AUSTIN (KXAN) — As the city of Austin continues its three-week effort to eliminate homeless encampments and get people to shelter, Mayor Kirk Watson toured one of those camps Friday morning before city crews started the work of clearing it out.
Tucked into the woods just off of Brandt Road in south Austin, people experiencing homelessness had created multi-story treehouses, A-frame living structures and collected significant amounts of debris.
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A homeless encampment in south Austin. The city will begin clearing this encampment out Friday. Of the people living there, more than a dozen accepted shelter (KXAN photo/Grace Reader) -
A homeless encampment in south Austin. The city will begin clearing this encampment out Friday. Of the people living there, more than a dozen accepted shelter (KXAN photo/Grace Reader) -
A homeless encampment in south Austin. The city will begin clearing this encampment out Friday. Of the people living there, more than a dozen accepted shelter (KXAN photo/Grace Reader) -
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson discusses homeless encampment cleanup operations with city staff (KXAN photo/Grace Reader) -
A homeless encampment in south Austin. The city will begin clearing this encampment out Friday. Of the people living there, more than a dozen accepted shelter (KXAN photo/Grace Reader)
The people living there had already been relocated Friday morning. Of the roughly 30 people at the site, more than a dozen had accepted shelter, according to David Gray, the director of Austin Homeless Strategies and Operations. Starting Friday, the city will begin clearing that encampment out and removing the debris left behind.
“The word that comes to my mind the quickest is overwhelming,” Watson said after he viewed that homeless encampment. “It’s overwhelming the situation that people are living in, it’s overwhelming to me how much effort people go into creating living conditions that are better, even in the woods.”
It’s part of a three-week initiative by the city of Austin to get people connected with resources and shelter before winter, when weather conditions may be deadly. As part of that, the city is also eliminating homeless encampments left behind.
Two weeks into that surge, Gray said the city has cleared more than 400 individual sites, gotten nearly 100 people into shelter and connected roughly 50 more with services.
“In one of the wealthiest cities in the country and in the world, we have people living in these sorts of conditions,” Watson said. “We really really need to up our game … This should not be Austin, Texas.”
It’s happening at the same time the state of Texas launched a targeted encampment cleanup initiative in Austin. Despite Gov. Greg Abbott saying he was leaning on the city to help the state shelter people, Gray said the city has only sheltered one person on behalf of the state so far.
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