A little on how we got to Austin’s recent housing victory
Image is tweet from @matthewferner which reads, “BREAKING: Austin City Council approves the purchase of a hotel to permanently house people experiencing chronic homelessness USING DOLLARS CUT FROM THE POLICE BUDGET”
Progressives in the City of Austin have had a major victory this week.
I’ve been thinking about this so much since the news broke. (Necessary caveat that of course there’s still so much to be done, etc). But I hope you will indulge me in info dumping about it a moment. This is an INCREDIBLE opportunity for the Austin community, which was made possible through years of incremental reform, with key leadership by organizers and communities of color. (I won’t be naming or crediting all the organizers who contributed to this, so please don’t think I’m claiming that.) But there are some key city changes getting us to this point that I am personally aware of:
In 2014, the city moved to a more equitable “10-1″ city council structure by regions (instead of “at large” council members) which has led to more actual community representation on the city council. It decreased the disproportionate representation of city-wide very wealthy, white candidates. It increased the presence of people of color on the council, representing the interests and real lived realities of people of color and neighborhoods with lower socioeconomic status.
In 2019, the city council repealed a camping ban so that our unhoused neighbors could no longer be violently removed and all of their belongings, etc. sweeped and trashed from the public places by police. This drove the truth about the situation in our city “into the light” and has forced many Austinites who (literally) ignored the problem to acknowledge and confront it.
In summer 2020, the defund the police movement got some critical momentum at the city level (nowhere near what would be ideal, but still) and the more progressive city council members (backed by organized movements and orgs like Austin Justice Coalition) elected because of the 10-1 structure were able to make some key decreases to the police budget to seed this new hotel purchase that has just passed.
All of this action together really matters. It tells a story of how a city can start to actually DO SOMETHING to better support its citizens instead of so heavily policing them (literally) to death. I’m in no way saying things are GOOD with Austin police, but this is the story of something important really happening to limit their power.
There is so much yet to be seen about this project. I am extremely heartened to see what we learn and I hope that the successes of housing those who need it will prove to be a fruitful endeavor that gets replicated. This is not some abstract situation out there in the city…it is very personally relevant to me.
I live very close to a large exchange of giant highways and elevated roadway flyovers in South Austin, with a Walmart nearby and access to interstate travel. This clustering of elevated roads has become shelter for SO MANY of my unhoused neighbors. Prior to 2019, I’ve witnessed the police raids and property sweeps that they used to endure. It was horrifying.
Right next to that interchange? Another empty hotel property just sitting there…….up for sale that is on the list of the properties that the city could potentially also buy and convert into permanent housing. That would be radically transformative for my neighborhood and my neighbors. My hope is really really high that actual solutions are coming.
I’ve also been so genuinely excited and grateful to see the enormous positive response online to this news, from people all across the nation. When I shared this news on my Tumblr Tuesday evening, the post has already gotten almost 7,000 reactions and that’s just from my version of the news, with a relatively small following.
I often see Austin compared to cities like Portland, Seattle, Denver, and San Francisco and seen as their peers. On a day-to-day level, that’s all good and well but I do think it’s important to highlight that there is something uniquely challenging about being a city like this in Texas. So many times our so-called “small government” state level Republican overlords from hell go out of their way to pass state legislation ONLY to supercede and squash Austin’s independent political values….partly because they have to live here (ya know the capitol where they do their dirty business for like 6 months every 2 years and they don’t like living by our rules) and partly because they are, in fact, pure seething evil. Don’t get me started on how they made us bring back single use plastic bags for no logical reason.
My point is that it takes extra persistence and spines of steel to champion progressive policy like this in Austin and I’m really proud of our local leadership for taking a bold stance on something like this. I hope it continues.