ECHO says permanent supportive housing is the only way out of Austin’s homelessness crisis

Austin’s Ending Community Homelessness Coalition joined City Council’s Public Health Committee this month to break down the nonprofit’s latest point-in-time count, which in late January found 2,374 Austinites experiencing some degree of homelessness. While that figure is down from 2020, Executive Director Matt Mollica said it will take years of sustained effort to truly address the crisis.

“Over the last 15 to 20 years, we’ve failed to make much progress on ending homelessness in our community,” Mollica said. “We’ve had failed policies on the federal level going back multiple administrations, we’ve seen state governments take this up in ways that are not helpful or impactful, and we’ve seen city governments really stepping up across the country to support a homelessness response system in ways that has never been the case before.”

The years since the last point-in-time count have seen a number of program and policy changes, including a voter-approved camping ban and the city’s new Housing-Focused Encampment Assistant Link initiative. ECHO’s research team said both have had sizable effects on Austin’s homeless population, with 53 percent now seeking temporary shelter – up from 37 percent in 2020 – and unsheltered individuals moving from centralized encampments to more remote areas across the city.

“Although there is still a concentration of folks right around the downtown core, there is a larger spread of folks identified in North and Southwest Austin,” said ECHO Research and Evaluation Manager Claire Burrus. “We’re also seeing a larger concentration of individuals sleeping unsheltered in parklands and nature preserves owned by the city of Austin … about three times as many as in 2020.”

ECHO noted that while expansion of temporary housing at sites like Northbridge and Southbridge have been critical to addressing the crisis, the team found only 70 percent of available beds in use on the night of the point-in-time count. The finding comes as the city announces plans to add another 130 beds via shifting rooms at both sites from single to double occupancy.

“In communities across the country that have not invested in permanent supportive housing, people see very long stays at emergency shelters. Ultimately, you see people getting frustrated and going back to the street,” Mollica said. 

As wait times for permanent housing climb to nearly seven months, ECHO’s researchers identified permanent supportive housing as the city’s single greatest challenge. While projects like Cady Lofts gradually are bringing more units online, Mollica said demand continues to far outpace supply.

“We have one of the lowest rates of permanent supportive housing resources of any community of our size in the country – it’s not even close,” Mollica said. “This year, we expect to have ribbon-cuttings on 400-plus units of supportive housing, and that’s been years in the making. … Everything else is just moving folks around, squeezing air in a balloon back and forth.”

Still, the city continues to work as it can in the short term, with plans to leverage $9 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to convert the Austin Convention Center’s off-site Marshalling Yard into an additional temporary shelter. The 70,000-square-foot site near the intersection of U.S. Highway 183 and State Highway 71 is slated for discussion at Council’s July 20 meeting and could add another 300 beds to the city’s emergency shelter capacity.

Data enthusiasts can check out the point-in-time presentation for themselves on ECHO’s YouTube channel. Those interested also can learn more about the city’s homelessness response network here.

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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