People who live above the Barton Creek greenbelt have been complaining for a while about a specific encampment in the greenbelt. They were particularly worried about the possibility of a wildfire since the encampment had a grill. This week, the Parks and Recreation Department moved in to clean up the site. Neighbors on the Barton Hills Neighborhood listserv described their fear of what might happen if a fire got out of hand.
Another neighbor wrote, “Campers on the greenbelt have been an issue for decades. What’s different now is how the city deals with the problem. 25 years ago, when I first started spending a lot of time on the greenbelt, there was a zero-tolerance policy for campers. PARD had staff that was dedicated to greenbelt maintenance and the Park Police dept. still existed. When a camp was reported, it was usually gone within a week.” But without the Park Police, there was much less attention to the problem, he noted.
A PARD spokesman told the Austin Monitor via email, “The Parks and Recreation Department (PARD) cleans up small and medium scale abandoned encampments in parks and greenbelts. Staff do not engage if individuals are present when they arrive to clean up a site that had been previously identified as an abandoned encampment. The Homeless Strategy Office (HSO) is notified for any active camps and provides further direction. The encampment cleaned up this week in the Barton Creek Greenbelt near Barton Springs Pool was identified as being abandoned. PARD has a team of four temporary staff funded through Fiscal Year 2024 dedicated to cleaning up abandoned encampments. From January to May 2024, 156 abandoned encampments have been cleaned up.”