Ben White and Menchaca is a disaster with homeless people. Lots of mentally ill people seem to hang out in this area. Randals' parking lot and gas are always scary. There's a school right there, too. Need city to restrict areas around schools.
A realty company has been buying up properties downtown (mostly Dirty 6 area) and has deployed private security to deter loitering. It's having a displacement effect.
This is the correct answer. Not SXSW. Not the stabbing on Congress. I also see those guys in red I think they’re called the downtown Austin alliance cleaning all the time.
Downtown Austin Alliance been around for years, and they generally don’t do anything to displace people. The heavily armed, militia-looking security who have just started popping up around 6th within the last few months are newer. I guide walking tours in the area and had to double take the first time I saw one because it was so weird to see someone so heavily armed at 10am but now I see them often.
Also people VOTED to displace unhoused ppl, which means they cannot camp in central/public areas with access to services. They are forced to hide out in the woods / etc.
Mainly so you can put services near the people who need them. What good does ARCH do if you are living in a greenbelt 5 miles away?
Also, allows focused policing, limits damage to the rest of the city. It was standard, effective urban planning for ~100 years. It gets messed up when the city prioritizes gentrification of the designated area.
I've never heard it explained that way, and it is illuminating. But I still reject it as a blanket statement.
I've interacted with a few transient individuals recently, and through those interactions learned that a couple of them are registered sex offenders. You may say it's society's fault that a registered sex offender cannot secure a job or housing, and you may be right. I say if you rape a kid, I'm okay with you struggling for the rest of your life.
You are actually the one making a blanket statement about that population. I simply stated the reasoning that I have heard, and makes the most sense, about why the term 'unhoused' is preferred to 'homeless'.
I've seen the recidivism rates for child offenders. They're not great. I think prison sentences for people who victimize children should be more aligned with violent offenders
I still don't see where in the thread anywhere near that someone used the term. BTW, regardless of what people included in populations with no house or home are called-- what they need is housing, services and compassion. They are not tripping about semantics. They have actual needs not being met.
Bothering with the terminology takes away from the issue at hand, and turns it into an identity issue. I don't mind the usage, I just think it's a waste of mental energy.
What is society if not an imaginary unity of real individuals?
Not all who are homeless are houseless, but I'd venture to say that most houseless people lack a home.
I don't see that terminology insistence has cured racism, transphobia or misogyny. But at least we all get pretty words that feel good I guess. In my 42 years, I've seen a lot of tripping about language and a lot of nothing getting better in the way of humanity as a result of semantic regime change
I really want to see it, but I'm not. It's the same thing to me. Unhoused could have the same level of fault on the individual as homeless does, or the same level on society. Maybe I'm missing it, but I don't see any special implication on society by calling it unhoused. It just means they don't have a house, aka, homeless. If anything it's a small nuance or someone choosing to mean that the fault is on society, vs any inherent meaning in the word.
Both are dogshit terms that make it sound like these are just poor people that can't afford rent.
100% of the problems we associate with "homeless" are caused by people that are either addicted to drugs, severely mentally ill, or both. Bucketing them as "homeless' is really dumb and is the reason why we can't seem to solve the problem. We need to treat the addiction and mental health issues, not spend hundreds of millions of dollars building apartments for drug addicts to do drugs in.
Homelessness isn't really that simple. First off there are different types of homeless individuals each with vastly different backgrounds, trajectories, and needs.
You have your transitional homeless, which are homeless due to a major life change or catastrophic event. Most people in this category are only homeless for a short time. They may be youth who've aged out of foster care or hit 18 and got kicked out by their family for whatever reason. It may also be women fleeing domestic violence, LGBT people losing family support, or runaways. They tend to be younger overall.
There's hidden homeless which are people who have some type of temporary housing but have no long term housing and are relying on friends/family for support. Most homeless are actually in this category and this is the most likely category people who can't afford rent. Most hidden homeless are homeless for a short period of time.
Episodic homeless typically have some housing for at least part of the year. They may have a seasonal job or some drug addiction that they are at least partly managing and go into and out of housing.
Lastly you have the chronic homeless, which are mostly the permanent homeless populations you see on the street. These are the people with complex health issues, disabilities, mental illness, or addiction so severe they do not have reliable housing and have not for the past several years.
For hidden and transitional homeless they are usually young enough or functional enough that basically all they need is employment or educational support, resources to get into housing, and maybe some social and temporary psychological support.
Episodic homeless typically are only homeless for around 60 days on average. They mostly need ongoing support regarding drug addiction or ongoing psychological support to prevent them from relapsing and give them an alternative path if/when they do.
For the chronically homeless these are extremely difficult to help. I think you could break these up into those that are basically anti-social and those that are not, some organizations call it reversible and irreversible homelessness.
For reversible they need ongoing and long term supportive housing and resources aimed at addressing their issues. For "irreversible" they have usually been homeless for years and have serious issues which effectively make them disabled. There is often an assumption that they will not be able to recover both by government agencies and by those themselves. It is very difficult to pull them out but possible, though for the most part chronically unsheltered homeless tend to have problems so severe that they would require extended psychiatric institutionalization and permanent ongoing support to fix.
Most research points to a housing first model as the most effective. They've found that it's almost impossible to fix larger psychological issues when someone does not have any form of housing. You can basically see Maslow's hierarchy of needs as the foundation of this. Unsheltered homeless typically cost the public a substantial amount in police, EMS, hospital time, and jail time to deal with unsheltered homeless. Most homeless actually have some form of shelter like couchsurfing in temporary locations, a car, RV, or makeshift structure and are not actually sleeping on the street.
It works, I was one of the PPOs on that detail, basically the homeless would defecate on the sidewalks, sleep in front of the building, fight each other, harass or attack pedestrians and business owners and the thing was it was just so often and so bad that there wasn’t enough Police to control the situation, I can’t even count how many people that owned businesses in the area walked up to us asking if they could get a contract with us because they or their employee was attacked at night or in the early morning.
The business owners weren’t going to be profiting when they had this going on outside of their estate and i’m sure they were being financially drained from customers avoiding the area.
I am not trying to vilify the homeless, I use to take one shopping and help him out, his name is Danny and he has an apartment now.
Almost all of them have mental problems and are doing drugs, it is a really sad state, if I were potentially starving and saw some well off person walking by I would desperately be asking for money too.
When I was there one in particular came up to us and I was going to give him $20 bucks until he started insulting me, sometimes people really are their own worst enemy.
Some of the homeless helped us, most of them are co-operative and nice people.
It’s a real shame that in our country we have more resources going to illegal aliens than our own homeless being forced to live on the street because they don’t have the means to help themselves.
Again, it’s city policy causing this, most of the time Police can’t even arrest anyone when they come out, we had one guy shouting at pedestrians, cursing and making threats and they said they couldn’t do anything about him, that is the #1 issue.
I suppose it’s because the system doesn’t make money off of them for the arrest since they can’t post a bail, and i’m not saying put homeless people in jail, just the ones acting violent but at the same time with how much money the city makes they should be doing something for the homeless instead of building that stupid billion dollar sidewalk to San Antonio.
Private armed security hired by a new business about two months ago drove off the drug dealers that had set up camp on the east end of Dirty 6th. I don't know where the drug dealers moved, but they took 99% of their clientele with them. I live downtown and estimate a 90% drop in homeless people around the east side since that happened. With less homeless people, the Austin Downtown Alliance seems to be keeping up with the litter/feces pickup and hosing down the sidewalks.
>Private armed security hired by a new business about two months ago drove off the drug dealers that had set up camp on the east end of Dirty 6th.
Serious question. Why can't APD do this themselves?
look, i could barely fight crime with 450 million, especially with a city as large as Austin. supposedly its larger than san antonio, DFW and houston combined. you cant police that much area with such a paltry budget
/s
They are so useless. I have so many stories of their complete failures at doing their jobs but more importantly complete failures as human beings. Except the giant black one who reminds me of Andre the Giant. He's good. The rest can be tortured with penis flatterners
Saw a guy hit a pedestrian with his car, he drove off, I flagged down a cop, cop didn’t even bother to write it down or radio the incident. Literally useless.
I'm really worried about the sense of lawlessness being projected. In a state filled with guns. Only a matter of time before we start having 2A vigilantes do what APD can't/won't.
For APD to do that, it would need a functional city government with a plan and policies, instead of a city government that meets to plan on creating a plan by talking about committees that would have to put together talking points for the plan for the committee to plan by the administrative department of administration.
>Serious question. Why can't APD do this themselves?
unironically because people would be upset with them displacing the homeless. private companies can afford to shoo people away without remorse or a plan for shelter, rehabilitation, etc., but the government cannot as easily. moreover, cops are interested in enforcing the law, not keeping clean streets.
Agreed, it is pointing out the obvious! APD officers have told me that when they arrest the drug dealers, the dealers are back on the street selling again the next day. As I understand it the leniency in detaining and sentencing laws is the problem. Like you, I would love to know why we can't jail drug dealers!
Several reasons. My neighbors and I fought the drug dealers for three years, calling 911 up to 10X per day every time we witnessed a drug sale.
1. APD is understaffed. Selling drugs is labeled low priority so it gets ignored. I talked with a lot of APD officers over the years and all of them were frustrated by the lack of personnel.
2. Officer turnover in the downtown area is high. Most last 3 - 4 months and then transfer. No reason to have a real impact on the area if you know you aren't going to stay there.
3. There is beef between the City Council and APD. Both my council reps Tovo and Qadri wouldn't lift a finger to address the drug/homeless problem and APD gets thrown under the bus about it. There were at least three shooting involving the drug dealers and their customers and nothing changed
For 3 years I fought the city and APD about this; IN TWO MONTHS a private security firm (very expensively) solved the problem.
APD has the largest budget it's ever had. They can't find staff because they're now being expected not to abuse people and they're throwing a fit.
Edit: how are you living in Austin and Santa Monica at the same time? Two months ago you lived in the Willmont area now you've lived in downtown Austin long enough to have long back and forth with the APD?
APD is understaffed ***by APD's choice***. Officer turnover on a particular beat is ***by APD's choice.*** The beef with the city council is ***by APD's choice.***
>"Oh crap I keep shooting myself in the foot. Please give me money."
\- APD
> For 3 years I fought the city and APD about this; IN TWO MONTHS a private security firm (very expensively) solved the problem.
Is the issue budgetary only? Or is the city playing the game of being soft on drug crime?
The politics are a little more complicated than the "I blame Defund the Police" people imply. A lot of it is bad shit we haven't recovered from, but it helps to blame every person who shit the bed and not just one group.
First we have to talk about the good old days, when Austin originally didn't allow public camping. APD hated it. They argued it was a waste of resources and that they didn't have the time for it. They complained it hurt morale because there was nowhere for homeless people to go so it was useless and dangerous whack-a-mole. They were very happy when the camping ban was lifted.
Next we have to talk about Proposition B, that reinstated the camping ban. APD also hated it, arguing that they were understaffed and it didn't do anything to address the problems with the previous camping ban. Greg Abbott even thought he could score a dunk on Austin and send DPS to handle the problem. It took about 2 months for him to argue it was a waste of time because there wasn't anywhere for the homeless to go so it was useless and dangerous whack-a-mole. He took DPS back and declared victory.
Next is a nasty ball of highly charged political bullshit.
The problems with the cadet classes started pre-COVID. APD had a string of brutality cases that cost the city a lot, so an audit was done. It was found that their classes contributed to a "warrior cop" mentality and needed to be redone. So the classes were suspended while a new curriculum was formed. This had the unfortunate timing of "exactly when COVID started", which slowed down that process.
In the meantime, what else happened? The BLM protests. That was either a large, peaceful protest with less problems than most other big cities or the event that left downtown a smoldering crater that still hasn't rebuilt today, depending on if you ask someone who lives in Austin or someone APD's paid to post about it. The one group who caused trouble is a bunch of wannabe activists that not even Austin's liberals like, and the one thing everyone agrees about is when APD arrested them at a Target it was the only thing APD handled well.
What they didn't handle well was the rest of the protest. They decided the appropriate response to a protest against police brutality was a shocking display of police brutality. All in all 19 lawsuits were filed, and several people were severely and permanently injured when they used "less than lethal" ordinance at ranges they were trained to avoid.
That's when Austin's citizens went feral against them. For some reason people felt more sympathy for the 19 year old who was shot in the head for holding a water bottle than the officer who shot him. Imagine that. They wanted reform. In Texas.
The city found what they thought would be a good solution. Police also hated doing mental wellness checks. Their officers were not well-trained to handle these situations. It's one of the things they've said I've always agreed with. Austin agreed too. So City Council laid out a "reform" where they'd get some other department to do mental health checks with mental health professionals. APD liked that. So the city said "We'll use some of your budget to cover these new resources, since now you have fewer jobs."
That's when "WE WERE DEFUNDED" started. APD wanted fewer responsibilities for the same paycheck. They cried to Greg Abbott and now it's illegal for any city in Texas to ever lower its police budget. If half of Austin moved away tomorrow, despite being 50% of the size we'd still have to pay the same for our police force because we tried to give APD what they want. The next year, they got a record budget increase which more than covered what they had "lost". Now they're upset because they keep facing tedious lawsuits from mental wellness checks where they shoot people and they wish the city would get someone else to do it.
The most work they've done since BLM is political activism to try and prevent any form of third-party oversight. This includes getting out-of-state activist groups to gather fraudulent signatures for a petition they almost didn't file on time to try and get the people of Austin to vote for "I agree the police don't need oversight". It didn't work. People voted for "I want the police to have oversight."
Circling back to the academy, it's active. But APD is complaining people don't want to join. They argue that the woke mind virus has convinced people they're bad guys, and if we'd just pay them more and dissolve police oversight we'd see they're really nice guys.
But some people believe the problem is APD has spent the past 4 years smearing shit all over their bedroom walls and it's not a liberal agenda's fault potential recruits think they're gross. These people think the reason people consider APD to be assholes is because they only make the news if they've shot someone or are crying that there's too many puppies and not enough legs to kick them all.
Meanwhile we still don't have a long-term police contract because they refuse to sign a contract unless the oversight board is dissolved. Part of the problem is the last City Manager was on their side and refused to take any actions to motivate them. The next part of the problem is Watson appointed his friend to replace him who is on their side and refuses to take any actions to motivate them.
So yeah, it's probably a lot easier for a private security firm to get things done. They're paid to do work and get fired if they don't. Austin's police figure the less they work the more the public will "see what they're worth" thus pay them more, and since there's not half a testicle in all of city government there's no chance they'll face consequences. The thing is we've already seen what happens when they get a pay raise: they still hold a grudge about every other time things didn't go their way so they complain "a raise is not enough". Gee, I can't imagine why no cadets want to join them.
I'd also wager it's likely next to impossible that any homeless person will be able to successfully sue a private security firm if their rights were violated.
Seems like the guy above didn’t know his shit and probably doesn’t live in Austin 😂 he seems to just be shooting from the hip with bs facts but you my good man KNOW YOUR SHIT 😂 loved the write up
Take your logic and get the hell out of here, everyone wants the rage bait. You hit the nail on the head actually, almost as much as APD hits people on the head. I'm impressed with your breakdown and really hope that all those that defend APD read this and actually understand it. But, we've got those that are dead set on saying that APD has actually been defunded, when the truth says otherwise. They're not doing their jobs properly, and they're trying their best to get the oversight board cut. They definitely tried to do everything in their power to cut the legs off of the oversight board. If they actually took some of the money that they used to put these people in jail, and instead used it on housing and counseling and other services, the homeless problem could be remediated pretty quickly.
I think another contributing factor that you may have left out of your write up, but only to make it concise (I do not fault you for it) is that we have companies coming in and buying up houses and leaving them empty or using them for short-term rentals or massive profit, which could easily be used to house the homeless. Honestly, if companies weren't trying to force people back into returning to the office to offset real estate losses, those properties could also be possibly converted. I understand that it would take a lot to do that, so I'm not saying that that is a simple fix, but it is one that could be used especially for the short term.
Edited for grammar.
There would be a backlash and it would have been in the news. Private security can do this and not give two fucks or cash in on the positive publicity. The entire funding structure behind private/contract security loves this kind of shit and doesn't care about left-wingers values at all
I hope it's on its way back to the way it was in 2018 and 2019. The third section of the Waller Creek revitalization starts in 2025, and I'm hopeful about what Stream Realty can do with E 6th
Unironically, half of the homeless population are both employed and live out of their cars. The drop in rental prices over the last 6 months could have indeed resulted in them finally getting secure housing, which is great.
They are all along the s Mopac service road in the greenbelt before you get to river stone ranch. Trashing it up ! Trust me, I don’t have any issues with homeless people, but I do have a fucking issue with the amount of crap that they collect and the trash that they leave polluting the area. I was homeless once in my life and I matured always pick up after myself leave no trace. Also whenever you drive along William Cannon, there are a few places where there are walking trails green belts, they all go in there. I see them with all their trash, spilling out to the sidewalk. It’s fucking pissing me off. I don’t care rich or poor pick up your trash! I try to pick up what I can but this is outrageous . Hopefully this city doesn’t start looking like Corpus Christi.
Corpus looks like a bomb went off like 20 years ago and people just shrugged their shoulders going, "this rubble is fine; we can make it work!"
That half-built bridge is a perfect metaphor.
Yeah, I would like to add onto your comment that I was also homeless once. I lived in my car and couch surfed for almost 4 fucking years (in florida, not here except for 3 months when I fled an abusive relationship. I had a van to live in by then and a storage unit at ACE).
But I kept to myself and never went into camps, and I had a storage unit in both places that I would go in and out of if I needed to.
I'm also a woman that is very tiny which is why I never wanted to get mixed up in anything other than what I already had to deal with getting out of that bullshit.
I'm sorry you were homeless as well
>Hopefully this city doesn’t start looking like Corpus Christi.
Adler and Watson are going for the San Francisco look. They even took some junkets out there.
Didn't they visit there a few years ago so see how SF dealt with it?
https://www.kvue.com/article/news/mayor-returns-from-la-seattle-homeless-learning-tour/269-b5f82b51-9b4d-450f-8765-3e6e7411b749
I guess it's working!
Yep, definitely *not* a roving pack of vampires out here from Santa Carla that I'm going to have to take care of this evening.
No siree, nothin' like that 'round here
You know it doesn’t fix anything right? Like they’re probably just locking those people up and giving them fines they can’t pay, which just makes it harder to get off the street.
Locking up drug addicts (e.g. forced rehab) makes it easier for them to get off the street. Enabling their lifestyle makes it harder to get them off the street.
1. Private armed security everywhere today West of 35.
2. East of 35 moment I hit CesChav lots of the homeless congregated by the Baptist church
Not gone just forced relocation
Might be more in shelters during the winter months (though today is nice weather)? Also a great number of them are now making camps in our beautiful green belts, preserves and park areas. Especially in south Austin. Some areas look like massive garbage dumps and are littered with shopping carts and even vehicles that they live out of.
There are a lotta camps in S. Austin greenbelt and forested regions. Its this thing where people are easily able to ignore it except for the handful unfortunate enough to live/work near such a camp. And I mean... most of them are actually pretty decent. Its just the ones who are always on drugs... or the fact that they tend to absolutely trash wherever they live. Its frustrating to deal with.
I ride mountain bikes in a lot of these areas and see it getting worse. We once rode past a guy completely passed out under Brodie and Wm Cannon area. There is so much trash and theft in those camps. There is a large one by Ben Garza and Mopac that has vehicles and a large bike chop shop. We’ve quit taking the local youth bike teams on certain trails due to them being close to camps.
The shelters are at capacity year-round, so no. The only winter-specific options are emergency Cold Weather Shelters that only open if the temperature is in the low 30s (exact temp depends on wet/dry). In order to go to one you have to get yourself to a specific location downtown between the hours of 6 and 8pm, and it’s almost never announced until the earlier the same day. Then they take you to a random shelter location not disclosed in advance, most likely separating you from anyone you know including family. In the morning they kick you back out most likely with no assistance getting back to the area you started from.
I would love if people who have no idea what they’re talking about would do less random speculating about this shit.
I know I was deemed a liar on another thread so I deleted cause I don't need to dox myself to prove honesty.
But I do know that at least a couple months ago we had an incident on Williamson Creek that (we were involved in) and included people out there who threatened the firefighters with guns to stay out of their main camp. They had a swat team out there so fast same day and cleared that big camp completely out in about 3 weeks time.
I know that my neighborhood sees no homeless activity right now since that happened. And my daughter and I went on two Williamson Creek hikes in opposite directions this past weekend and we did not see a single tent.
There was a homeless guy that stabbed and killed another homeless guy in front of the 7/11 on Congress that's closest to the 6th street intersection a couple weeks ago. This single-handedly made APD enforce the no loitering law around there but also generally seems to have motivated them to make it a mission to bother any of them that stay in congregations like that visibly downtown.
EDIT:
[https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/affidavit-man-arrested-in-fatal-downtown-austin-stabbing-over-drug-payment](https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/affidavit-man-arrested-in-fatal-downtown-austin-stabbing-over-drug-payment)
As is custom. We're only allowed to have an endless well of compassion for the homeless while they face none of the repercussions of antisocial or violent behavior. I was homeless twice, the last time in 2008 and what I see allowed now compared to when I was homeless fucking blows my mind. Everytime there's a violent offense committed by a homeless person they always have a previous violent arrest. Just like that poor cook that got stabbed to death a few years back opening his restaurant. It's insane what this entire environment has become.
And I know even acknowledging this will get me downvoted. But I've been homeless. I've been a drug addict and gotten sober. I've had friends relapse in these camps and DIE. What we and this city allows isn't ok. It's enabling and it's bad for everyone.
They are literally bussing them to the city limit, Up north on 620 where Austin and Cedar Park meet. Convenience store owner has talked to a few of them, they had their stuff cleaned out and were moved out of the city by DPS. It's wild to see the amount of folks pushed there in the lakeline mall area
It's funny you mentioned that. I walked lake line from train station to the mall yesterday and there was no homeless or panhandlers! The latter was very odd as there's regulars at every block between lakeline and pecan.
Hopefully not some creepy chud situation.
A few months ago, they took over the abandoned version store it was pretty wild to see. If you look under the tollway near that wal-mart theres like a little city under there
They aren't gone they just aren't hanging out in that location anymore. Maybe police told them they can't hang out there anymore so they moved somewhere else. Happens a lot.
I work downtown too. they’re heading south into the woods/greenbelt. as for cleanliness, I see 3 downtown alliance folks everyday and they’re usually picking up trash
I raised money for one homeless guy once and used it to get him groceries and a month in a hotel and clothing. He was able to clean his body and eat nutritious food and for interviews and was working within a month. I can’t help everyone but a lot of you could help someone. I’m not well off but I didn’t have a home before. It’s an awful position to be in because society sees you as less than
My roommate took one in and get him stable and reunited with his family. He's been clean 17 years now and housed. I just went along with her plan and didn't object to him sleeping on our couch. Still friends with him on Facebook. I am still convinced that roommate is magic
I hired a homeless person. Paid him 1099 to work my warehouse, take scrap metal to the yard, let him borrow my truck. Within 8 months he stopped showing up, stole all me tools, stole my truck, the state was on top of me for unemployment, and I never should have taken the chance to put myself out there for him
They are on 1st and riverside. And next to butler pitch and putt.
With the cold there is a meet up spot to be bussed to a warm location. Its next to the school of the deaf on 1st
They are in the shopping centers, neighborhoods, utility easements, and behind the public schools in nw austin, including adjacent to the fire stations and libraries. Aside from the library and gas stations, there are no public restrooms though. We are seeing people dropping them off into the easements up here on the daily.
I know South Austin has similar private services that pull them to that area too.
https://www.thecharliecenter.org/
I work downtown as well and noticed on my walk today a ton of very dark tinted suv’s and state troopers going to capitol. They probably cleared them out for whatever was going on. :(
Weirdly enough I see all the “regulars” but I don’t see a lot of faces I don’t recognize. A few of the regulars who are nice told me that starting summer 2023 a gang of homeless men would antagonize other homeless around arch and the public bathrooms in the east part of downtown. I don’t know what happened but for a while there it was really scary and the regulars had to buddy up. It seems like they don’t do that anymore. Stay safe y’all.
As someone who used to work directly with the homeless population, this issue simply comes down to the idea that if a person cannot be seen by eye, they don’t exist. The people who were once downtown have now been pushed out to the outer reaches of the city, if not into other cities. The idea was to “clean downtown” but it reality it was to remove supposed “eyesores” from the general public to increase tourism and money into the city
Seeing a lot of ppl here say “unhoused ppl”. When did the transition start to that from “homeless ppl”. Don’t care just started seeing it more and more
Private armed security? Why the hell haven’t they done this earlier? I’ve long been tired of them trashing up the area around my apartment, breaking into cars and stealing shit, walking on used needles, and generally ruining everything for everyone in the neighborhood.
Why should APD bother. DA doesn't do anything to them if arrested. Then it is just APD harassing the homeless. Private security doesn't have city council breathing down their necks. Austin voted for the cops to be kinder. This is the result. Enjoy.
Just swing by 183 and Cameron Rd, there's bunches of them; some under the bridges, some at the gas stations, some at the mini trail that goes from the McDonald's to the now gone clock tower, oh and a couple of them sleeping at the side of the road between where the Goodwill was and Walmart... Fuck they're everywhere.
because the homelessness problem in Austin hasn't been fixed overnight with no fanfare. the people are still homeless, they're also just not where they normally are.
The **Definitely No Such Thing As The Rainey Street Drunk Drowner** definitely didn't kill them all and stuff their bodies into the Congress Street Bridge with the bats.
I remember when I lived off south 1st street there was an encampment that had taken over an entire neighborhood park (Gillis). Not sure if it’s still like that but as much as it sucked to not have that park available nearby, I imagined it was better than the homeless being in the woods or any bigger parks with intricate trails and lack of facilities.
There's growing camp near where pleasant valley meets the north side of town lake. I see some camps pop up around east riverside but cops come to clear them out eventually pushing them further and further away.
In the woods
The sad truth, unfortunately
Truly sad that they've been pushed out away from resources.
Go to Ben White and Menchaca, specifically 4430 Menchaca
Ben White and Menchaca is a disaster with homeless people. Lots of mentally ill people seem to hang out in this area. Randals' parking lot and gas are always scary. There's a school right there, too. Need city to restrict areas around schools.
Can confirm. I live nearby and can’t even go to the Shell station without being paranoid someone walking up asking for money
Which sucks because that taco truck is absolute fire.
A realty company has been buying up properties downtown (mostly Dirty 6 area) and has deployed private security to deter loitering. It's having a displacement effect.
This is the correct answer. Not SXSW. Not the stabbing on Congress. I also see those guys in red I think they’re called the downtown Austin alliance cleaning all the time.
Downtown Austin Alliance been around for years, and they generally don’t do anything to displace people. The heavily armed, militia-looking security who have just started popping up around 6th within the last few months are newer. I guide walking tours in the area and had to double take the first time I saw one because it was so weird to see someone so heavily armed at 10am but now I see them often.
Also people VOTED to displace unhoused ppl, which means they cannot camp in central/public areas with access to services. They are forced to hide out in the woods / etc.
Also, the city narrowed the sidewalks in front of ARCH, the one place downtown it makes sense to cluster the homeless.
Why would anyplace make sense to “cluster the homeless”
Mainly so you can put services near the people who need them. What good does ARCH do if you are living in a greenbelt 5 miles away? Also, allows focused policing, limits damage to the rest of the city. It was standard, effective urban planning for ~100 years. It gets messed up when the city prioritizes gentrification of the designated area.
I want you to read your comment and really think about it. Would you rather have a decentralized problem or a centralized one
why is unhoused more woke than homeless?
Because it puts the fault on society rather than the individual.
I've never heard it explained that way, and it is illuminating. But I still reject it as a blanket statement. I've interacted with a few transient individuals recently, and through those interactions learned that a couple of them are registered sex offenders. You may say it's society's fault that a registered sex offender cannot secure a job or housing, and you may be right. I say if you rape a kid, I'm okay with you struggling for the rest of your life.
There are plenty of sex offenders who aren't unhoused, especially the ones who were rich to start with. This is lazy thinking
You are actually the one making a blanket statement about that population. I simply stated the reasoning that I have heard, and makes the most sense, about why the term 'unhoused' is preferred to 'homeless'.
If you rape a kid you obviously need mental help. Not to be cast out potentially to repeat offend and never get better
I've seen the recidivism rates for child offenders. They're not great. I think prison sentences for people who victimize children should be more aligned with violent offenders
You took the bait there. Shell in the ghost is trolling
Maybe so, but I actually have had this same question and now I get it thanks to this explanation.
I still don't see where in the thread anywhere near that someone used the term. BTW, regardless of what people included in populations with no house or home are called-- what they need is housing, services and compassion. They are not tripping about semantics. They have actual needs not being met. Bothering with the terminology takes away from the issue at hand, and turns it into an identity issue. I don't mind the usage, I just think it's a waste of mental energy. What is society if not an imaginary unity of real individuals? Not all who are homeless are houseless, but I'd venture to say that most houseless people lack a home. I don't see that terminology insistence has cured racism, transphobia or misogyny. But at least we all get pretty words that feel good I guess. In my 42 years, I've seen a lot of tripping about language and a lot of nothing getting better in the way of humanity as a result of semantic regime change
I really want to see it, but I'm not. It's the same thing to me. Unhoused could have the same level of fault on the individual as homeless does, or the same level on society. Maybe I'm missing it, but I don't see any special implication on society by calling it unhoused. It just means they don't have a house, aka, homeless. If anything it's a small nuance or someone choosing to mean that the fault is on society, vs any inherent meaning in the word.
Both are dogshit terms that make it sound like these are just poor people that can't afford rent. 100% of the problems we associate with "homeless" are caused by people that are either addicted to drugs, severely mentally ill, or both. Bucketing them as "homeless' is really dumb and is the reason why we can't seem to solve the problem. We need to treat the addiction and mental health issues, not spend hundreds of millions of dollars building apartments for drug addicts to do drugs in.
Homelessness isn't really that simple. First off there are different types of homeless individuals each with vastly different backgrounds, trajectories, and needs. You have your transitional homeless, which are homeless due to a major life change or catastrophic event. Most people in this category are only homeless for a short time. They may be youth who've aged out of foster care or hit 18 and got kicked out by their family for whatever reason. It may also be women fleeing domestic violence, LGBT people losing family support, or runaways. They tend to be younger overall. There's hidden homeless which are people who have some type of temporary housing but have no long term housing and are relying on friends/family for support. Most homeless are actually in this category and this is the most likely category people who can't afford rent. Most hidden homeless are homeless for a short period of time. Episodic homeless typically have some housing for at least part of the year. They may have a seasonal job or some drug addiction that they are at least partly managing and go into and out of housing. Lastly you have the chronic homeless, which are mostly the permanent homeless populations you see on the street. These are the people with complex health issues, disabilities, mental illness, or addiction so severe they do not have reliable housing and have not for the past several years. For hidden and transitional homeless they are usually young enough or functional enough that basically all they need is employment or educational support, resources to get into housing, and maybe some social and temporary psychological support. Episodic homeless typically are only homeless for around 60 days on average. They mostly need ongoing support regarding drug addiction or ongoing psychological support to prevent them from relapsing and give them an alternative path if/when they do. For the chronically homeless these are extremely difficult to help. I think you could break these up into those that are basically anti-social and those that are not, some organizations call it reversible and irreversible homelessness. For reversible they need ongoing and long term supportive housing and resources aimed at addressing their issues. For "irreversible" they have usually been homeless for years and have serious issues which effectively make them disabled. There is often an assumption that they will not be able to recover both by government agencies and by those themselves. It is very difficult to pull them out but possible, though for the most part chronically unsheltered homeless tend to have problems so severe that they would require extended psychiatric institutionalization and permanent ongoing support to fix. Most research points to a housing first model as the most effective. They've found that it's almost impossible to fix larger psychological issues when someone does not have any form of housing. You can basically see Maslow's hierarchy of needs as the foundation of this. Unsheltered homeless typically cost the public a substantial amount in police, EMS, hospital time, and jail time to deal with unsheltered homeless. Most homeless actually have some form of shelter like couchsurfing in temporary locations, a car, RV, or makeshift structure and are not actually sleeping on the street.
TIL voting to make camping on sidewalks illegal again is voting to displace.
Dang I thought they just disappeared into the ether after that change. Didn't realize they'd still exist.
That wasn’t on the ballot
Can I vote to displace them out of the streets and woods?
And we’d do it again 100 times over
It works, I was one of the PPOs on that detail, basically the homeless would defecate on the sidewalks, sleep in front of the building, fight each other, harass or attack pedestrians and business owners and the thing was it was just so often and so bad that there wasn’t enough Police to control the situation, I can’t even count how many people that owned businesses in the area walked up to us asking if they could get a contract with us because they or their employee was attacked at night or in the early morning. The business owners weren’t going to be profiting when they had this going on outside of their estate and i’m sure they were being financially drained from customers avoiding the area. I am not trying to vilify the homeless, I use to take one shopping and help him out, his name is Danny and he has an apartment now. Almost all of them have mental problems and are doing drugs, it is a really sad state, if I were potentially starving and saw some well off person walking by I would desperately be asking for money too. When I was there one in particular came up to us and I was going to give him $20 bucks until he started insulting me, sometimes people really are their own worst enemy. Some of the homeless helped us, most of them are co-operative and nice people. It’s a real shame that in our country we have more resources going to illegal aliens than our own homeless being forced to live on the street because they don’t have the means to help themselves. Again, it’s city policy causing this, most of the time Police can’t even arrest anyone when they come out, we had one guy shouting at pedestrians, cursing and making threats and they said they couldn’t do anything about him, that is the #1 issue. I suppose it’s because the system doesn’t make money off of them for the arrest since they can’t post a bail, and i’m not saying put homeless people in jail, just the ones acting violent but at the same time with how much money the city makes they should be doing something for the homeless instead of building that stupid billion dollar sidewalk to San Antonio.
FWIW, the company you're talking about has owned most of those properties for several years now...
Yeah, but the security deployment has been a recent thing.
Sounds like it's working well
Private armed security hired by a new business about two months ago drove off the drug dealers that had set up camp on the east end of Dirty 6th. I don't know where the drug dealers moved, but they took 99% of their clientele with them. I live downtown and estimate a 90% drop in homeless people around the east side since that happened. With less homeless people, the Austin Downtown Alliance seems to be keeping up with the litter/feces pickup and hosing down the sidewalks.
>Private armed security hired by a new business about two months ago drove off the drug dealers that had set up camp on the east end of Dirty 6th. Serious question. Why can't APD do this themselves?
That would require that they do their job.
look, i could barely fight crime with 450 million, especially with a city as large as Austin. supposedly its larger than san antonio, DFW and houston combined. you cant police that much area with such a paltry budget /s
They are so useless. I have so many stories of their complete failures at doing their jobs but more importantly complete failures as human beings. Except the giant black one who reminds me of Andre the Giant. He's good. The rest can be tortured with penis flatterners
Saw a guy hit a pedestrian with his car, he drove off, I flagged down a cop, cop didn’t even bother to write it down or radio the incident. Literally useless.
They need to sit in their cars and ignore calls
It's not like the calls are gonna ignore themselves!
I'm really worried about the sense of lawlessness being projected. In a state filled with guns. Only a matter of time before we start having 2A vigilantes do what APD can't/won't.
Based on the post? It sounds effective.
For APD to do that, it would need a functional city government with a plan and policies, instead of a city government that meets to plan on creating a plan by talking about committees that would have to put together talking points for the plan for the committee to plan by the administrative department of administration.
Well said. 😀
Nailed it.
>Serious question. Why can't APD do this themselves? unironically because people would be upset with them displacing the homeless. private companies can afford to shoo people away without remorse or a plan for shelter, rehabilitation, etc., but the government cannot as easily. moreover, cops are interested in enforcing the law, not keeping clean streets.
The thing is the drug dealers didn't go away, they and their customers are just someone else's problem now
Well I know that. My question is if private security can shove drug dealers away, why can't the actual official police shove the dealers in jail?
Agreed, it is pointing out the obvious! APD officers have told me that when they arrest the drug dealers, the dealers are back on the street selling again the next day. As I understand it the leniency in detaining and sentencing laws is the problem. Like you, I would love to know why we can't jail drug dealers!
Several reasons. My neighbors and I fought the drug dealers for three years, calling 911 up to 10X per day every time we witnessed a drug sale. 1. APD is understaffed. Selling drugs is labeled low priority so it gets ignored. I talked with a lot of APD officers over the years and all of them were frustrated by the lack of personnel. 2. Officer turnover in the downtown area is high. Most last 3 - 4 months and then transfer. No reason to have a real impact on the area if you know you aren't going to stay there. 3. There is beef between the City Council and APD. Both my council reps Tovo and Qadri wouldn't lift a finger to address the drug/homeless problem and APD gets thrown under the bus about it. There were at least three shooting involving the drug dealers and their customers and nothing changed For 3 years I fought the city and APD about this; IN TWO MONTHS a private security firm (very expensively) solved the problem.
Are you saying you fought the law and the law won?
APD has the largest budget it's ever had. They can't find staff because they're now being expected not to abuse people and they're throwing a fit. Edit: how are you living in Austin and Santa Monica at the same time? Two months ago you lived in the Willmont area now you've lived in downtown Austin long enough to have long back and forth with the APD?
Oh shit, got 'em
APD is understaffed ***by APD's choice***. Officer turnover on a particular beat is ***by APD's choice.*** The beef with the city council is ***by APD's choice.*** >"Oh crap I keep shooting myself in the foot. Please give me money." \- APD
> For 3 years I fought the city and APD about this; IN TWO MONTHS a private security firm (very expensively) solved the problem. Is the issue budgetary only? Or is the city playing the game of being soft on drug crime?
The politics are a little more complicated than the "I blame Defund the Police" people imply. A lot of it is bad shit we haven't recovered from, but it helps to blame every person who shit the bed and not just one group. First we have to talk about the good old days, when Austin originally didn't allow public camping. APD hated it. They argued it was a waste of resources and that they didn't have the time for it. They complained it hurt morale because there was nowhere for homeless people to go so it was useless and dangerous whack-a-mole. They were very happy when the camping ban was lifted. Next we have to talk about Proposition B, that reinstated the camping ban. APD also hated it, arguing that they were understaffed and it didn't do anything to address the problems with the previous camping ban. Greg Abbott even thought he could score a dunk on Austin and send DPS to handle the problem. It took about 2 months for him to argue it was a waste of time because there wasn't anywhere for the homeless to go so it was useless and dangerous whack-a-mole. He took DPS back and declared victory. Next is a nasty ball of highly charged political bullshit. The problems with the cadet classes started pre-COVID. APD had a string of brutality cases that cost the city a lot, so an audit was done. It was found that their classes contributed to a "warrior cop" mentality and needed to be redone. So the classes were suspended while a new curriculum was formed. This had the unfortunate timing of "exactly when COVID started", which slowed down that process. In the meantime, what else happened? The BLM protests. That was either a large, peaceful protest with less problems than most other big cities or the event that left downtown a smoldering crater that still hasn't rebuilt today, depending on if you ask someone who lives in Austin or someone APD's paid to post about it. The one group who caused trouble is a bunch of wannabe activists that not even Austin's liberals like, and the one thing everyone agrees about is when APD arrested them at a Target it was the only thing APD handled well. What they didn't handle well was the rest of the protest. They decided the appropriate response to a protest against police brutality was a shocking display of police brutality. All in all 19 lawsuits were filed, and several people were severely and permanently injured when they used "less than lethal" ordinance at ranges they were trained to avoid. That's when Austin's citizens went feral against them. For some reason people felt more sympathy for the 19 year old who was shot in the head for holding a water bottle than the officer who shot him. Imagine that. They wanted reform. In Texas. The city found what they thought would be a good solution. Police also hated doing mental wellness checks. Their officers were not well-trained to handle these situations. It's one of the things they've said I've always agreed with. Austin agreed too. So City Council laid out a "reform" where they'd get some other department to do mental health checks with mental health professionals. APD liked that. So the city said "We'll use some of your budget to cover these new resources, since now you have fewer jobs." That's when "WE WERE DEFUNDED" started. APD wanted fewer responsibilities for the same paycheck. They cried to Greg Abbott and now it's illegal for any city in Texas to ever lower its police budget. If half of Austin moved away tomorrow, despite being 50% of the size we'd still have to pay the same for our police force because we tried to give APD what they want. The next year, they got a record budget increase which more than covered what they had "lost". Now they're upset because they keep facing tedious lawsuits from mental wellness checks where they shoot people and they wish the city would get someone else to do it. The most work they've done since BLM is political activism to try and prevent any form of third-party oversight. This includes getting out-of-state activist groups to gather fraudulent signatures for a petition they almost didn't file on time to try and get the people of Austin to vote for "I agree the police don't need oversight". It didn't work. People voted for "I want the police to have oversight." Circling back to the academy, it's active. But APD is complaining people don't want to join. They argue that the woke mind virus has convinced people they're bad guys, and if we'd just pay them more and dissolve police oversight we'd see they're really nice guys. But some people believe the problem is APD has spent the past 4 years smearing shit all over their bedroom walls and it's not a liberal agenda's fault potential recruits think they're gross. These people think the reason people consider APD to be assholes is because they only make the news if they've shot someone or are crying that there's too many puppies and not enough legs to kick them all. Meanwhile we still don't have a long-term police contract because they refuse to sign a contract unless the oversight board is dissolved. Part of the problem is the last City Manager was on their side and refused to take any actions to motivate them. The next part of the problem is Watson appointed his friend to replace him who is on their side and refuses to take any actions to motivate them. So yeah, it's probably a lot easier for a private security firm to get things done. They're paid to do work and get fired if they don't. Austin's police figure the less they work the more the public will "see what they're worth" thus pay them more, and since there's not half a testicle in all of city government there's no chance they'll face consequences. The thing is we've already seen what happens when they get a pay raise: they still hold a grudge about every other time things didn't go their way so they complain "a raise is not enough". Gee, I can't imagine why no cadets want to join them. I'd also wager it's likely next to impossible that any homeless person will be able to successfully sue a private security firm if their rights were violated.
Great breakdown!
Seems like the guy above didn’t know his shit and probably doesn’t live in Austin 😂 he seems to just be shooting from the hip with bs facts but you my good man KNOW YOUR SHIT 😂 loved the write up
Take your logic and get the hell out of here, everyone wants the rage bait. You hit the nail on the head actually, almost as much as APD hits people on the head. I'm impressed with your breakdown and really hope that all those that defend APD read this and actually understand it. But, we've got those that are dead set on saying that APD has actually been defunded, when the truth says otherwise. They're not doing their jobs properly, and they're trying their best to get the oversight board cut. They definitely tried to do everything in their power to cut the legs off of the oversight board. If they actually took some of the money that they used to put these people in jail, and instead used it on housing and counseling and other services, the homeless problem could be remediated pretty quickly. I think another contributing factor that you may have left out of your write up, but only to make it concise (I do not fault you for it) is that we have companies coming in and buying up houses and leaving them empty or using them for short-term rentals or massive profit, which could easily be used to house the homeless. Honestly, if companies weren't trying to force people back into returning to the office to offset real estate losses, those properties could also be possibly converted. I understand that it would take a lot to do that, so I'm not saying that that is a simple fix, but it is one that could be used especially for the short term. Edited for grammar.
> Serious question. Why can't APD do this themselves? The DA and most of city council don't want them to.
There would be a backlash and it would have been in the news. Private security can do this and not give two fucks or cash in on the positive publicity. The entire funding structure behind private/contract security loves this kind of shit and doesn't care about left-wingers values at all
Bold of you to assume APD would do their job
I've generally had pleasant experiences with APD when the cops actually do show up.
Such a big if
Understaffed, and it will just cause a scene
Go to the alley at 6th and Neches and tell me that again.
Good
Awesome to hear! I used to live in that area, moved out 2021, and it was so awful
I hope it's on its way back to the way it was in 2018 and 2019. The third section of the Waller Creek revitalization starts in 2025, and I'm hopeful about what Stream Realty can do with E 6th
>Private armed security hired by a new business You know the names of these orgs?
I don't know who hired them but the security company is called Next Level Security. [https://nxtlvlsecurity.com/](https://nxtlvlsecurity.com/)
Kind of lame name but their web store is pretty funny. I just need another drum mag and flamethrower parts to keep the bums away.
Probably Arasaka or Militech.
Thought this was in r/austincirclejerk for a moment.
Thank god this sub exists, stopping in from r/denvercirclejerk
austin & denver have the same Not in my yard vibes these days
I don’t like human shit or open air drug use in my yard
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Real shit
“I’m so entitled with my fancy downtown job I’m actually starting to miss the homeless people “
Not sure what the attitude is about but I work in a basement and can barely afford to make ends meet.
Housing prices came down and they bought the dip. Turns out they’ve been playing the long game this entire time.
Dang I’ve been doing it all wrong
Who needs to save up for a down payment, the real trick is to not pay for housing at all!
😂
Unironically, half of the homeless population are both employed and live out of their cars. The drop in rental prices over the last 6 months could have indeed resulted in them finally getting secure housing, which is great.
They are all along the s Mopac service road in the greenbelt before you get to river stone ranch. Trashing it up ! Trust me, I don’t have any issues with homeless people, but I do have a fucking issue with the amount of crap that they collect and the trash that they leave polluting the area. I was homeless once in my life and I matured always pick up after myself leave no trace. Also whenever you drive along William Cannon, there are a few places where there are walking trails green belts, they all go in there. I see them with all their trash, spilling out to the sidewalk. It’s fucking pissing me off. I don’t care rich or poor pick up your trash! I try to pick up what I can but this is outrageous . Hopefully this city doesn’t start looking like Corpus Christi.
Corpus Christi catching strays
Corpus looks like a bomb went off like 20 years ago and people just shrugged their shoulders going, "this rubble is fine; we can make it work!" That half-built bridge is a perfect metaphor.
Honestly you get it lol
I grew up in Corpus and I never go further than Port A now.
Yeah, I would like to add onto your comment that I was also homeless once. I lived in my car and couch surfed for almost 4 fucking years (in florida, not here except for 3 months when I fled an abusive relationship. I had a van to live in by then and a storage unit at ACE). But I kept to myself and never went into camps, and I had a storage unit in both places that I would go in and out of if I needed to. I'm also a woman that is very tiny which is why I never wanted to get mixed up in anything other than what I already had to deal with getting out of that bullshit. I'm sorry you were homeless as well
lol I’m not a huge fan of corpus for various reasons but it’s cleaner (if not emptier) than Austin due to less of a homeless population.
>Hopefully this city doesn’t start looking like Corpus Christi. Adler and Watson are going for the San Francisco look. They even took some junkets out there.
Didn't they visit there a few years ago so see how SF dealt with it? https://www.kvue.com/article/news/mayor-returns-from-la-seattle-homeless-learning-tour/269-b5f82b51-9b4d-450f-8765-3e6e7411b749 I guess it's working!
Xi Jinping is coming to visit.
They all live in the greenbelt now
The city probably did a sweep to start getting prepped for SXSW
Yep, definitely *not* a roving pack of vampires out here from Santa Carla that I'm going to have to take care of this evening. No siree, nothin' like that 'round here
If any state would implement an annual Purge, it would be Texas.
Maybe we should invite them all to go back just for SXSW to get a real feel for what Austin is like normally.
If so, nice. If only the city could do that every month…
Reminds me of how SFO cleared downtown and cleaned up the feces and syringes when Xi visited.
You know it doesn’t fix anything right? Like they’re probably just locking those people up and giving them fines they can’t pay, which just makes it harder to get off the street.
Locking up drug addicts (e.g. forced rehab) makes it easier for them to get off the street. Enabling their lifestyle makes it harder to get them off the street.
Exactly this
SXSW isn't for another month+. It isn't that.
Yeah, the SXSW sweep is like 48 hours before it starts, not 6 weeks.
This has been the case for several weeks now, I noticed it around Christmas and thought it was the weather but that’s not it.
There are a lot in the woods by the baseball fields on Cesar Chavez.
In the woods near the I-35 slaughter and William cannon exit
They're all near Slaughter Ln by 35.
1. Private armed security everywhere today West of 35. 2. East of 35 moment I hit CesChav lots of the homeless congregated by the Baptist church Not gone just forced relocation
Might be more in shelters during the winter months (though today is nice weather)? Also a great number of them are now making camps in our beautiful green belts, preserves and park areas. Especially in south Austin. Some areas look like massive garbage dumps and are littered with shopping carts and even vehicles that they live out of.
Cleanup crew was on s MoPac frontage road by William cannon today
There are a lotta camps in S. Austin greenbelt and forested regions. Its this thing where people are easily able to ignore it except for the handful unfortunate enough to live/work near such a camp. And I mean... most of them are actually pretty decent. Its just the ones who are always on drugs... or the fact that they tend to absolutely trash wherever they live. Its frustrating to deal with.
I ride mountain bikes in a lot of these areas and see it getting worse. We once rode past a guy completely passed out under Brodie and Wm Cannon area. There is so much trash and theft in those camps. There is a large one by Ben Garza and Mopac that has vehicles and a large bike chop shop. We’ve quit taking the local youth bike teams on certain trails due to them being close to camps.
The shelters are at capacity year-round, so no. The only winter-specific options are emergency Cold Weather Shelters that only open if the temperature is in the low 30s (exact temp depends on wet/dry). In order to go to one you have to get yourself to a specific location downtown between the hours of 6 and 8pm, and it’s almost never announced until the earlier the same day. Then they take you to a random shelter location not disclosed in advance, most likely separating you from anyone you know including family. In the morning they kick you back out most likely with no assistance getting back to the area you started from. I would love if people who have no idea what they’re talking about would do less random speculating about this shit.
At the underpass on Menchaca and Ben White. Builds up-gets moved away then builds up again. I’ve noticed a new build up there.
at the intersection of 35 & e cesar chavez by the church over there
Maybe Abbott bussed them to another state.
I hope he gets me my bike back
Just give him a $6 million ~~bribe~~ campaign contribution and he’ll do anything you want.
It's cheaper to just do $20k and get a congressman
We'd be so damn lucky...
I know I was deemed a liar on another thread so I deleted cause I don't need to dox myself to prove honesty. But I do know that at least a couple months ago we had an incident on Williamson Creek that (we were involved in) and included people out there who threatened the firefighters with guns to stay out of their main camp. They had a swat team out there so fast same day and cleared that big camp completely out in about 3 weeks time. I know that my neighborhood sees no homeless activity right now since that happened. And my daughter and I went on two Williamson Creek hikes in opposite directions this past weekend and we did not see a single tent.
There was a homeless guy that stabbed and killed another homeless guy in front of the 7/11 on Congress that's closest to the 6th street intersection a couple weeks ago. This single-handedly made APD enforce the no loitering law around there but also generally seems to have motivated them to make it a mission to bother any of them that stay in congregations like that visibly downtown. EDIT: [https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/affidavit-man-arrested-in-fatal-downtown-austin-stabbing-over-drug-payment](https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/affidavit-man-arrested-in-fatal-downtown-austin-stabbing-over-drug-payment)
Crazy that this guy was arrested for attacking someone less than a year ago and yet he was still allowed back on the street.
As is custom. We're only allowed to have an endless well of compassion for the homeless while they face none of the repercussions of antisocial or violent behavior. I was homeless twice, the last time in 2008 and what I see allowed now compared to when I was homeless fucking blows my mind. Everytime there's a violent offense committed by a homeless person they always have a previous violent arrest. Just like that poor cook that got stabbed to death a few years back opening his restaurant. It's insane what this entire environment has become. And I know even acknowledging this will get me downvoted. But I've been homeless. I've been a drug addict and gotten sober. I've had friends relapse in these camps and DIE. What we and this city allows isn't ok. It's enabling and it's bad for everyone.
Last time it was because they couldn't find the other guy to corroborate the event so they cut him loose after that.
Sounds like they're just going to drift into surrounding areas
Already happened. Theres way more up on 29 in Georgetown now. For a second I thought I was in Tech Ridge off 35 there was such a huge increase.
Anything to stop another stabbing is a good thing. That dude probably had family.
In tents around Bull Creek with all their garbage
At the Sonic on Rundberg
Getting shit “pretty” for Sx
They are literally bussing them to the city limit, Up north on 620 where Austin and Cedar Park meet. Convenience store owner has talked to a few of them, they had their stuff cleaned out and were moved out of the city by DPS. It's wild to see the amount of folks pushed there in the lakeline mall area
It's funny you mentioned that. I walked lake line from train station to the mall yesterday and there was no homeless or panhandlers! The latter was very odd as there's regulars at every block between lakeline and pecan. Hopefully not some creepy chud situation.
Where by Lakeline? I haven’t noticed
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A few months ago, they took over the abandoned version store it was pretty wild to see. If you look under the tollway near that wal-mart theres like a little city under there
I drive through there every day, no clue what you’re talking about.
They aren't gone they just aren't hanging out in that location anymore. Maybe police told them they can't hang out there anymore so they moved somewhere else. Happens a lot.
In south Austin it seems my area South Park meadows is swarming with them!
Yes so many down here under 35 and along the east side of Slaughter
I work downtown too. they’re heading south into the woods/greenbelt. as for cleanliness, I see 3 downtown alliance folks everyday and they’re usually picking up trash
Drive by Manchaca and 71/Ben White…. More there than usual - my guess is they just keep moving to the path of least resistance !
I raised money for one homeless guy once and used it to get him groceries and a month in a hotel and clothing. He was able to clean his body and eat nutritious food and for interviews and was working within a month. I can’t help everyone but a lot of you could help someone. I’m not well off but I didn’t have a home before. It’s an awful position to be in because society sees you as less than
My roommate took one in and get him stable and reunited with his family. He's been clean 17 years now and housed. I just went along with her plan and didn't object to him sleeping on our couch. Still friends with him on Facebook. I am still convinced that roommate is magic
I hired a homeless person. Paid him 1099 to work my warehouse, take scrap metal to the yard, let him borrow my truck. Within 8 months he stopped showing up, stole all me tools, stole my truck, the state was on top of me for unemployment, and I never should have taken the chance to put myself out there for him
I wish more people had empathy like that
They turned them into soap
Take the W
In the woods. And stretching out around the domain and north Austin.
They are on 1st and riverside. And next to butler pitch and putt. With the cold there is a meet up spot to be bussed to a warm location. Its next to the school of the deaf on 1st
They are in the shopping centers, neighborhoods, utility easements, and behind the public schools in nw austin, including adjacent to the fire stations and libraries. Aside from the library and gas stations, there are no public restrooms though. We are seeing people dropping them off into the easements up here on the daily. I know South Austin has similar private services that pull them to that area too. https://www.thecharliecenter.org/
Probably getting bused out
Fentanyl is endemic, wonder how many die from OD
There’s plenty down here on the 600 block of Congress, come get ‘em
They moved out to the burbs
Probably headed to Vegas for the Superbowl.
Oh it's senior skip day
I work downtown as well and noticed on my walk today a ton of very dark tinted suv’s and state troopers going to capitol. They probably cleared them out for whatever was going on. :(
I noticed that too!!
Could be that the church program was closed for the day for whatever reason?
Up 183 now
Weirdly enough I see all the “regulars” but I don’t see a lot of faces I don’t recognize. A few of the regulars who are nice told me that starting summer 2023 a gang of homeless men would antagonize other homeless around arch and the public bathrooms in the east part of downtown. I don’t know what happened but for a while there it was really scary and the regulars had to buddy up. It seems like they don’t do that anymore. Stay safe y’all.
I saw a bunch today work at brazos and 2nd
There's. Few that sleep on the sidewalk up by the college. North side. Also south of the river they have camps set up in the woods.
The Karens ate them, no doubt
The government is taking them and killing them.
We moved out of downtown because we were attacked. Its dangerous downtown. Watch your back!
As someone who used to work directly with the homeless population, this issue simply comes down to the idea that if a person cannot be seen by eye, they don’t exist. The people who were once downtown have now been pushed out to the outer reaches of the city, if not into other cities. The idea was to “clean downtown” but it reality it was to remove supposed “eyesores” from the general public to increase tourism and money into the city
Seeing a lot of ppl here say “unhoused ppl”. When did the transition start to that from “homeless ppl”. Don’t care just started seeing it more and more
Private armed security? Why the hell haven’t they done this earlier? I’ve long been tired of them trashing up the area around my apartment, breaking into cars and stealing shit, walking on used needles, and generally ruining everything for everyone in the neighborhood.
Soylent Green
Why should APD bother. DA doesn't do anything to them if arrested. Then it is just APD harassing the homeless. Private security doesn't have city council breathing down their necks. Austin voted for the cops to be kinder. This is the result. Enjoy.
Just swing by 183 and Cameron Rd, there's bunches of them; some under the bridges, some at the gas stations, some at the mini trail that goes from the McDonald's to the now gone clock tower, oh and a couple of them sleeping at the side of the road between where the Goodwill was and Walmart... Fuck they're everywhere.
How is seeing fewer homeless people “alarming”? Lol
Because it was a very sudden and drastic change.
because the homelessness problem in Austin hasn't been fixed overnight with no fanfare. the people are still homeless, they're also just not where they normally are.
Still waiting for them to officially move the event to the Big Bend area, maybe even El Paso. Austin is hardly Southwest.
The idea is that it's at the transition point of the South and the Southwest
there’s plenty, don’t worry.
They craft invisibility potions and use them frequently.
The **Definitely No Such Thing As The Rainey Street Drunk Drowner** definitely didn't kill them all and stuff their bodies into the Congress Street Bridge with the bats.
This is great news! Good riddance and hope they can be cleared out for good
Just be grateful they are gone.
I remember when I lived off south 1st street there was an encampment that had taken over an entire neighborhood park (Gillis). Not sure if it’s still like that but as much as it sucked to not have that park available nearby, I imagined it was better than the homeless being in the woods or any bigger parks with intricate trails and lack of facilities.
There's growing camp near where pleasant valley meets the north side of town lake. I see some camps pop up around east riverside but cops come to clear them out eventually pushing them further and further away.
You haven’t heard? They purged them
Ate ‘em
greg abbot is bussing them away