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Austin Homeless Free for All Ordinance

rage-a-holic

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Armybrat

Armybrat 40734

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, Lobo said:


 

Bullshit aside, if you think Austin is indifferent...what the fuck hope is there for places in Florida, Arizona, Oklahoma, Dallas, et. al?  

Well, Austin could bus them back to those places they came from in the first place. 

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TKthunder2
TKthunder2

Do what San Antonio did.  Spend a couple million on a facility in Far East Austin that is equipped to receive the homeless and parter with local charities, church, community colleges and hospitals to

crash_davis
crash_davis

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/austins-homeless-residents-fear-whats-next-once-camping-ban-takes-effect/ Abigail Wilson is among those who just found out about the Prop B ban. She said sh

Red Five
Red Five

I realize hindsight is 20/20, but perhaps building a gigantic homeless shelter in the middle of downtown Austin wasn't the greatest idea ever. 

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Bozo_Casanova

Bozo_Casanova 26279

Posted
Posted
Yeah, that was kinda my point.  Are you going to honestly suggest that Austin won't support the treatment and support of these folks?  Bullshit aside, and I probably like Repubilcans about as much as you do...do we honestly not see a trend that the 6 most liberal cities in the United States also fail to meet the basic human needs of their homeless populations?  
 
Bullshit aside, if you think Austin is indifferent...what the fuck hope is there for places in Florida, Arizona, Oklahoma, Dallas, et. al?  


LA and San Francisco aren’t even in the same universe as Austin on this issue, so let’s set the “big liberal cities” argument aside because there are nothing but “liberal cities” In the sense of voting in national elections and cities have homeless people in them because cities drop scraps for them to live on. Some more than others. The big draw in SF and LA is the weather and the drug markets, with a steady influx of desperate people who randomly head for California and crash. Sleeping outside is just a really great option there.

But yes, I can honestly say that Austin is more indifferent to treating and rehabilitating our homeless population than, say, San Antonio or Dallas or Houston. Austin’s not very progressive. We vote for national progressive causes and reinforce a housing shortage at home (and segregation and sprawl), and obstruct the building of both public and private shelter. On this issue, again, it’s about land use like everything else in Austin. People are ostensibly supportive of treatment and care, they just don’t want it anywhere near them, which means anywhere in the city.

Our peer cities make room for shelter and care just like they allow the development of missing middle housing, and vote for transit and school bonds. We don’t do any of that. Instead we shout “No” to anything that adapts the city to change and fancy ourselves a progressive city even while the cost of living drives families out and defunds our school district.
Austin cares about the past, present, and future, in that order.
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David Dennison

David Dennison 18655

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Posted

If this thread is any indication, most taxpayers would rather mock the homeless and ridicule elected officials than entertain solutions that do not involve rounding up the homeless and relocating them so they are neither seen nor heard.

Because they are gross and it's all their fault.

 

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BrazilHorn

BrazilHorn 6576

Posted
Posted

There is no good solution. Many of these folks have underlying trauma that led them to continuously drugging themselves and living on streets. Many of them just made string of poor decisions. I’m not blaming them in every case. 

Enabling them and just letting them do whatever/whenever they want and never treating what led them to this state doesn’t work. 

Violence is going to happen as you are putting two completely incompatible groups in close proximity and in an area (downtown Austin) where both sides are (especially in the evenings) drinking etc. 

Just on this thread there’s been videos of homeless attacking people, news of homeless stabbing people, setting things on fire and so on. That’s in last couple of weeks. Austin has spent a ton of time and money incentivizing people to move downtown. This stands to potentially reverse that. 

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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

Posted
Posted (edited)

^

Yep, that's basically what's happening.  The big difference is people are posting pictures of homeless people sleeping and thinking it's groundbreaking journalism/worthy of social media.   Also kudos to the quote a few posts above, "Austin cares about the past, present, and future...in that order."  It's folksy and accurate and damming all the same time.  I like it.  

The Council curiously blended these repeals right at the same time as the ISA building acquisition.  I am starting to think they accelerated that purchase so they could time it with the announcement of these repeals so as to say, "Yes, the homeless issues are now more prevalent, and so we needed a building like this to help."  I still don't see much in the budget or the next bond float that  increases/improves services, proactive treatments, mental health line items, or addiction counseling.  Obviously I take issue with that. 

My real issue was and continues to be the way in which they acquired the ISA building and the way in which they let the public in that area know about it.  You can't "You don't care about the homeless" your way out of how much bullshit there is lingering over this ISA issue.  You can't shout people down as murderous cold-hearted bastards simply because they know this purchase process was incompetent, bordering on illegal.  

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ChickenSandwich

ChickenSandwich 9798

Posted
Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

 


LA and San Francisco aren’t even in the same universe as Austin on this issue, so let’s set the “big liberal cities” argument aside because there are nothing but “liberal cities” In the sense of voting in national elections and cities have homeless people in them because cities drop scraps for them to live on. Some more than others. The big draw in SF and LA is the weather and the drug markets, with a steady influx of desperate people who randomly head for California and crash. Sleeping outside is just a really great option there.

But yes, I can honestly say that Austin is more indifferent to treating and rehabilitating our homeless population than, say, San Antonio or Dallas or Houston. Austin’s not very progressive. We vote for national progressive causes and reinforce a housing shortage at home (and segregation and sprawl), and obstruct the building of both public and private shelter. On this issue, again, it’s about land use like everything else in Austin. People are ostensibly supportive of treatment and care, they just don’t want it anywhere near them, which means anywhere in the city.

Our peer cities make room for shelter and care just like they allow the development of missing middle housing, and vote for transit and school bonds. We don’t do any of that. Instead we shout “No” to anything that adapts the city to change and fancy ourselves a progressive city even while the cost of living drives families out and defunds our school district.
Austin cares about the past, present, and future, in that order.

 

Question....how does sprawl cause a housing shortage but forcing density in an extremely small physical footprint does not?  Insanity. 

No private developer is building a section 8 high rise without the tax payer footing the bill. 

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Armybrat

Armybrat 40734

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Posted

The bottom line is cost effectiveness of the solutions, or attempts thereof. The corrupt idiots running the CoA have already demonstrated they have no sense of the concept with their current proposal. 

No wonder the taxpayers are skeptical down there. And yes, the voters desperately need to get rid of those clowns and elect a council that is competent in order to affect viable solutions.

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phdhorn

phdhorn 6224

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Posted
On 7/18/2019 at 10:26 PM, Lobo said:

Young woman stabbed, thankfully not fatally (though she is hospitalized), in broad daylight at 8th & Neches.  Mayor Adler said repeatedly, "We need to act swiftly and boldly"  In lieu of mental health and addiction assistance, there is a violet trash bag program in place.  Which I can only assume will come as great comfort to this victim.  

Makes it really handy for the homeless killer to stuff the body in.  Always considering the noble homeless, Austin is...

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Fico

Fico 1743

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Posted
Question....how does sprawl cause a housing shortage but forcing density in an extremely small physical footprint does not?  Insanity. 
No private developer is building a section 8 high rise without the tax payer footing the bill. 


Maybe you ought to sit this one out, you know, take the next couple of plays off.
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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

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Posted

Why the racist homeless people...that's who!

And I shudder to think what happens when the #metoo movement comes for the Austin homeless.  I have a pretty twisted imagination and some of the shit that comes out of these guys' mouths when talking to women blows me away.  

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Bozo_Casanova

Bozo_Casanova 26279

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Question....how does sprawl cause a housing shortage but forcing density in an extremely small physical footprint does not?  Insanity. 

No private developer is building a section 8 high rise without the tax payer footing the bill. 

[tangent]Sprawl hasn't caused a housing shortage and I'm not an urbanist so I don't care about density for its own sake. Relatively greater density is a condition that proceeds from market demand if allowed, extreme sprawl is the condition that results from inhibiting the market. In Austin we have hundreds of legally platted lots in pre 1970's city limits that cannot be built upon due to our 1984 land use code and we've made it worse since then. Nobody has "forced" density on anybody, that's just bullshit. The core of central Austin, currently in district 9, has LOST population in the last 10 years, and that's AFTER you consider the addition of high rises in West Campus and Mueller. "Forced density," indeed.[/tangent]

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Bozo_Casanova

Bozo_Casanova 26279

Posted
Posted (edited)
43 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Why the racist homeless people...that's who!

And I shudder to think what happens when the #metoo movement comes for the Austin homeless.  I have a pretty twisted imagination and some of the shit that comes out of these guys' mouths when talking to women blows me away.  

It's pretty bad. My daughter works on Dirty 6th and as a father it's infuriating to hear about some of what she faces. But mainly the homeless she deals with are merely strange to scary, the worst sexual stuff is from non-homeless lowlife types, and it's just gross when she gets hit on inappropriately by police officers. 

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futureman

futureman 22415

Posted
Posted
11 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

The core of central Austin, currently in district 9, has LOST population in the last 10 years, and that's AFTER you consider the addition of high rises in West Campus and Mueller.

I find this hard to believe.  you got a source?

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Bozo_Casanova

Bozo_Casanova 26279

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Posted

Pretty sure I saw a more recent analysis using ACS and tax rolls, and what really jump out is the declining population of children drives the decline. I’ll try to find it.

 

Sorry, didn’t mean to start a tangent, but you can’t really talk about homelessness in Austin without talking about Austin’s broken land use and compatibility standards, because the politics of land use are the core of literally every major issue we have.

 

Our code is a blueprint for breaking successful cities. In that sense we have quite a lot in common with some California cities, but not San Francisco. If you want to see Austin’s future, it’s the Palo Alto/Cupertino/San Jose/East Bay->Sacramento/Roseville traffic-plex except without a regional transit option. They sure got some charming “single family” bungalows in Palo Alto, though. Austin’s future includes the very rich and the very poor, and very little in between.

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David Dennison

David Dennison 18655

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39 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Pretty sure I saw a more recent analysis using ACS and tax rolls, and what really jump out is the declining population of children drives the decline. I’ll try to find it.

 

Sorry, didn’t mean to start a tangent, but you can’t really talk about homelessness in Austin without talking about Austin’s broken land use and compatibility standards, because the politics of land use are the core of literally every major issue we have.

 

Our code is a blueprint for breaking successful cities. In that sense we have quite a lot in common with some California cities, but not San Francisco. If you want to see Austin’s future, it’s the Palo Alto/Cupertino/San Jose/East Bay->Sacramento/Roseville traffic-plex except without a regional transit option. They sure got some charming “single family” bungalows in Palo Alto, though. Austin’s future includes the very rich and the very poor, and very little in between.

Land use is going to be a political lightning rod for all major metropolitan areas moving forward, particularly when it comes to housing.

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CooterBrown

CooterBrown 17905

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Posted
Land use is going to be a political lightning rod for all major metropolitan areas moving forward, particularly when it comes to housing.


Oregon just got rid of single family zoning statewide. Now there’s just residential zoning and you can build whatever type of
housing the market demands. It’ll be interesting to see how it affects supply and prices.
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Bozo_Casanova

Bozo_Casanova 26279

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Posted


Oregon just got rid of single family zoning statewide. Now there’s just residential zoning and you can build whatever type of
housing the market demands. It’ll be interesting to see how it affects supply and prices.

Minneapolis essentially did as well.

It will be interesting to see how things develop.
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MaybeACoordinator

MaybeACoordinator 8349

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Posted

Weird experience I had today in Houston...homeless dude was writhing around on the hot sidewalk screaming at the blazing hot sky, inches from traffic at the corner of Kirby and Bissonnet. I thought he was gonna roll into traffic and get run over, so I pulled over and dialed 911 and got an ambo dispatched. (My dad once ran over a suicidal homeless guy and it took him years to get over it, and I didn't want that happening to anyone else, or for this poor guy to get run over, period.)

While I was still on the phone, he picked himself up off the ground, came over and asked me for a dollar. I told him I didn't have one so he asked for food and I gave him water, saltine crackers, and sardines. (Long story as to why I had all that shit in the car.)

He and I were both gone by the time the ambulance arrived, if it ever did.

 Anyway, I don't know if he was just an Oscar-worthy bum or if his sanity and/or Kush/K2/bath salts high flickered off and on in that five minutes. 

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Bevo

Bevo 13526

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Posted
8 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Weird experience I had today in Houston...homeless dude was writhing around on the hot sidewalk screaming at the blazing hot sky, inches from traffic at the corner of Kirby and Bissonnet. I thought he was gonna roll into traffic and get run over, so I pulled over and dialed 911 and got an ambo dispatched. (My dad once ran over a suicidal homeless guy and it took him years to get over it, and I didn't want that happening to anyone else, or for this poor guy to get run over, period.)

While I was still on the phone, he picked himself up off the ground, came over and asked me for a dollar. I told him I didn't have one so he asked for food and I gave him water, saltine crackers, and sardines. (Long story as to why I had all that shit in the car.)

He and I were both gone by the time the ambulance arrived, if it ever did.

 Anyway, I don't know if he was just an Oscar-worthy bum or if his sanity and/or Kush/K2/bath salts high flickered off and on in that five minutes. 

Did you give him some pineapple also?

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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

Posted
Posted (edited)

Anybody else gonna be honest and admit they  are way more interested in why he had sardines in the car than what happened to the homeless guy?  

#helpthesardines 

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phdhorn

phdhorn 6224

Posted
Posted
50 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Anybody else gonna be honest and admit they  are way more interested in why he had sardines in the car than what happened to the homeless guy?  

#helpthesardines 

They were right there next to the Grey Poupon on the seat.

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SwanderedTalent

SwanderedTalent 5761

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Posted
9 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:


Especially considering that she’s 16. Very creepy.

"yeah so I know our ah, whaddyacallit, our charter is to 'protect and serve' but... you know, I also kinda want my dick sucked. I hope you don't mind me tryna kill a couple birds with the same stone."

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89416

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Posted
On 7/21/2019 at 9:48 AM, Lobo said:

The Council curiously blended these repeals right at the same time as the ISA building acquisition.  I am starting to think they accelerated that purchase so they could time it with the announcement of these repeals so as to say, "Yes, the homeless issues are now more prevalent, and so we needed a building like this to help."  I still don't see much in the budget or the next bond float that  increases/improves services, proactive treatments, mental health line items, or addiction counseling.  Obviously I take issue with that. 

My real issue was and continues to be the way in which they acquired the ISA building and the way in which they let the public in that area know about it.  You can't "You don't care about the homeless" your way out of how much bullshit there is lingering over this ISA issue.  You can't shout people down as murderous cold-hearted bastards simply because they know this purchase process was incompetent, bordering on illegal.  

If you wanted that real estate (or wanted it sold to the city), and you knew there'd be public blowback and potentially some media looking into the manner in which things went down, best to time it with something that will completely overshadow it.  For every Lobo wondering online about the acquisition, there's going to be 20 people bitching about the idea of the homeless being able to camp on the sidewalk in front of their house (they can't).

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89416

Posted
Posted
On 7/21/2019 at 7:56 AM, David Dennison said:

If this thread is any indication, most taxpayers would rather mock the homeless and ridicule elected officials than entertain solutions that do not involve rounding up the homeless and relocating them so they are neither seen nor heard.

This thread is on a sports forum that is full of incredibly jaded sports fans, who are used to being disappointed by all kinds of groups, both private and public, including government entities.  We automatically tend to skew towards being skeptical as hell about a lot of things, particularly when it comes to public entities, whether it be universities or cities.

We make light of the situation because we are jaded as hell over how the City of Austin operates.  We see them push through things like the real estate acquisition that provides 100 beds for $8 million or so, without any real input from the people who live, work, and send their kids to school nearby.  It feels shady as shit, and like somebody is probably getting their palms greased.  These are the same City Council members who bitch about how the state legislature does business.

We see them push through things like decriminalize being homeless (something the cops had been quietly doing on their own), something that ostensibly most of would  support, but it's being done at the expense of putting the homeless into much closer contact with much more of the general public.   

More importantly, it does nothing to address both the root causes, and the ongoing problems, of those who are homeless.  It merely spreads the problem out.

If anything, as you and others (and myself) have pointed out, it's going to turn a lot of the general public towards the kinds of compassionate measures needed.

There has to be a middle ground of not arresting somebody merely for being homeless in a certain part of town, but at the same time, looking out for the general public as well, you know, the folks who are footing the bills.  If we don't address the root issues, and the ongoing issues, you will get a public who wants the police to round them up and ship them off somewhere.

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demos

demos 2992

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Posted
There are semi-nice hotels I've stayed at in Austin that are near the homeless facility and that area gets positively unwalk-able when the sun starts going down.

When it starts going down? Not sure I would want to walk by the ARCH in broad daylight.
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