Fitlump fucking won a Austin City Council seat, Now on to Congress 2026!

[dcar00 13966]

4 minutes ago, Texas Jeff said:

I am amazed that people below the poverty line can live in Austin.  If they own a million dollar house and are poor, man, take the capital gain and enjoy life somewhere else.  If they are renting a million dollar house ... yeah, they aren't renting a million dollar house.

Many people that can't afford where they are living move someplace cheaper.  Sounds crazy but it happens.  They don't just say "Well, I guess I'm homeless."  It sucks for people that can't afford Austin, but many people moving here think it's cheap compared to where they were.

 

below poverty line is a different issue but what people who don't make much money do is they live somewhere and share rooms/bills/etc and have jobs.  they might have to live in a mobile home way out or who knows what.

I have no doubt that people that live in the duplexes around me have multi family situations given the number of cars.  I lived in a couple of shitty apt locations with all bills paid back in the day. 

People can do things they may have never imagined if they have the right inner drive, a high school education, and stay off drugs.

[Bozo_Casanova 26120]

1 hour ago, dcar00 said:

the single family home supply is not the issue for mentally ill and drug addicted homeless people camping under bridges.

The price of housing absolutely factors into the homeless population, and while you are right that the recently homeless or housing insecure population isn’t the same as the permanent homeless population, a significant number will fall into it. 
 

also worth mentioning- District 1, which only has 55 houses under $1m, is also home to some of the poorest and most financially insecure people in the city. 

[Bozo_Casanova 26120]

58 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

sure he could have screwed up the quote or someone may have told her 55 in her district and she misheard or someone told her 55 city wide.  or she is using it as a neat OMG sound bite.  I'm gonna go with the latter for now but could be proven wrong.

Consider your source, Austin Sanders. 

[dcar00 13966]

1 minute ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

The price of housing absolutely factors into the homeless population, and while you are right that the recently homeless or housing insecure population isn’t the same as the permanent homeless population, a significant number will fall into it. 
 

also worth mentioning- District 1, which only has 55 houses under $1m, is also home to some of the poorest and most financially insecure people in the city. 

I'm talking about the single family home supply.  not "housing"

[Bozo_Casanova 26120]

5 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

I'm talking about the single family home supply.  not "housing"

Yes but you see she’s talking about the housing supply, because in the vast majority of the land area available for housing in Austin, the only thing allowed is single family housing on 5700 sf lots. That’s what she’s talking about. That’s the whole point. That we need more housing and restricting the bulk of the city to SF only and nothing else guarantees that most of the incumbent population will ultimately be priced out by unmet demand.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Bozo_Casanova

[dcar00 13966]

10 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Yes but you see she’s talking about the housing supply, because in the vast majority of the land area in Austin, the only thing allowed is single family housing on 5700 sf lots. That’s what she’s talking about. That’s the whole point. That we need more housing and restricting the bulk of the city to SF only and nothing else guarantees that most of the incumbent population will ultimately be priced out by unmet demand.

I know what she is talking about.  there is land all over pflugerville, east austin, hays, past leander.  get investors to build apartments there.  Is there some kind of land crisis in the Central Texas area? why do people have to rent in Austin proper?  

Maybe build on the harvey penick golf course. do we really need that?

Edited January 28, 2021 by dcar00

[DanRydell 799]

I know what she is talking about.  there is land all over pflugerville, east austin, hays, past leander.  get investors to build apartments there.  Is there some kind of land crisis in the Central Texas area? why do people have to rent in Austin proper?  
Maybe build on the harvey penick golf course. do we really need that?

Because the unmet demand is predominantly in Austin proper. Increasing housing supply way outside of Austin doesn’t do anything to address affordability in Austin.

[dcar00 13966]

Just now, DanRydell said:

Because the unmet demand is predominantly in Austin proper. Increasing housing supply way outside of Austin doesn’t do anything to address affordability in Austin.

what do you mean the unmet demand is in Austin proper?  People can't live in leander or Hays or Hutto and work in Austin?  

[Brisketexan 104175]

what do you mean the unmet demand is in Austin proper?  People can't live in leander or Hays or Hutto and work in Austin?  

They can, but that’s a terrible urban design. If you love horrible traffic, though, it’s spot on.

[dcar00 13966]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

They can, but that’s a terrible urban design. If you love horrible traffic, though, it’s spot on.

now we are getting somewhere.  this is all because of traffic. 

and the horrible urban design was having loops that don't loop and letting environmentalists/tree huggers run the joint.

Edited January 28, 2021 by dcar00

[DanRydell 799]

what do you mean the unmet demand is in Austin proper?  People can't live in leander or Hays or Hutto and work in Austin?  

If there was just as much demand to live in Hays or Hutto as Austin proper, housing prices in Austin proper wouldn’t be skyrocketing.

[dcar00 13966]

1 minute ago, DanRydell said:

If there was just as much demand to live in Hays or Hutto as Austin proper, housing prices in Austin proper wouldn’t be skyrocketing.

well life sucks. live in Leander or Hays and drive to work.  I'd like to live in Tarrytown but I can't(Surly 99%er).

[DanRydell 799]

well life sucks. live in Leander or Hays and drive to work.  I'd like to live in Tarrytown but I can't(Surly 99%er).

But you might be able to if less of Tarrytown (and less of Austin generally) was zoned SF.

[dcar00 13966]

2 minutes ago, DanRydell said:

But you might be able to if less of Tarrytown (and less of Austin generally) was zoned SF.

or I could try to get a higher paying job or save more money...or I could be really upset at how unfair it is that I have to sit in traffic.

[MAUFRAIS 6569]

You can also buy a wrecked Porsche pretty cheap.

[Bozo_Casanova 26120]

8 hours ago, dcar00 said:

I know what she is talking about.  there is land all over pflugerville, east austin, hays, past leander.  get investors to build apartments there.  Is there some kind of land crisis in the Central Texas area? why do people have to rent in Austin proper? 

They are currently being displaced from East Austin by rich whites, but it’s interesting to still see people making the argument for sprawl as a mitigation strategy. Sadly, goods are not substitutionary and that strategy doesn’t work. That’s what we are doing now.

7 hours ago, dcar00 said:

now we are getting somewhere.  this is all because of traffic. 

and the horrible urban design was having loops that don't loop and letting environmentalists/tree huggers run the joint.

That ship sailed. There one bullet left in the gun: more housing, of all types (including single family), for sale and for rent, across the city. 

Edited January 28, 2021 by Bozo_Casanova

[Armybrat 40615]

7 hours ago, DanRydell said:

If there was just as much demand to live in Hays or Hutto as Austin proper, housing prices in Austin proper wouldn’t be skyrocketing.

My youngest son bought a five year old 1,800 sq/ft tract house in Hutto 8 years ago because he didn’t want to rent a 1 bedroom apartment in Austin for the same monthly payment. 
He couldn’t do it now since his house has almost tripled in assessed value.

[Armybrat 40615]

Yeah, that cheaper urban sprawl ain’t so cheap any more. At least he commutes to Georgetown for work.

[Orange&White 5510]

9 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

The price of housing absolutely factors into the homeless population, and while you are right that the recently homeless or housing insecure population isn’t the same as the permanent homeless population, a significant number will fall into it. 

Then why do more and more homeless continue moving to Austin from all over Texas, despite Austin having a much, much higher housing costs than the places they are moving from? 

[Orange&White 5510]

23 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

My youngest son bought a five year old 1,800 sq/ft tract house in Hutto 8 years ago because he didn’t want to rent a 1 bedroom apartment in Austin for the same monthly payment. 
He couldn’t do it now since his house has almost tripled in assessed value.

Someone has to pay for all of Chody's lawsuits and all of the grift on the Wilco Commissioners Court.

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

8 hours ago, DanRydell said:

But you might be able to if less of Tarrytown (and less of Austin generally) was zoned SF.

hey I personally love the idea of rezoning Tarrytown. knock a bunch of shit down and build "affordable" housing there. I'd vote for FitLump if she proposed that

[Pasken 1309]

 

8 hours ago, dcar00 said:

now we are getting somewhere.  this is all because of traffic. 

and the horrible urban design was having loops that don't loop and letting environmentalists/tree huggers run the joint.

Loops don't solve traffic.

[Guest Lobo]

23 minutes ago, Pasken said:

 

Loops don't solve traffic.

They do if you can get to the left, Clark.  

[Armybrat 40615]

37 minutes ago, Orange&White said:

Someone has to pay for all of Chody's lawsuits and all of the grift on the Wilco Commissioners Court.

Just like Travis County & Austin.

[BradInATX 9208]

I am amazed that people below the poverty line can live in Austin.  If they own a million dollar house and are poor, man, take the capital gain and enjoy life somewhere else.  If they are renting a million dollar house ... yeah, they aren't renting a million dollar house.
Many people that can't afford where they are living move someplace cheaper.  Sounds crazy but it happens.  They don't just say "Well, I guess I'm homeless."  It sucks for people that can't afford Austin, but many people moving here think it's cheap compared to where they were.
 

This is where we landed. We had a 4 bedroom in south Austin that we bought in 2013 for 250k. Big house, small backyard, feeds into the worst schools in Austin. Not modernized at all.. a pure 1980s builder grade house. Sold it for 500k and bought a custom home on acreage in New Braunfels.

Progress and change are inevitable and that's fine. Austin isn't my Austin anymore and that's fine too. It's still a great city to be 40 minutes from. I'm happy to take our profit and move somewhere closer to the Austin i grew up in.

And in 20 years if New Braunfels is overrun by Californians, we'll sell this property for a couple mill and buy a lake house further out. It's all good.

Sum sum.. I agree. "I'm really mad that my house tripled in value" is silly imo.

[Texas Jeff 1925]

9 hours ago, DanRydell said:

But you might be able to if less of Tarrytown (and less of Austin generally) was zoned SF.

A lot of Tarrytown is already SF-3 (duplexing allowed).  The code allows more density in Tarrytown today than in many other parts of the city.  Try suggesting SF-3 zoning to other parts of the city that are SF-2 or SF-1 (less or no duplexing) and watch the rebellion occur.  Even if you increase zoning in Tarrytown, it's not on the new rail lines and the bus service to downtown that was in place has been removed.  You are going to get car-based living.

If you wanted to allow more housing in Tarrytown today and the city actually talked to the residents rather than just impose a map on them, you might discover some areas of possible density.  There is a biological lab and low density married student housing on Lake Austin Blvd.  Residents want to keep Muny and maybe think about ways to expand it beyond just golf.  The Austin State School has a huge chunk of low density land and I think they are down to a few hundred residents.  Camp Mabry just north of the neighborhood has room to march and land helicopters.  You could build on all or some of that and connect it with buses up and down Exposition that ran into downtown.  There are reasons that these areas stay as they are but if you just want density .... you could do it without tearing down the neighborhood today.

There is honestly land all over town, including a really empty Robinson Ranch with rail already running through it and a 15 year old zoning agreement that allows almost unlimited density covering the land.  The rail connects to downtown and Leander and is a short distance from Apple.

But the city council just does not consider solutions like this.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Texas Jeff

[Samson's Wig 3166]

Is anyone making the argument for infill beginning downtown and working its way outward?   We're already doing it with overpriced condos for foreign investors to snatch up downtown (which is just awesome for the future of any city), but wouldn't more folks support rezoning that starts with building large/affordable multifamily units in the city center before rezoning the outerlying neighborhoods along with it?  You'd get blowback from the folks in single family homes in those central areas, of course, but that could be overcome politically by the folks living further out from center.  Maybe if developers were just a hair less greedy they could make the long play and start in the middle.  Rezoning for multifamily units in northwest hills and similar areas is going to be a political nonstarter for at least another generation and probably longer.

 

Obviously, I don't know shit.  Just wondering.

[Armybrat 40615]

46 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

This is where we landed. We had a 4 bedroom in south Austin that we bought in 2013 for 250k. Big house, small backyard, feeds into the worst schools in Austin. Not modernized at all.. a pure 1980s builder grade house. Sold it for 500k and bought a custom home on acreage in New Braunfels.

Progress and change are inevitable and that's fine. Austin isn't my Austin anymore and that's fine too. It's still a great city to be 40 minutes from. I'm happy to take our profit and move somewhere closer to the Austin i grew up in.

And in 20 years if New Braunfels is overrun by Californians, we'll sell this property for a couple mill and buy a lake house further out. It's all good.

Sum sum.. I agree. "I'm really mad that my house tripled in value" is silly imo.

That’s great, but my son doesn’t want to move to Salado.

[BradInATX 9208]

That’s great, but my son doesn’t want to move to Salado.

Nobody does.

But the point is that if you want something that many others want, there's always a premium on that. The expectation of staying in Austin and enjoying the benefits of a bustling growing city without paying the premium is unrealistic and full of entitlement. Not saying your son is entitled, more that Austinites feel entitled to enjoy all that Austin offers without paying for it.

[Armybrat 40615]

Well, he was born in Austin and worked there for 20+ years. 
Guess he is SOOL now.

[Mileslong 4705]

Here is her campaign manager

[dcar00 13966]

1 hour ago, BradInATX said:

This is where we landed. We had a 4 bedroom in south Austin that we bought in 2013 for 250k. Big house, small backyard, feeds into the worst schools in Austin. Not modernized at all.. a pure 1980s builder grade house. Sold it for 500k and bought a custom home on acreage in New Braunfels.

Progress and change are inevitable and that's fine. Austin isn't my Austin anymore and that's fine too. It's still a great city to be 40 minutes from. I'm happy to take our profit and move somewhere closer to the Austin i grew up in.

And in 20 years if New Braunfels is overrun by Californians, we'll sell this property for a couple mill and buy a lake house further out. It's all good.

Sum sum.. I agree. "I'm really mad that my house tripled in value" is silly imo.

uncaring capitalist...but the traffic!!!

 

[dcar00 13966]

51 minutes ago, Texas Jeff said:

A lot of Tarrytown is already SF-3 (duplexing allowed).  The code allows more density in Tarrytown today than in many other parts of the city.  Try suggesting SF-3 zoning to other parts of the city that are SF-2 or SF-1 (less or no duplexing) and watch the rebellion occur.  Even if you increase zoning in Tarrytown, it's not on the new rail lines and the bus service to downtown that was in place has been removed.  You are going to get car-based living.

If you wanted to allow more housing in Tarrytown today and the city actually talked to the residents rather than just impose a map on them, you might discover some areas of possible density.  There is a biological lab and low density married student housing on Lake Austin Blvd.  Residents want to keep Muny and maybe think about ways to expand it beyond just golf.  The Austin State School has a huge chunk of low density land and I think they are down to a few hundred residents.  Camp Mabry just north of the neighborhood has room to march and land helicopters.  You could build on all or some of that and connect it with buses up and down Exposition that ran into downtown.  There are reasons that these areas stay as they are but if you just want density .... you could do it without tearing down the neighborhood today.

There is honestly land all over town, including a really empty Robinson Ranch with rail already running through it and a 15 year old zoning agreement that allows almost unlimited density covering the land.  The rail connects to downtown and Leander and is a short distance from Apple.

But the city council just does not consider solutions like this.

exactly.  there is land owned by the city/govt everywhere but the easier thing is to rezone perfectly fine neighborhoods(which almost all already allow duplexes).

because of traffic...

[dcar00 13966]

2 hours ago, Armybrat said:

Yeah, that cheaper urban sprawl ain’t so cheap any more. At least he commutes to Georgetown for work.

and this is the point.  Is there some rule that employers can't be somewhere other than central austin?

[Eskimohorn 5587]

Then why do more and more homeless continue moving to Austin from all over Texas, despite Austin having a much, much higher housing costs than the places they are moving from? 

The core solutions to addressing homelessness have to be lead by substantive state and national policies to address mental health, poverty, and other issues.

As a tourist hub where camping in public spaces is tolerated, Austin is a prime location for professional homeless, grifters to migrate.

We’re also a popular location for counties to send termed foster system kids.

The short-term homeless is not any more rampant than other cities. Those are people sleeping in cars, on sofas, etc. Affordability impacts this population in the big picture. They are the ones who need affordable solutions, but do not represent the long-term homeless covered in the news and exploited by Fitlump.

[Armybrat 40615]

That’s where Robinson Ranch could come into play... or else Manor & Del Valle.

[BradInATX 9208]

44 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

uncaring capitalist...but the traffic!!!

 

 

My wife told me the other day that I'm officially an old man because every time we get on I35 I complain that there shouldn't be traffic at this time of day and that I'm not used to it. Then she reminds me that 35 has had traffic 24/7 for 15 years now. 

[BradInATX 9208]

40 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

and this is the point.  Is there some rule that employers can't be somewhere other than central austin?

 

Companies realizing telecommuting isn't a bad thing might be the best aftereffect of Covid. That means Austin can squeeze more Californians in next to you too!

[Orange&White 5510]

1 hour ago, Eskimohorn said:

As a tourist hub where camping in public spaces is tolerated, Austin is a prime location for professional homeless, grifters to migrate.

We’re also a popular location for counties to send termed foster system kids.

 

Exactly

[Armybrat 40615]

2 minutes ago, Orange&White said:

Exactly

Well, those counties know Austin has millions to burn.

[dcar00 13966]

1 hour ago, BradInATX said:

 

My wife told me the other day that I'm officially an old man because every time we get on I35 I complain that there shouldn't be traffic at this time of day and that I'm not used to it. Then she reminds me that 35 has had traffic 24/7 for 15 years now. 

your wife sounds very smart.  seems like she probably only made one bad decision in her life, which is pretty damn good.

 

[Armybrat 40615]

1 hour ago, dcar00 said:

your wife sounds very smart.  seems like she probably only made one bad decision in her life, which is pretty damn good.

 

Same could be said of Mrs. Brat, but she’s stuck with me now.....even though I’m way out of warranty.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Armybrat

[Bozo_Casanova 26120]

6 hours ago, Orange&White said:

Then why do more and more homeless continue moving to Austin from all over Texas, despite Austin having a much, much higher housing costs than the places they are moving from? 

I haven't seen any real evidence that they are. I mean, yes, like 13/15 residents of Austin our homeless population were similarly born elsewhere, but the size of our permanent homeless population is pretty stable. Obviously homeless people are coming here, but those capable of traveling are also continually leaving, because this town is really brutal and hard on homeless people.  Those who leave go to places with more support and stronger faith communities like San Antonio or even Houston or Dallas, because when they get here they realize that Austin treats them like shit.

Austin is kind of like Phoenix - most of the people here don't have much personal investment in the hard work of being a community, and are so selfish and dumb they think allowing a human being to eek out daily misery from the comfort of a highway underpass constitutes either compassion or coddling, depending on who you ask. 

There's a homeless outreach downtown I know a little about. The help people call relatives, find clothes, apply for jobs and so on. Immediately post Katrina they were all about getting people temp housing and helping enroll kids in schools and so forth. But on an ongoing business they mostly deal with the permanent homeless population. One of the most common requests they get is just a little bit of food and a bus ticket the hell out of Austin.

[Bozo_Casanova 26120]

3 hours ago, Eskimohorn said:

The core solutions to addressing homelessness have to be lead by substantive state and national policies to address mental health, poverty, and other issues.*

As a tourist hub where camping in public spaces is tolerated, Austin is a prime location for professional homeless, grifters to migrate.**

We’re also a popular location for counties to send termed foster system kids.***

* Completely agree, which is why we will never make material progress. People don't give a fuck about mental illness until somebody shoots, and even then it's just a line to redirect gun rights. It's the great bi-partisan agreement of the United States: we all agree to pretend mental illness is not a public health issue. 

**That's true, but those people are different in the same way short-term homeless are different

*** True, but they don't contribute much to the permanent homeless population and tend to move on from Austin. 

[Guest Lobo]

^

Yeah, I'd be really interested to see kind of a "where you from/where you at" informal census of these homeless folks.  And I think about that service that tries to contact relatives.  I think about how fast the internet can identify a criminal or an insurrectionist.  I'd bet if you could get a photo/profile/description/last known residence/etc. of the few thousand homeless here...out on the web...I'd bet 10-20% of them could be identified and reconnected with family, or friends, or a case worker than knew them back when, etc.  But to the City of Austin, they're just this anonymous monolith that needs tens of millions of dollars in hotels and nothing else. 

The social workers I know at UT keep files on people they helped 10 years ago and can probably fill in a lot of gaps in a current file on that person.  But nobody is tracking their identity, their issues, their last known job or residence or treatment or health care.  Just suggesting that concept though of course gets people all pissy, "A database of homeless people is evil and predatory."  So meantime, we're just stuck with this number of 4,000 people who need $60mm in hotels, and then a louder, smaller conversation about camping bans.  Same fucking stupid shit over and over again.  

I suggested that CTRMA could divert just a few hundred thousand dollars of their toll revenue each year to help the people camping in their underpasses.  Just start somewhere small but impactful.  Buying 10 hotels/properties this year in each district isn't gonna do shit long-term.  /rant  

 

[dcar00 13966]

5 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

I haven't seen any real evidence that they are. I mean, yes, like 13/15 residents of Austin our homeless population were similarly born elsewhere, but the size of our permanent homeless population is pretty stable. Obviously homeless people are coming here, but those capable of traveling are also continually leaving, because this town is really brutal and hard on homeless people.  Those who leave go to places with more support and stronger faith communities like San Antonio or even Houston or Dallas, because when they get here they realize that Austin treats them like shit.

Austin is kind of like Phoenix - most of the people here don't have much personal investment in the hard work of being a community, and are so selfish and dumb they think allowing a human being to eek out daily misery from the comfort of a highway underpass constitutes either compassion or coddling, depending on who you ask. 

There's a homeless outreach downtown I know a little about. The help people call relatives, find clothes, apply for jobs and so on. Immediately post Katrina they were all about getting people temp housing and helping enroll kids in schools and so forth. But on an ongoing business they mostly deal with the permanent homeless population. One of the most common requests they get is just a little bit of food and a bus ticket the hell out of Austin.

There are less homeless(about 4000) in Dallas, a much larger city by a mile, than in Austin because they send them here and we aren't brutal on homeless like Dallas and Houston are. I'm in Dallas all the time for work and family.  They actually clear out encampments.  We are letting them do whatever they want.  

I have had family come here from Dallas and say "what the hell is going on"?

I keep saying to cordon off a portion of Zilker and get some fema trailers or the like and have them be in one area where they can be efficiently helped.

[Eskimohorn 5587]

Well, those counties know Austin has millions to burn.

No, its the Sheriff walking the kid out of town like in Rambo I. Put ‘em on a bus. not our problem anymore.

[Armybrat 40615]

48 minutes ago, Eskimohorn said:

No, its the Sheriff walking the kid out of town like in Rambo I. Put ‘em on a bus. not our problem anymore.

To the city that has unlimited resources to squander.

[Armybrat 40615]

1 hour ago, dcar00 said:

There are less homeless(about 4000) in Dallas, a much larger city by a mile, than in Austin because they send them here and we aren't brutal on homeless like Dallas and Houston are. I'm in Dallas all the time for work and family.  They actually clear out encampments.  We are letting them do whatever they want.  

I have had family come here from Dallas and say "what the hell is going on"?

I keep saying to cordon off a portion of Zilker and get some fema trailers or the like and have them be in one area where they can be efficiently helped.

Well, the Austin urbanists want more density, so kill 2 birds with one edict.

[Bozo_Casanova 26120]

2 hours ago, dcar00 said:

There are less homeless(about 4000) in Dallas, a much larger city by a mile, than in Austin because they send them here and we aren't brutal on homeless like Dallas and Houston are. I'm in Dallas all the time for work and family.  They actually clear out encampments.  We are letting them do whatever they want. 

I have had family come here from Dallas and say "what the hell is going on"? 

Fewer.  That's the point. Leaving the permanent homeless to their own devices to suffer by the side of the road  is really fucking brutal.  Just because you can see them and the sight of human squalor offends your family doesn't transform malignant neglect into compassion.  There's literally a biblical parable about this.

Because you see, genius, less brutality=less homelessness
 

2 hours ago, dcar00 said:

I keep saying to cordon off a portion of Zilker and get some fema trailers or the like and have them be in one area where they can be efficiently helped.

You should keep saying that, so that people can hear what a dumb idea you have. 

Edited January 28, 2021 by Bozo_Casanova