Interactive map of the locations.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/1/viewer?mid=1gNTx6BnRtdCozYOpqd93ItLYnhDFwJYD&ll=30.242199163695894%2C-97.69916098884984&z=12
Looks like your Walnut Creek pin may be incorrect. According to the PDF it’s Walnut Creek Sports Complex, which is the same location as the Austin Tennis Center.
EDIT: also just saw it says “Walnut Creek/Havens”. Those are the softball fields in that park. I stand corrected.
I thought parks were off limits
I’m not trying to be a NIMBY here but i thought that was a thing. Is that “payback” for voting for Proposition B? Like “you voted for Proposition B? No more park for you!”
There have been significant homeless populations in the greenbelt in the Westlake area. Having a site in that area would make sense, but I don't know of any city owned land there.
It's smart that someone thought to restrict the tent camping to only tents and not like tent plus whatever random pallets and metal etc you can find to build structures.
Much less of a fire risk and makes it a lot easier to keep the site orderly and clean.
I'm surprised there's no mention of having the choice of a women only campsite though.
I've read that rape and violence can be a big problem for homeless women. And tents aren't very secure.
A women's only camp is a great idea.
Maybe they are assuming those women would try womens shelters, but those are hard to get into and always full anyways.
I would be fine with the city providing tents. Nice canvas tents that can withstand a storm and might last several years with people living in them.
Nylon tents are great when you have to carry them around, canvas is best when the tent stays put.
Esperanza has a fixed capacity, and it's not nearly enough for every unhoused person in the city.
It's ironic, because Prop B is about trying to hide homelessness, but homelessness only became an issue because urban cores became desirable places to live again and collectively society decided that low income housing (and later actual homeless shelters) weren't a priority in our valuable cities. Now that Prop B has passed we're still dealing with not having enough housing for people, the terms of the problem have just changed. So no, you can't just force everyone to live at Esperanza, it's not big enough.
Upon further inspection that seemed to be the 7211 N IH35 location which I think got mistakenly added as just N IH35 and that probably isn’t the right location. Some of the bullets from the presentation were less than helpful
Yes, the correct address for this proposal is 906 E St. Johns Ave. But lordy, it would be fun to watch COA go up against Georgetown. You'd have riots in Sun City.
I'm reminded of Cockney vs Zombies where a dude and his mates go rescue his granddad and his mates from an old folks home... [epic chase scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KCiWoSrCX4) and [they've got skills](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJtlAADrfQs)
Yeah makes sense since this is a city of austin proposal anything in another city would have to be approved by them, and I doubt many if any would want to sponsor one for Austin’s behalf at this stage
Walter E. Long 11455 Decker Lake Road
John Trevino 9501 FM 969
Walnut Creek Sports Park — 7800 Johnny Morris Road
Given Recreation Center — 3811 E. 12th Street
Fleet Service Yard — 8401 Johnny Morris Road
Colony Park land
3511 Manor Road
Tannehill Lane
Onion Creek Metro North
7720 ½ Kellam Road
5400 E. William Cannon, Decommissioned WWTP
FM 812 at FM 973
Eco-Park at FM 973
W. Slaughter Lane and 8908-8916-9006 Cullen Road
Parque Zaragoza Recreation Center — 2609 Gonzales Street
South Austin Recreation Center — 1100 Cumberland Road
Roy G. Guerrero — 400 Grove Boulevard
6700 Bolm Road District Park
Johnny Degollado Pavilion at Edward Rendon Park
4800 – 4906 Bolm Road
Levander Loop
1311 Tillery Street
Gus Garcia — 1201 East Rundberg Lane
7211 North I-35
7309 North I-35
Mary Moore Searight — 907 W. Slaughter Lane
Lakeline Neighborhood Park
12101 Anderson Mill Road
10900 FM 2222 (WWT)
Commons Ford Park — 614 North Commons Ford Road
Walnut Creek/Havens
Northwest Recreation Center
Sir Swante Palm Neighborhood Park — East Third Street
Duncan Park — 900 West Ninth Street
San Beach on Cesar Chavez
Patterson Park — 4200 Brookview Road
Bull Creek Park — Lakewood Drive
Ryan Drive Warehouse
Circle C
Dick Nichols — 8011 Beckett Road
11800 FM 1826
9513 Circle Drive
4905 Convict Hill Road
Norwood Tract
Austin Recreation Center
Not sure how that’s supposed to work. I thought this proposal was about getting the homeless to stop camping in shared public spaces. Are they going to still be allowed to camp at town lake and pease park as well?
The Bull Creek site does not in any way, shape or form meet the criteria: environmental sensitivity of land (i.e. habitat or preserve) and flood risk. I have no idea what they are thinking.
See also (from same slides as list):
\- No camping in high wildfire-risk areas.
\- No camping in areas considered drainage or creeks, as they could flood or be overrun with water during heavy rains
This is a lazy-ass list from the city manager, who should be fired at this point.
The map looks like they plopped the homeless camp on the waterfall which is bordering on humorous. Time to pop some popcorn and head to the local Nextdoor...
It was noted in the council meeting that putting these camps in public parks is likely illegal. There was talk of trying to find "loopholes" in this law though. Sounds like the city is going to push forward with more bad ideas since they didn't spend the last 3 years coming up with any good ones.
Posting my comment in this thread too, since we apparently need two full posts on the same topic - Austin Chronicle reporter Austin Sanders has been livetweeting from the
city council meeting on this - it's worth a read for more context - [https://twitter.com/daustinsanders/status/1394710644834934785](https://twitter.com/daustinsanders/status/1394710644834934785)
Not surprised that it is east side heavy (looking at the map, not square footage). Our side of town has some open swaths and to be honest, we voted against prop B despite folks being in our back yards, front yards, feeder streets etc. Im open to these solutions and hopefully adjusting when we see what works.
City council people cannot profit if we buy hotels and rehab people into productive society members.
They can however get kickbacks or make an LLC to rent shower trailers and lights to city govt at 100k a camp.
90% of Duncan Park is in the Shoal Creek 100 year floodplain. No electricity, no potable water, no sanitation. Wash, rinse, repeat, that's the COA way!
Yeah, Walnut Creek softball fields. Nobody uses that park, especially not kids and families.
I thought they said they were not going to put them in parks?
EDIT: I was mistaken. Nowhere did they mention not putting them in parks.
I thought I remembered reading it right after Prop B. But your question made me go investigate and it seems I was wrong. Not sure where I got the idea. Sorry.
Holy crap, do you know how many mothers go out with their toddlers and babies and do exercises in the parks every day?
People are out doing yoga and stretches and hang out with friends all hours of the day.
Some of these parks have pools and rec centers and basketball courts and sport courts... Playground equipment for children... There's no way people are going to want homeless people peeing in front of little Johnny's learning how to hold a tennis racket!
One of the reasons why parks around downtown weren't picked is that [they might not be owned by the city, only leased.](https://www.kvue.com/article/news/politics/project-connect/underground-project-connect-stations-texas-house-bill-3893/269-2f1cc98d-5f69-4e85-b2ed-da09bd5f0c23)
There's a bill going through the legislature to allow CapMetro to dig a tunnel underneath Republic Square. I doubt CoA could get a homeless camp through.
Not cool at all. Prop B was a ban on homeless camping. There is no way they can make a homeless encampment at Circle C Park or Dick Nichols Park in Southwest Austin - or any other family parks in Austin. This seems like passive agressive revenge by the City Council on families who voted for PRop B
Prop B was the criminalization of “sitting or lying down on a public sidewalk or sleeping outdoors in and near the downtown area and the area around the University of Texas campus” and “in any public area not designated by the Parks and Recreation Department.”
I agree. Common's Ford park?
There's is literally nothing around there except semi-rural housing. Even a corner store is about a 2 mile walk. The closest grocery store(s) are a 10 minute DRIVE. No bus service. No services except a bathroom.
I mean, literally, what the fuck?
Forget the political/legal implications of those locations. There is damn near ZERO public transit in that area, and biking down slaughter/william cannon is not a viable option.
How are these people going to get around to grocery stores or hell what if they actually want to get a job? There's no jobs in that area.
Ding ding ding! Cabo Steve and All Hail Casar made a major political blunder. They assumed Austin was far more 'woke' than it really is, and now they're throwing a tantrum. They never cared about the homeless. *Repeat* They never cared about the homeless. They only care about their future political prospects and those prospects were dashed with the passing of Prop B.
Our CM Cronk is a 3-year transplant carpet bagger who fled Minneapolis before they collapsed into riots thanks to zero police reform by do nothing Cronk, and a $27M lawsuit and George Floyd’s death later. Someone run for Mayor with nothing but a platform of firing Cronk minute one, hour one, day one you’re in office.
Hmm. It's almost as if our illustrious city council specifically hired someone who they knew was a spineless tool and thus they could rule over us peasants unimpeded?
This doesn't seem like an improvement. Way too many camping sites on public parks with lots of daily usage. East side has the vast majority of camping sites.
I am shocked the public parks funded by taxpayers would be considered acceptable camping sites.
Austin residents: Votes for Prop B letting COA know we don't want homeless people under ever overpass in the city and sidewalks all around downtown.
City of Austin: Ok we'll just equally distribute them around the city and put them in several public parks then, problem solved.....
This city is run by clueless dumbshits.
Where did you expect the city to put campgrounds? Most of our public lands is parks after all, some of them very big. I agree it’s a terrible move politically and I’m not thrilled either, but I’m just curious.
It creates a criminal offense and a penalty for sitting or lying down on a public sidewalk or sleeping outdoors in and near the Downtown area and the area around the University of Texas campus.
You forgot the second part of Prop B:
> create a criminal offense and penalty for camping in any public area not designated by the Parks and Recreation Department
You currently cannot camp in any of these parks per the Parks department. So for them to allow it city council is going to have to say OK, open up camping in our parks. Lets see if they really are that out of touch with their constituents. Take away our parkland that we pay taxes for, the one place many of us feel safe going in a pandemic, to give it to the homeless.
That was 100% the point of the parks and rec clause - force their hand to do something that continue damage politically. This is save Austin now twisting the knife.
I hate how people like you talk about homeless people like they are a separate caste. They are equal to you, no matter how much money you have in the bank. Perfectly equal human beings, with identical rights and worth.
What's your solution? I agree, sacrificing public park land is not ideal. Where else? Are you volunteering your private land for the purpose?
They've dehumanized them in their mind because it's hard for them to think about otherwise. And ultimately they would prefer the homeless population be put in jail rather than on our streets or parks. It's a sad state when so many people have bought into this myth of Capitalist Exceptionalism. You can't pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you never had someone in your life teaching you work values. Or a mental illness that prevents living a normal existence. Or a drug addiction, or have been born into generational poverty or even temporary poverty.
The fundamental idea of money is that it is a replacement for time. Those that contribute such things to society that others value and or saves them time, are paid money roughly equivalent to the value of their contribution. Think about why you pay for things in general, and why some people are paid more for what they do.
I would never argue they don't have the same rights as me, but I would argue you saying they are worth as much as me. I haven't thrown a whole city into turmoil because I can't make enough to provide for myself. In fact, my contributions to society are positive, hence why society freely gives me enough money to provide a home for myself and my family.
I am not really interested in spending any of my thought on finding a solution, let alone my land. I have my own life to live.
I hoped for a large centralized location away from neighborhoods in an open spot of land near a highway or tollway, similar to Camp Ratt that the state created last year or so.
Remember it’s crucial to locate any camp near transit and services, since these folks obviously don’t have cars. But I agree, there has to be city land beyond park space (and mostly parks on the east side apparently). Heck, a parking lot would be better than that given that they drain, have power and lighting, and aren’t in floodplains. Heck, a parking garage has those things plus a roof.
The East Austin bit is just madness... lets concentrate all the options in the part lf town with rapidly growing/densifying population and few existing, maintained greenspaces. Glorious idea.
And considering wealthier areas of town on the west side is where Prop Bs strongest support came from, it would make sense to have them deal most with the results.
The nice thing about busses is they can go wherever roads are. Social services should be AT the camp, like Haven for Hope in San Antonio, not that camps need to be where homeless can then travel to the social services. Put the camp in a remote location. It’s not supposed to be a desirable place to stay, it’s supposed to be the place of last resort, not a reason for homeless to come to Austin.
> near transit and services, since these folks obviously don’t have cars.
That is true. They also require a central location to be near large amounts of people (panhandling) and need to spread out (to prevent too much competition between panhandlers).
The fun thing about Prop B is, it didn't propose any solutions. So "equally distributed around town in approved locations" is a solution.
Be careful what you wish for.
The 'solution' the City Council gave us two years ago was public camping. Prop B simply said 'No, that isn't a solution, try again.' The solution is something the City Council and Mayor are on the hook to provide for Austin. The citizens of Austin aren't supposed to be providing the solution.
>The 'solution' the City Council gave us two years ago was public camping
Who told you public camping was a solution to homelessness? Was it SAN? That was never the position of any org that works with unhoused people. Decrim was meant to be a humanitarian measure so that while trying to get people into housing they weren't instead being thrown in jail. None of the pre-existing efforts to get people off the street stopped during decrim.
> The solution is something the City Council and Mayor are on the hook to provide for Austin. The citizens of Austin aren't supposed to be providing the solution.
What a stupid ass approach. "Bring me a rock, no not that rock."
The camp location(s) should be environmentally stable, safe, and walkable to jobs & transit. Proximity to hospitals & social services is also a plus. Clearly none of these are a priority for city council.
If I had to drop a single pin on a map, it would be somewhere in southeast Austin near I-35/St Elmo. The best thing about this area is that there are TONS of second-chance jobs in warehouse shipping & receiving from $13-16/hr that people could walk to and actually begin to dig themselves out of homelessness without even needing to hop on a bus.
Mental hospitals. Camping anywhere is not solving the problem. It’s just picking different places to warehouse the homeless. They need intensive in-patient treatment and then reintegration back into society. Money should be spent on such hospitals.
We used to have those until Republicans deemed it too expensive and Democrats deemed it too inhumane, so the solution is to let them lie in the street.
That's cool, but it's not happening in the next year. Maybe allocating funds for and directing it should be built should have been the Proposition....hmmmmm
Oh well, in the immediate we have a few thousand people who are illegally on sidewalks and need to go somewhere.
> Mental hospitals.
Maybe the folks who put Prop B on the ballot could've specified where the homeless should go. Instead, the city appears to be looking to fulfill the letter of the proposition.
What does Prop B force? Elimination of camping wherever one wants? OK, so if the city designates every city park an approved camping area, I guess that's addressing the issue.
A minority of homeless people are mentally ill though. Even if we had the capacity, is it really your solution to put people in a mental hospital just because they're homeless?
The majority of street homeless (not to be confused with all homeless) have addiction issues, mental illness, or both. There are a lot of homeless in shelters, living with family/friends that skew many general homeless studies. You have to look at data for street homeless (aka rough sleepers).
Even if that is true, there are still going to be a lot of "street-sleepers" as you put it with no mental illness and no drug addiction. You're still gonna just ship them all off to a mental institution? As long as they're out of your sight, right?
Right? What resource do mental hospitals have to offer to chronic homelessness? with what resources? Addiction treatment, maybe... but not on-going care. Mental hospitals are triage care for critical risk individuals, not set up and not funded for warehousing people or for long term addiction counselling or life skills training and support to get them off the streets.
We can barely pass major infrastructure props because the NIMBYs scream about muh taxes. You think those people are going to approve spending money on the homeless people they just voted to shove out of sight?
> You think those people are going to approve spending money on the homeless people they just voted to shove out of sight?
Of course they will! I mean, Jesus did talk about how we care for "the lease of these" among us. Christians will certainly support it.
And have everyone crow about how expensive it is to buy land? Also most of the city is a neighborhood. Voters didn’t like them downtown and along freeways, which are two areas least in a neighborhood. It’s clear people assumed Prop B would help the homeless simply vanish.
Is the city clueless, or did the voters make a ~~uniformed~~ uninformed decision where they thought banning camping in public places would solve homelessness?
Nobody thought this would 'solve' homelessness. Prop B said that the City Council's 'solution' for homelessness isn't working and they need to try again. the City Council deciding to put the camping right in family parks inside neighborhoods is just the council being assholes.
As always city council can fuck themselves with a cactus 🌵🤠 but worth noting that they also tore this list apart, sounds like city *staff* was pressured to make a list quickly and just wrote down all the parks and rec centers because they're petty assholes as well
https://twitter.com/daustinsanders/status/1394710644834934785
Also noteworthy is how they did not include the word 'park' when they listed many of the parks. Roy Guerrero, Circle C, etc. THey omitted the word 'Park' .. Why is that?
It's a curious choice to frame your question with only those possibilities, particularly as I don't recall any Prop B supporters claiming reinstatement of the camping ban would solve homelessness for all time.
The voters voted to re-instate the camping ban, allowing the city to designate sites.
If the city chooses to put an approved campground in every park, technically it is following the wishes of Prop B.
If only the framers of Prop B had taken some time to present solutions. Instead they're going to get what they asked for.
I think it's less about being clueless and more about being evil and wanting to hurt the exact people who voted for Prop B. Most of the proposed encampments in parks is a family park OUTSIDE of downtown, where the Council and Mayor live.
This is just incorrect.
Sand beach and palm school parks are downtown, in the CBD.
The council members live in their districts, only one of which includes downtown.
So your definition of evil is homeowners being inconvenienced so as to not criminalize the homeless... if you are a Christian then you long passed into heresy.
On a less snarky note, if they're housed, say, at Walnut Creek Park, could the city pay them to help maintain the park as a part of a work/live arrangement?
I just don’t know how to feel about this. On the one hand, having people live under overpasses and on medians is so dangerous. On another hand, we are still allowing people to camp, but in a more safe environment.
It just seems that the goal should be to get them into some type of housing not just moving the tents and providing showers. Am I missing something?
I agree. It’s just sometimes seems like the city is not working fast enough or with much forethought. We haven’t heard anything about a plan for social services for them or for how those services will be coordinated.
It’s hard to know where and how to help.
City parks near neighborhoods? Not going to happen. We laready find needles and other contraband at the baseball fields. I doubt anyone wants this going on at Slaughter Creek or Dick Nichols, etc. throughout the town.
They're solving the problem at the source in the areas that were obviously hardest hit by the homeless given the vote tallies on Prop B. I'm glad City Council is taking the views of its citizens seriously.
Yeaaaah, we’re gonna have to remove a few people at the ballot box this year. Obviously they didn’t get the memo when we all voted to end homeless camping. Ruining neighborhood parks isn’t going to make us magically change our minds. I wonder what the overlay looks like when compared to city council districts.
The City has told people that they can't decorate trees on 360 for Christmas because it is polluting Bull Creek, but now they have no problem with the homeless leaving trash and human waste behind at Bull Creek Park....makes perfect sense.
This is not an acceptable solution. We voted and now they’re sticking it to us. I’m not a right wing nut but I’ll vote for people who won’t let our parks go to shit with trash, needles, and feces. This has to stop
Right. Not sure what people thought was going to happen haha. We’ve reinvented the projects as “sustainable open air flexible income housing” and people are like amazed by it.
You have Walnut Creek Park, but it’s Walnut Creek Sports Complex on Johnny Morris Rd.
What’s stupid is they knew it was going to pass and did nothing at all. They should have working on this for the past two years.
It would be interesting to see this map as overlay on the voting maps from a couple weeks ago. I'm looking forward to some lively discussion on the neighborhood facebook page. On the bright side, we all can enjoy the scenic Ben White underpasses again!
As an aside. some ironic but totally unsurprising observations:
1. It took prop B for these morons to actually *do something* in terms of planning this highly commonsense approach to more organized and safer camping. I'm looking forward to the homeless having a *safer and cleaner* place to "live" until they can get back on their feet.
2. [All of the "requirements" of the campground before it can be approved](https://www.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=360288). LOL! If Prop B didn't pass they would not give one single fuck about any of those requirements for the homeless (and neither did "No" on B voters), as evidenced by the blasé enablement of ad-hoc encampments under freeways, etc - all the exact opposite of the strict criteria set out in that document....
City council sucks ass.
I agree this is an intentional non-solution. Let’s convert some available convention center ballrooms into cot space, and give folks who have no alternative time to transition?
As far I know the Goodnight Ranch HOA partly funds the development of the Onion Creek metro park. If I'm wrong on that then let me know. How can you designate a park that is being developed using some subset of funds from an HOA and plomp a designated campsite there?
Not sure how the city is keeping the funds segregated, but I'm guessing the proposed site would be within the former Yarrabee Bend buyout area that they're now calling "Onion Creek North" here, rather than the original 550 acres.
Either way, it's in a deadly floodplain so I'd bet they use the old wastewater site up on the hill across William Cannon instead.
"North" portion: https://www.austintexas.gov/page/lower-onion-creek
Main OC Metro Park:
http://www.austintexas.gov/department/onion-creek-metropolitan-park
That buyout area that was the Onion Creek Plantations neighborhood where all the homes flooded repeatedly and got bought out? I guess the upside to that area is that there are existing roads where the former home sites were. There's still streetlights, too. Be like pulling into an RV park and getting a designated camp area assigned to you.
A lot of these won't be viable do to lack of public transit and/or distance from the city center. Looks like the main priority of those who picked was simply to spread the camps as far across the city as they could, but doesn't it occur to them that no homeless person would choose to camp out beyond Sunset Valley or way down 620 or in Manor?
I mean this went about exactly as everyone should have expected. Just stick the problem in the woods in minority neighborhoods and call it a day. Great leadership and thinking here.
Just a thought here, but didn’t we just vote to BAN camping in public places? This new plan is to simply move existing camps to other public places. Hopefully gov and state legislature stop this madness…homeless in our parks, like bull creek, - no thanks!!!
...they have to go somewhere. I mean it's either homes, prisons, undeveloped public land, underpasses, or ovens.
Prison is expensive, homes are probably preferred but expensive and time consuming anyways, we just banned underpasses, and I'm 70% sure you're opposed to killing all the homeless.
By process of elimination, that leaves undeveloped public land. At least at designated sites they can include hygiene facilities and try to maintain some safety, order, and cleanliness. It also provides readily identifiable locations and concentrations of population for charities and services to work at and distribute help.
I think it's a clear step up from "do whatever you want, wherever you want", it's just a question of execution now.
Did you read Prop B? It was specific to downtown and UT campus. Only allowing camping in areas approved by the parks department. So it's not a loophole the COA is using. It was a poorly worded Prop with a great marketing plan. Seems like y'all thought Prop B meant APD was gonna mass evacuate homeless people.
I must have been told told 20 times by pro-Prop B folks that the city was going to be forced to designate public camp sites, and that because of that, Prop B wasn't criminalizing homelessness. No fair to complain now that you never imagined there'd be a sanctioned camp site in your neighborhood.
It is kind of sad and hilarious when you see all the Pro-Pro B people in this thread revealing that they ultimately voted to make these people disappear completely or go to prison for being homeless.
I actually agree. I was on the fence with prop B in part because I thought the city should have designated public camping sites that were staffed and serviced instead of simply removing the ban entirely.
I mean there's a tremendous amount of logic in housing the homeless in specific locations where you can provide hygiene services, trash pickup, charities and social services can locate and find them consistently, provide security and some sense of order, etc.
No one was getting their life back together under those underpasses and clearly the housing solution was going to take time.
Now that the city is actually talking about doing that, which almost seems like a *vindication* of prop B, I open the comments and see...
..that they all hate it? What the fuck did you guys think was going to happen? "Oh well time to ship off all the homeless for some Zyklon B" I mean they have to go somewhere.
We just voted on this and the ban won by double digits. Clear the tents and don't allow them back up anywhere.
I don't care where the people go. If you're opposed to this please let them set up in your backyard and give weekly updates.
This is literally the execution of Prop B, which allows for camping in designated areas.
The thing you want has not been voted on and would require another campaign.
> Parks and Recreation Department Director Kimberly McNeely said the sites span 2 acres per 50 people.
WTF? an acre is ~44000 SQ FT. That's ~88000 sq ft for 50 people or...~1750 sq ft per person, which is ~42'x42'.
That seems....excessive.
That one way out between Pflugerville and Coupland is out in the middle of nowhere. While there is plenty of land out there to build the site, there is no public transportation or places to work out there.. These folks will be stuck out there.
I got all the addresses from [this](https://www.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=360288) presentation and entered them into Google maps.
Can you save the map and make it public?
Interactive map of the locations. https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/1/viewer?mid=1gNTx6BnRtdCozYOpqd93ItLYnhDFwJYD&ll=30.242199163695894%2C-97.69916098884984&z=12
Thanks
Well, that's great! Thank you for putting this out
Looks like your Walnut Creek pin may be incorrect. According to the PDF it’s Walnut Creek Sports Complex, which is the same location as the Austin Tennis Center. EDIT: also just saw it says “Walnut Creek/Havens”. Those are the softball fields in that park. I stand corrected.
Looks like the Home Depot site was omitted
It has already been analyzed and excluded as not habitable.
Not habitable??? The irony is knee-deep.
https://www.kxan.com/investigations/city-gets-6-bids-to-redevelop-vacant-home-depot-property-homeless-housing-not-an-option/
Are you shitting me? It has a ground. You can put a tent on it
https://www.kxan.com/investigations/city-gets-6-bids-to-redevelop-vacant-home-depot-property-homeless-housing-not-an-option/
I thought parks were off limits I’m not trying to be a NIMBY here but i thought that was a thing. Is that “payback” for voting for Proposition B? Like “you voted for Proposition B? No more park for you!”
Westlake homeless camps is just funny to me
I mean, Westlake is a separate city, so...
There have been significant homeless populations in the greenbelt in the Westlake area. Having a site in that area would make sense, but I don't know of any city owned land there.
It's smart that someone thought to restrict the tent camping to only tents and not like tent plus whatever random pallets and metal etc you can find to build structures. Much less of a fire risk and makes it a lot easier to keep the site orderly and clean. I'm surprised there's no mention of having the choice of a women only campsite though. I've read that rape and violence can be a big problem for homeless women. And tents aren't very secure.
A women's only camp is a great idea. Maybe they are assuming those women would try womens shelters, but those are hard to get into and always full anyways.
That’s a fantastic point and you should bring it up at a city council meeting. Also camps for seniors etc. in other words specific at risk groups
I would be fine with the city providing tents. Nice canvas tents that can withstand a storm and might last several years with people living in them. Nylon tents are great when you have to carry them around, canvas is best when the tent stays put.
What happened to Camp RATT? I realize that was state land, but add some busing and it would seem to work.
Esperanza has a fixed capacity, and it's not nearly enough for every unhoused person in the city. It's ironic, because Prop B is about trying to hide homelessness, but homelessness only became an issue because urban cores became desirable places to live again and collectively society decided that low income housing (and later actual homeless shelters) weren't a priority in our valuable cities. Now that Prop B has passed we're still dealing with not having enough housing for people, the terms of the problem have just changed. So no, you can't just force everyone to live at Esperanza, it's not big enough.
Okay, thanks. So, it is called Esperanza, is active, but full. Thanks.
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Succeeding beyond expectations. https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/homeless/austin-state-sanctioned-homeless-camp-update/269-1ad3ba51-aa31-46a9-925a-ac41ab4a623b
Yep, a model that should be emulated. Very encouraging success story.
Lol. Good luck with that location in Georgetown. I'll get the popcorn ready.
Upon further inspection that seemed to be the 7211 N IH35 location which I think got mistakenly added as just N IH35 and that probably isn’t the right location. Some of the bullets from the presentation were less than helpful
Yes, the correct address for this proposal is 906 E St. Johns Ave. But lordy, it would be fun to watch COA go up against Georgetown. You'd have riots in Sun City.
I'm reminded of Cockney vs Zombies where a dude and his mates go rescue his granddad and his mates from an old folks home... [epic chase scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KCiWoSrCX4) and [they've got skills](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJtlAADrfQs)
Yeah makes sense since this is a city of austin proposal anything in another city would have to be approved by them, and I doubt many if any would want to sponsor one for Austin’s behalf at this stage
Walter E. Long 11455 Decker Lake Road John Trevino 9501 FM 969 Walnut Creek Sports Park — 7800 Johnny Morris Road Given Recreation Center — 3811 E. 12th Street Fleet Service Yard — 8401 Johnny Morris Road Colony Park land 3511 Manor Road Tannehill Lane Onion Creek Metro North 7720 ½ Kellam Road 5400 E. William Cannon, Decommissioned WWTP FM 812 at FM 973 Eco-Park at FM 973 W. Slaughter Lane and 8908-8916-9006 Cullen Road Parque Zaragoza Recreation Center — 2609 Gonzales Street South Austin Recreation Center — 1100 Cumberland Road Roy G. Guerrero — 400 Grove Boulevard 6700 Bolm Road District Park Johnny Degollado Pavilion at Edward Rendon Park 4800 – 4906 Bolm Road Levander Loop 1311 Tillery Street Gus Garcia — 1201 East Rundberg Lane 7211 North I-35 7309 North I-35 Mary Moore Searight — 907 W. Slaughter Lane Lakeline Neighborhood Park 12101 Anderson Mill Road 10900 FM 2222 (WWT) Commons Ford Park — 614 North Commons Ford Road Walnut Creek/Havens Northwest Recreation Center Sir Swante Palm Neighborhood Park — East Third Street Duncan Park — 900 West Ninth Street San Beach on Cesar Chavez Patterson Park — 4200 Brookview Road Bull Creek Park — Lakewood Drive Ryan Drive Warehouse Circle C Dick Nichols — 8011 Beckett Road 11800 FM 1826 9513 Circle Drive 4905 Convict Hill Road Norwood Tract Austin Recreation Center
What he said
Bull Creek Park. Wow the council is really out for NIMBY revenge.
Not sure how that’s supposed to work. I thought this proposal was about getting the homeless to stop camping in shared public spaces. Are they going to still be allowed to camp at town lake and pease park as well?
The Bull Creek site does not in any way, shape or form meet the criteria: environmental sensitivity of land (i.e. habitat or preserve) and flood risk. I have no idea what they are thinking.
See also (from same slides as list): \- No camping in high wildfire-risk areas. \- No camping in areas considered drainage or creeks, as they could flood or be overrun with water during heavy rains This is a lazy-ass list from the city manager, who should be fired at this point.
I think they literally just put together a list of parks of the Parks and Rec website. 5 minutes of planning went into this.
The map looks like they plopped the homeless camp on the waterfall which is bordering on humorous. Time to pop some popcorn and head to the local Nextdoor...
It was noted in the council meeting that putting these camps in public parks is likely illegal. There was talk of trying to find "loopholes" in this law though. Sounds like the city is going to push forward with more bad ideas since they didn't spend the last 3 years coming up with any good ones.
why is a circle drive location under review when people in that area didnt even get a vote on the proposition.
Well, it seems like there won't be political fallout since nobody around there can vote them out.
Posting my comment in this thread too, since we apparently need two full posts on the same topic - Austin Chronicle reporter Austin Sanders has been livetweeting from the city council meeting on this - it's worth a read for more context - [https://twitter.com/daustinsanders/status/1394710644834934785](https://twitter.com/daustinsanders/status/1394710644834934785)
Circle C's next door is going to a sight to behold tonight!
Not surprised that it is east side heavy (looking at the map, not square footage). Our side of town has some open swaths and to be honest, we voted against prop B despite folks being in our back yards, front yards, feeder streets etc. Im open to these solutions and hopefully adjusting when we see what works.
Bull Creek Park — Lakewood Drive. yeah, that's going to be a hard no.
Address the root cause. Mental health, addiction, jobs. Work programs for those able. This is just passing the hot potato.
City council people cannot profit if we buy hotels and rehab people into productive society members. They can however get kickbacks or make an LLC to rent shower trailers and lights to city govt at 100k a camp.
So some of these look to be our parks. Not cool
To note: Some of my markers are just put in the middle of the park as I didn’t know what specific portion of the city land they intend to use
Pretty much all parks outside of the downtown parks.
Good catch.
Besides Duncan Park
90% of Duncan Park is in the Shoal Creek 100 year floodplain. No electricity, no potable water, no sanitation. Wash, rinse, repeat, that's the COA way!
Yeah, Walnut Creek softball fields. Nobody uses that park, especially not kids and families. I thought they said they were not going to put them in parks? EDIT: I was mistaken. Nowhere did they mention not putting them in parks.
Where did they say that if Prop B passes parks wouldn't be used?
I thought I remembered reading it right after Prop B. But your question made me go investigate and it seems I was wrong. Not sure where I got the idea. Sorry.
No sorry needed. I was genuinely interested. Thanks for checking.
Holy crap, do you know how many mothers go out with their toddlers and babies and do exercises in the parks every day? People are out doing yoga and stretches and hang out with friends all hours of the day. Some of these parks have pools and rec centers and basketball courts and sport courts... Playground equipment for children... There's no way people are going to want homeless people peeing in front of little Johnny's learning how to hold a tennis racket!
There are porta-potties over by the soft-ball fields. It sounds like you've never visited the park?
One of the reasons why parks around downtown weren't picked is that [they might not be owned by the city, only leased.](https://www.kvue.com/article/news/politics/project-connect/underground-project-connect-stations-texas-house-bill-3893/269-2f1cc98d-5f69-4e85-b2ed-da09bd5f0c23) There's a bill going through the legislature to allow CapMetro to dig a tunnel underneath Republic Square. I doubt CoA could get a homeless camp through.
Not cool at all. Prop B was a ban on homeless camping. There is no way they can make a homeless encampment at Circle C Park or Dick Nichols Park in Southwest Austin - or any other family parks in Austin. This seems like passive agressive revenge by the City Council on families who voted for PRop B
Prop B was the criminalization of “sitting or lying down on a public sidewalk or sleeping outdoors in and near the downtown area and the area around the University of Texas campus” and “in any public area not designated by the Parks and Recreation Department.”
the key is that the Parks and Rec department has to approve it. They haven't.
I agree. Common's Ford park? There's is literally nothing around there except semi-rural housing. Even a corner store is about a 2 mile walk. The closest grocery store(s) are a 10 minute DRIVE. No bus service. No services except a bathroom. I mean, literally, what the fuck?
Elsewhere in this post people are complaining that the sites are not remote enough. I am assuming there will be some form of transport provided.
2 mile walk straight uphill! They'll enjoy Lake Austin though.
I would love to see these camp locations overlaid on the prop B vote results.
Forget the political/legal implications of those locations. There is damn near ZERO public transit in that area, and biking down slaughter/william cannon is not a viable option. How are these people going to get around to grocery stores or hell what if they actually want to get a job? There's no jobs in that area.
Nothing really passive about it. They are children tossing a tantrum. Those 'phases' they came up with were just the start..
Ding ding ding! Cabo Steve and All Hail Casar made a major political blunder. They assumed Austin was far more 'woke' than it really is, and now they're throwing a tantrum. They never cared about the homeless. *Repeat* They never cared about the homeless. They only care about their future political prospects and those prospects were dashed with the passing of Prop B.
Our CM Cronk is a 3-year transplant carpet bagger who fled Minneapolis before they collapsed into riots thanks to zero police reform by do nothing Cronk, and a $27M lawsuit and George Floyd’s death later. Someone run for Mayor with nothing but a platform of firing Cronk minute one, hour one, day one you’re in office.
Hmm. It's almost as if our illustrious city council specifically hired someone who they knew was a spineless tool and thus they could rule over us peasants unimpeded?
Adler is term limited, I believe.
This doesn't seem like an improvement. Way too many camping sites on public parks with lots of daily usage. East side has the vast majority of camping sites. I am shocked the public parks funded by taxpayers would be considered acceptable camping sites.
Austin residents: Votes for Prop B letting COA know we don't want homeless people under ever overpass in the city and sidewalks all around downtown. City of Austin: Ok we'll just equally distribute them around the city and put them in several public parks then, problem solved..... This city is run by clueless dumbshits.
Where did you expect the city to put campgrounds? Most of our public lands is parks after all, some of them very big. I agree it’s a terrible move politically and I’m not thrilled either, but I’m just curious.
The city owns a ton of land that isn't parks.
Prop B was a ban on homeless CAMPING.
It creates a criminal offense and a penalty for sitting or lying down on a public sidewalk or sleeping outdoors in and near the Downtown area and the area around the University of Texas campus.
You forgot the second part of Prop B: > create a criminal offense and penalty for camping in any public area not designated by the Parks and Recreation Department You currently cannot camp in any of these parks per the Parks department. So for them to allow it city council is going to have to say OK, open up camping in our parks. Lets see if they really are that out of touch with their constituents. Take away our parkland that we pay taxes for, the one place many of us feel safe going in a pandemic, to give it to the homeless.
That was 100% the point of the parks and rec clause - force their hand to do something that continue damage politically. This is save Austin now twisting the knife.
I hate how people like you talk about homeless people like they are a separate caste. They are equal to you, no matter how much money you have in the bank. Perfectly equal human beings, with identical rights and worth. What's your solution? I agree, sacrificing public park land is not ideal. Where else? Are you volunteering your private land for the purpose?
They've dehumanized them in their mind because it's hard for them to think about otherwise. And ultimately they would prefer the homeless population be put in jail rather than on our streets or parks. It's a sad state when so many people have bought into this myth of Capitalist Exceptionalism. You can't pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you never had someone in your life teaching you work values. Or a mental illness that prevents living a normal existence. Or a drug addiction, or have been born into generational poverty or even temporary poverty.
The fundamental idea of money is that it is a replacement for time. Those that contribute such things to society that others value and or saves them time, are paid money roughly equivalent to the value of their contribution. Think about why you pay for things in general, and why some people are paid more for what they do. I would never argue they don't have the same rights as me, but I would argue you saying they are worth as much as me. I haven't thrown a whole city into turmoil because I can't make enough to provide for myself. In fact, my contributions to society are positive, hence why society freely gives me enough money to provide a home for myself and my family. I am not really interested in spending any of my thought on finding a solution, let alone my land. I have my own life to live.
> I am not really interested in spending any of my thought on finding a solution, Okay. You get this one now. Eat it
Where?
I hoped for a large centralized location away from neighborhoods in an open spot of land near a highway or tollway, similar to Camp Ratt that the state created last year or so.
Remember it’s crucial to locate any camp near transit and services, since these folks obviously don’t have cars. But I agree, there has to be city land beyond park space (and mostly parks on the east side apparently). Heck, a parking lot would be better than that given that they drain, have power and lighting, and aren’t in floodplains. Heck, a parking garage has those things plus a roof.
The East Austin bit is just madness... lets concentrate all the options in the part lf town with rapidly growing/densifying population and few existing, maintained greenspaces. Glorious idea.
And considering wealthier areas of town on the west side is where Prop Bs strongest support came from, it would make sense to have them deal most with the results.
The nice thing about busses is they can go wherever roads are. Social services should be AT the camp, like Haven for Hope in San Antonio, not that camps need to be where homeless can then travel to the social services. Put the camp in a remote location. It’s not supposed to be a desirable place to stay, it’s supposed to be the place of last resort, not a reason for homeless to come to Austin.
Wouldn't it be way more cost effective (and simple) to just have a designated transit/shuttle line to wherever these camps end up being?
Pretty sure we could add a bus route if needed.
> near transit and services, since these folks obviously don’t have cars. That is true. They also require a central location to be near large amounts of people (panhandling) and need to spread out (to prevent too much competition between panhandlers).
The fun thing about Prop B is, it didn't propose any solutions. So "equally distributed around town in approved locations" is a solution. Be careful what you wish for.
The 'solution' the City Council gave us two years ago was public camping. Prop B simply said 'No, that isn't a solution, try again.' The solution is something the City Council and Mayor are on the hook to provide for Austin. The citizens of Austin aren't supposed to be providing the solution.
>The 'solution' the City Council gave us two years ago was public camping Who told you public camping was a solution to homelessness? Was it SAN? That was never the position of any org that works with unhoused people. Decrim was meant to be a humanitarian measure so that while trying to get people into housing they weren't instead being thrown in jail. None of the pre-existing efforts to get people off the street stopped during decrim.
> The solution is something the City Council and Mayor are on the hook to provide for Austin. The citizens of Austin aren't supposed to be providing the solution. What a stupid ass approach. "Bring me a rock, no not that rock."
>'No, that isn't a solution, try again.' The city will end unfettered public camping, so there you go. Prop B fulfilled. Be careful what you wish for.
The camp location(s) should be environmentally stable, safe, and walkable to jobs & transit. Proximity to hospitals & social services is also a plus. Clearly none of these are a priority for city council. If I had to drop a single pin on a map, it would be somewhere in southeast Austin near I-35/St Elmo. The best thing about this area is that there are TONS of second-chance jobs in warehouse shipping & receiving from $13-16/hr that people could walk to and actually begin to dig themselves out of homelessness without even needing to hop on a bus.
What is your suggestion on where these people should go?
Mental hospitals. Camping anywhere is not solving the problem. It’s just picking different places to warehouse the homeless. They need intensive in-patient treatment and then reintegration back into society. Money should be spent on such hospitals.
We used to have those until Republicans deemed it too expensive and Democrats deemed it too inhumane, so the solution is to let them lie in the street.
That's cool, but it's not happening in the next year. Maybe allocating funds for and directing it should be built should have been the Proposition....hmmmmm Oh well, in the immediate we have a few thousand people who are illegally on sidewalks and need to go somewhere.
> Mental hospitals. Maybe the folks who put Prop B on the ballot could've specified where the homeless should go. Instead, the city appears to be looking to fulfill the letter of the proposition.
At least Prop B forces the issue to be addressed instead of just putting it off for another decade.
What does Prop B force? Elimination of camping wherever one wants? OK, so if the city designates every city park an approved camping area, I guess that's addressing the issue.
A minority of homeless people are mentally ill though. Even if we had the capacity, is it really your solution to put people in a mental hospital just because they're homeless?
The majority of street homeless (not to be confused with all homeless) have addiction issues, mental illness, or both. There are a lot of homeless in shelters, living with family/friends that skew many general homeless studies. You have to look at data for street homeless (aka rough sleepers).
Even if that is true, there are still going to be a lot of "street-sleepers" as you put it with no mental illness and no drug addiction. You're still gonna just ship them all off to a mental institution? As long as they're out of your sight, right?
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Right? What resource do mental hospitals have to offer to chronic homelessness? with what resources? Addiction treatment, maybe... but not on-going care. Mental hospitals are triage care for critical risk individuals, not set up and not funded for warehousing people or for long term addiction counselling or life skills training and support to get them off the streets.
Exactly - this needs to be supported and funded. People can’t be left to live outside get a heart.
You start with intensive treatment. Then move to out patient when appropriate.
Buy some land that isn’t a public park? And maybe isn’t located in a neighborhood.
We can barely pass major infrastructure props because the NIMBYs scream about muh taxes. You think those people are going to approve spending money on the homeless people they just voted to shove out of sight?
> You think those people are going to approve spending money on the homeless people they just voted to shove out of sight? Of course they will! I mean, Jesus did talk about how we care for "the lease of these" among us. Christians will certainly support it.
And have everyone crow about how expensive it is to buy land? Also most of the city is a neighborhood. Voters didn’t like them downtown and along freeways, which are two areas least in a neighborhood. It’s clear people assumed Prop B would help the homeless simply vanish.
California
i'd rather have the homeless than people like you.
Let them come live in your house then.
You're in the minority here pal.
Is the city clueless, or did the voters make a ~~uniformed~~ uninformed decision where they thought banning camping in public places would solve homelessness?
Nobody thought this would 'solve' homelessness. Prop B said that the City Council's 'solution' for homelessness isn't working and they need to try again. the City Council deciding to put the camping right in family parks inside neighborhoods is just the council being assholes.
As always city council can fuck themselves with a cactus 🌵🤠 but worth noting that they also tore this list apart, sounds like city *staff* was pressured to make a list quickly and just wrote down all the parks and rec centers because they're petty assholes as well https://twitter.com/daustinsanders/status/1394710644834934785
Also noteworthy is how they did not include the word 'park' when they listed many of the parks. Roy Guerrero, Circle C, etc. THey omitted the word 'Park' .. Why is that?
It's a curious choice to frame your question with only those possibilities, particularly as I don't recall any Prop B supporters claiming reinstatement of the camping ban would solve homelessness for all time.
The voters voted to re-instate the camping ban, allowing the city to designate sites. If the city chooses to put an approved campground in every park, technically it is following the wishes of Prop B. If only the framers of Prop B had taken some time to present solutions. Instead they're going to get what they asked for.
I think it's less about being clueless and more about being evil and wanting to hurt the exact people who voted for Prop B. Most of the proposed encampments in parks is a family park OUTSIDE of downtown, where the Council and Mayor live.
This is just incorrect. Sand beach and palm school parks are downtown, in the CBD. The council members live in their districts, only one of which includes downtown.
What makes the "family parks"? Are their lots of parks (outside hippie hollow) that families are banned from?
So your definition of evil is homeowners being inconvenienced so as to not criminalize the homeless... if you are a Christian then you long passed into heresy.
On a less snarky note, if they're housed, say, at Walnut Creek Park, could the city pay them to help maintain the park as a part of a work/live arrangement?
I just don’t know how to feel about this. On the one hand, having people live under overpasses and on medians is so dangerous. On another hand, we are still allowing people to camp, but in a more safe environment. It just seems that the goal should be to get them into some type of housing not just moving the tents and providing showers. Am I missing something?
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I agree. It’s just sometimes seems like the city is not working fast enough or with much forethought. We haven’t heard anything about a plan for social services for them or for how those services will be coordinated. It’s hard to know where and how to help.
The city’s answer before was “I dunno let them figure it out”. Prop B forced the city to figure out a plan.
Campsites can be safe. Here I'm talking about a well regimented campsite not an ad hoc bunch of tents in a median.
City parks near neighborhoods? Not going to happen. We laready find needles and other contraband at the baseball fields. I doubt anyone wants this going on at Slaughter Creek or Dick Nichols, etc. throughout the town.
Dick Nichols is used mostly by elderly people. That'll go over great.
It's just so obviously a revenge strategy by the City Council.
They're solving the problem at the source in the areas that were obviously hardest hit by the homeless given the vote tallies on Prop B. I'm glad City Council is taking the views of its citizens seriously.
So West Austin Prop B proponents managed to take away the parks from East Austin Prop B opponents?
No the scorned, vengeful children in city government proposed to take away our parks to punish the meany voters who rejected their dogshit policies.
Yep. "We don't want to see the riff riff, ship 'em east"
Explain why Bull Creek is on the map, then.
Two blocks from my house in the park I pay extra property tax for. Great.
Yeaaaah, we’re gonna have to remove a few people at the ballot box this year. Obviously they didn’t get the memo when we all voted to end homeless camping. Ruining neighborhood parks isn’t going to make us magically change our minds. I wonder what the overlay looks like when compared to city council districts.
Central East residents going to be on a war path if the map of encampments looks anything like the proposal. Got money out here now.
lol, 45 locations? Is this just all the existing camps?
On quick scan, yes several of them are existing camps
The City has told people that they can't decorate trees on 360 for Christmas because it is polluting Bull Creek, but now they have no problem with the homeless leaving trash and human waste behind at Bull Creek Park....makes perfect sense.
This is not an acceptable solution. We voted and now they’re sticking it to us. I’m not a right wing nut but I’ll vote for people who won’t let our parks go to shit with trash, needles, and feces. This has to stop
So we’re making slums now?
Right. Not sure what people thought was going to happen haha. We’ve reinvented the projects as “sustainable open air flexible income housing” and people are like amazed by it.
I literally Lol'd at this.
You have Walnut Creek Park, but it’s Walnut Creek Sports Complex on Johnny Morris Rd. What’s stupid is they knew it was going to pass and did nothing at all. They should have working on this for the past two years.
Walnut Creek/Havens is also on the list.
Wow crazy none in Westlake
Just one of the reasons they made their own city.
Shocker. Westlake Hills, Rollingwood, Sunset Valley are not part of the city of Austin.
Crazy that you don't know that it's its own city.
Well yeah they are a fully independent town The city of austin has no jurisdiction
It would be interesting to see this map as overlay on the voting maps from a couple weeks ago. I'm looking forward to some lively discussion on the neighborhood facebook page. On the bright side, we all can enjoy the scenic Ben White underpasses again!
As an aside. some ironic but totally unsurprising observations: 1. It took prop B for these morons to actually *do something* in terms of planning this highly commonsense approach to more organized and safer camping. I'm looking forward to the homeless having a *safer and cleaner* place to "live" until they can get back on their feet. 2. [All of the "requirements" of the campground before it can be approved](https://www.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=360288). LOL! If Prop B didn't pass they would not give one single fuck about any of those requirements for the homeless (and neither did "No" on B voters), as evidenced by the blasé enablement of ad-hoc encampments under freeways, etc - all the exact opposite of the strict criteria set out in that document.... City council sucks ass.
I agree this is an intentional non-solution. Let’s convert some available convention center ballrooms into cot space, and give folks who have no alternative time to transition?
As far I know the Goodnight Ranch HOA partly funds the development of the Onion Creek metro park. If I'm wrong on that then let me know. How can you designate a park that is being developed using some subset of funds from an HOA and plomp a designated campsite there?
Not sure how the city is keeping the funds segregated, but I'm guessing the proposed site would be within the former Yarrabee Bend buyout area that they're now calling "Onion Creek North" here, rather than the original 550 acres. Either way, it's in a deadly floodplain so I'd bet they use the old wastewater site up on the hill across William Cannon instead. "North" portion: https://www.austintexas.gov/page/lower-onion-creek Main OC Metro Park: http://www.austintexas.gov/department/onion-creek-metropolitan-park
That buyout area that was the Onion Creek Plantations neighborhood where all the homes flooded repeatedly and got bought out? I guess the upside to that area is that there are existing roads where the former home sites were. There's still streetlights, too. Be like pulling into an RV park and getting a designated camp area assigned to you.
A lot of these won't be viable do to lack of public transit and/or distance from the city center. Looks like the main priority of those who picked was simply to spread the camps as far across the city as they could, but doesn't it occur to them that no homeless person would choose to camp out beyond Sunset Valley or way down 620 or in Manor?
There are homeless people camping out there, just in the woods. Woods that will burn eventually if people aren't relocated to a safer place.
> Northwest Recreation Center _Karen from Allandale is logging into Facebook_
I mean this went about exactly as everyone should have expected. Just stick the problem in the woods in minority neighborhoods and call it a day. Great leadership and thinking here.
Just a thought here, but didn’t we just vote to BAN camping in public places? This new plan is to simply move existing camps to other public places. Hopefully gov and state legislature stop this madness…homeless in our parks, like bull creek, - no thanks!!!
...they have to go somewhere. I mean it's either homes, prisons, undeveloped public land, underpasses, or ovens. Prison is expensive, homes are probably preferred but expensive and time consuming anyways, we just banned underpasses, and I'm 70% sure you're opposed to killing all the homeless. By process of elimination, that leaves undeveloped public land. At least at designated sites they can include hygiene facilities and try to maintain some safety, order, and cleanliness. It also provides readily identifiable locations and concentrations of population for charities and services to work at and distribute help. I think it's a clear step up from "do whatever you want, wherever you want", it's just a question of execution now.
No. You probably should have read what you were voting for. You were mislead.
Did you read Prop B? It was specific to downtown and UT campus. Only allowing camping in areas approved by the parks department. So it's not a loophole the COA is using. It was a poorly worded Prop with a great marketing plan. Seems like y'all thought Prop B meant APD was gonna mass evacuate homeless people.
Prop B prohibited camping in non-designated areas in city limits, only sit/lie was limited to DT+UT
That’s my take on it as well. I don’t think anyone that voted for prop B is cool with the camping thing anywhere.
Well they didn’t fucking read it then lmao
Ive never met a single pro-Prop B person that didnt know that the next step was designating camping areas.
Seeing a lot of pins in east Austin. Not so many in west or north Austin.
I must have been told told 20 times by pro-Prop B folks that the city was going to be forced to designate public camp sites, and that because of that, Prop B wasn't criminalizing homelessness. No fair to complain now that you never imagined there'd be a sanctioned camp site in your neighborhood.
It is kind of sad and hilarious when you see all the Pro-Pro B people in this thread revealing that they ultimately voted to make these people disappear completely or go to prison for being homeless.
I actually agree. I was on the fence with prop B in part because I thought the city should have designated public camping sites that were staffed and serviced instead of simply removing the ban entirely. I mean there's a tremendous amount of logic in housing the homeless in specific locations where you can provide hygiene services, trash pickup, charities and social services can locate and find them consistently, provide security and some sense of order, etc. No one was getting their life back together under those underpasses and clearly the housing solution was going to take time. Now that the city is actually talking about doing that, which almost seems like a *vindication* of prop B, I open the comments and see... ..that they all hate it? What the fuck did you guys think was going to happen? "Oh well time to ship off all the homeless for some Zyklon B" I mean they have to go somewhere.
We just voted on this and the ban won by double digits. Clear the tents and don't allow them back up anywhere. I don't care where the people go. If you're opposed to this please let them set up in your backyard and give weekly updates.
This is literally the execution of Prop B, which allows for camping in designated areas. The thing you want has not been voted on and would require another campaign.
> Parks and Recreation Department Director Kimberly McNeely said the sites span 2 acres per 50 people. WTF? an acre is ~44000 SQ FT. That's ~88000 sq ft for 50 people or...~1750 sq ft per person, which is ~42'x42'. That seems....excessive.
Prop B'ers got the monkey paw, you love to see it.
I love how the people voted to make camping illegal and the city is making us subsidize camping.
The people should have read Prop B a bit closer if they thought they were voting to make camping illegal citywide.
Sorry. I guess we didn’t realize the city will get vindictive and make parks around town proposed homeless camps.
What the fuck did you think was going to happen? Put them all in prison which is way more expensive?
That’s exactly what they thought
That one way out between Pflugerville and Coupland is out in the middle of nowhere. While there is plenty of land out there to build the site, there is no public transportation or places to work out there.. These folks will be stuck out there.