City leaders will decide Thursday on a plan to expand the use of hotels for people who can’t safely quarantine because of COVID-19.
The Austin City Council will vote to approve $3.5 million in agreements to lease the hotels – one in South Austin near St. Edward’s University and two in North Austin – for the next two months, and an option to extend those agreements another two months.
If approved, the brunt of that money would go toward leasing the Crowne Plaza hotel near the intersection of North Interstate 35 and Highway 290 East. Council members would use $2.8 million from its general fund’s emergency reserve to lease the hotel, which could house as many as 292 people.
The agreement would also include meal service for those staying at the hotel. City staff estimate the hotel would need to provide 1,022 meals a day for those quarantined at the hotel, along with 30 daily staff meals.
The other two hotels could house 200 additional people. The La Quinta in South Austin has a 129-room capacity and the Motel 6 near I-35 and Highway 183 has 71 rooms. Both leases for those hotels would be funded out of the city’s housing trust fund.
Back in November, the Austin City Council began negotiating a similar deal to buy an 87-room hotel off I-35 and Oltorf for $8 million. Initially, that space was meant to serve as transitional housing for people experiencing homelessness.
City staff say that hotel could be used to house people after that deal is finalized on April 17, though it would take an additional four weeks to retrofit the hotel rooms.
Austin is also partnering with Travis County to provide a smaller isolation space at the Sobering Center for 10 to 15 homeless Austinites who may present higher risk factors for COVID-19. Council will formalize an agreement with the county to fund that, Thursday.
The city will also vote on a plan that would partner with Revolution Foods to provide prepared meals over the next nine weeks across 50 sites.
In the last week, the city, in partnership with Austin Public Health, has expanded the number of portable restrooms and handwashing stations for unsheltered Austinites living in encampments.
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