Austin News

Newly appointed City of Austin Housing Officer Dianna Grey said her office would focus on getting the homeless adequate housing regardless of what position the city takes this week on banning camping sites for the homeless.

“I share the urgency that I know all Austinites are feeling around this issue and the dedication to solving this in our city,” Grey said on the city’s website. “One of the things I want to make clear is we have a lot of strengths in this community. I think we have largely shared values around how we want to help our neighbors who are experiencing homelessness.”

Members of the Austin City Council are discussing the possibility of banning camping in four areas of the city that have been overtaken by the homeless and a special session was held on Feb. 9.

The four areas in question include South Central Austin under a highway overpass, East Austin, the central business district, and Northwest Austin. The camp sites have been called “dangerous” and “unhealthy” by city officials.

The City of Austin on Feb. 4 certified a petition with a required 20,000 signatures calling for the issue to be decided in a May election and has until Feb. 12 to adopt the election or enact a new camping ordinance.

In June 2019, the Council voted to end a 23-year-old ordinance that made it illegal to camp in public places under the guise that the homeless had nowhere else to go. Since then the city has struggled to find permanent housing for the homeless.

Grey, who started in the housing officer job last month, said the city would look at establishing “sanctioned camping sites,” and also consider a “conversion strategy” that would purchase and covert hotels for occupancy by the homeless.

She said she is looking forward to attend an upcoming community summit that will address the homeless issue held by the Downtown Austin Alliance, Austin Chamber of Commerce and city officials.

“We anticipate an intensive community planning process to take place over the coming weeks and our goal as a community is to come out with broadly shared goals around increasing capacity in a number of areas,” she said. “We know we need more shelter beds, we know we need more rapid rehousing, we know we need more permanent supportive housing. There are shared commitments to the creation of that capacity. Within that it will be very important that council and the city identify very clearly what our production goals are, and that we’re held accountable to those over the coming months.”