AUSTIN, Texas – The City of Austin is launching a new task force aimed at addressing homeless-related issues downtown.

It will bring together agencies and service providers to find long-term solutions.

Downtown Homelessness Task Force

The backstory:

“The city of Austin is 300 square miles. So, we’re a pretty large city geographically. Across those 300 squares of miles on any given night, we have 6,500 people experiencing unsheltered homelessness,” said David Gray, City of Austin Homeless Strategy Officer.

That’s why the City of Austin and the Downtown Austin Alliance are launching the “Downtown Homelessness Task Force.”

It’s a cross-agency initiative aimed at curbing the inflow of newly homeless people and helping more people transition off the streets into shelter, housing, or programs.

“We’ve already had outreach teams going out and doing daily outreach, engaging with people who are unsheltered and getting them off the streets. That outreach work begins at 5 or 5:30 every morning before many people even wake up,” said Gray.

The new program builds on that work.

“What we’re doing now is meeting with systems partners, so the operators of the healthcare, the operators of our local jails, the law enforcement professionals, the shelter professionals, and our business community,” said Gray.

Partners include the Austin Police Department, Integral Care, Trinity Center, ECHO, the Downtown Austin Alliance, the Travis County Attorney’s Office, among others.

Currently, if someone experiencing a severe behavioral health crisis is picked up by police. Then, they may be taken to a mental health center for stabilization and released back to the streets. With the task force, that path would look different.

“If that same person is admitted to a mental health facility, and they’re stabilized, how do we now build the connection so that the mental health facility discharges that person to a therapeutic residential community, or maybe discharging that person to a shelter, or dischargers that person to a family who are willing to take that person in, so that that person never returns to the street,” said Gray. 

David Gray, City of Austin Homeless Strategy Officer, says that approach can also be applied through the criminal justice system and within shelters.

“It’s taking a holistic look at all the elements of the system and saying, how do we address all the elements of the systems together so that it doesn’t matter if somebody is seeking out mental health care, or they get arrested, or they’re in a shelter. Once they are in with a provider, that provider now has the ability and the resources and the policy to make sure that that person is not being discharged back to the street,” said Gray. 

Big picture view:

City leaders allocated about $100 million for homeless services in its latest budget.

However, the city says there is no dedicated funding for this initiative.