City officials say the changes are designed to improve coordination and outreach as crews continue to clear encampments across town.
AUSTIN, Texas — It’s been four months since the City of Austin launched a three-week initiative last October to clear homeless encampments across the city. Now, city officials say they have learned key lessons from that effort and are adjusting their approach going forward.
Angel Rodriguez, who has lived in a North Austin neighborhood his whole life, said the encampment behind his home has long been a concern.
“I moved here when I was in sixth grade,” Rodriguez said.
He explained that while one side of his fence borders longtime residents, the other faces an area “filled with tents and debris.”
“There were little tents all around,” Rodriguez said. “We saw a bunch of bottles. We also saw needles.”
Rodriguez said issues related to the encampment have affected his neighborhood.
“They stole our blowing machine, and also the weed eater, and I think it was some gas canisters as well,” he said. “I would just want the city to kind of clean it up.”
Officials said that although the site sits on private property, city crews did help clear it two years ago. Austin’s Homeless Strategy Office has continued similar efforts elsewhere since then.
“We as a department have been doing homeless encampment management since the department was founded,” said Chris Anderson, Deputy Director of the Austin Homeless Strategy Office.
However, the city’s October 2025 initiative took what Anderson called an “all hands on deck approach at trying to deal with some of the most stubborn encampments throughout our community.”
Working with police, EMS, parks, watershed protection and animal services, crews responded to 669 encampments, moved 181 people into shelters and cleared over one million pounds of debris.
Since that operation ended, Anderson said the department has made adjustments based on what officials learned.
“So one, we need adequate outreach time. We need time to learn who the people are at those encampments,” Anderson said. “We had a lot of manpower, but we didn’t necessarily have the right technical equipment at the right campsites.”
Anderson added that coordination between city departments during clean ups also needs improvement.
“We are currently working on drafting a new encampment plan, taking those lessons learned,” he said.
In the four months since the initiative, Anderson said city crews have contacted almost 400 encampment sites and removed about 332 tons of litter.
Additionally, the Homeless Strategy Office has also been working on a new digital dashboard where people can find data about camps, and report them. So that, coupled with the new encampment clearing plan, will help keep the effort going.