, then we must commit the resources needed to help those who don’t have a home. We must ensure the safety of people in camps, waiting for help, and the safety of everyone else nearby. We must treat people experiencing homelessness as neighbors — not as a nuisance.

Council members emphasized any approved camping sites would be temporary, lasting no longer than a year. That ambitious goal can be reached only if the city works aggressively with nonprofits and private developers to make more low-income housing available across the city.

As we’ve noted before, Austin’s homeless situation is ultimately a math problem: About 3,500 homeless applicants, some individuals and some families, are waiting for housing, and affordable units aren’t opening up quickly enough to meet that demand. So even as the Salvation Army works to open its new 212-bed shelter in East Austin, and the city moves forward with a new 100-bed shelter approved Thursday along Ben White Boulevard, those facilities will become bottlenecks if the city doesn’t have enough affordable housing for people to move into next.

“I just wish people would commit to expanding these programs that are working,” Ann Howard, executive director of the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO), told us this month. “When a person gets into permanent supportive housing, there’s a 93 percent success rate that they stay housed. It’s pretty powerful.”

Such programs combine housing, often in commercially available apartments, with access to health care and social services. They work. But they cost money. These programs must be a funding priority as staffers and council members hammer out next year’s budget in the coming months.

Government dollars won’t be enough, especially as Austin tries to fund other city needs under tighter spending caps approved this year by the Legislature. Organizations, philanthropists and everyday people need to chip in, too.

“If you have money, contribute to the nonprofits that are housing people,” Howard said, pointing to the Salvation Army, Caritas of Austin, The SAFE Alliance, LifeWorks and Mobile Loaves & Fishes. And if you don’t have money, she said, encourage your landlord or property management company to call ECHO and help place people who need homes in your complex.

With homeless counts and underpass campsites reminding us of Austin’s growing number of people without a home, it’s easy to forget areas where the city is making gains. Targeted efforts have significantly reduced homelessness among veterans and youths. The Sobering Center, which opened last year, provides access to services instead of a trip to jail for people who are publicly intoxicated, many of them homeless. Police, paramedics and social workers on the Homeless Outreach Street Team connect people living on the streets to services.

With council members pledging to support shelters and safe campsites in each of their districts, the 10-1 council brings fresh resolve and credibility to the cause of ending homelessness. It’s a heavy lift that must be shouldered not only by a united council, but a united city.

Seeing people camped in a greenbelt or begging for money at an intersection should trouble us all. It’s time to stop looking away. It’s time to help.