{"id":177942,"date":"2026-02-24T12:39:38","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T12:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/177942\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T12:39:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T12:39:38","slug":"inside-austins-54m-plan-turning-hotels-into-housing-for-the-homeless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/177942\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Austin&#8217;s $54M plan turning hotels into housing for the homeless"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From 2020 to 2022, Austin leaders faced\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statesman.com\/story\/news\/local\/2022\/08\/01\/austin-struggling-with-plan-to-turn-hotels-into-homeless-shelters\/65384982007\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">strong public backlash<\/a> over plans to purchase and convert six hotels and motels into homeless shelters and transitional housing. Opponents argued that businesses and homeowners were concerned about crime and safety, threatening <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kxan.com\/news\/local\/austin\/city-of-austin-to-convert-candlewood-suites-motel-to-homeless-housing-despite-lawsuit-to-stop-it\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">legal action<\/a> to stop the hotel conversion effort, while city leaders <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kvue.com\/article\/news\/local\/homeless\/candlewood-suites-homeless-hotel-lawsuit-filed\/269-3a70022b-264f-4247-9739-d94faece6c82\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">insisted<\/a> that the hotels would provide more permanent supportive housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>An American-Statesman reader recently asked about what became of those facilities. Here\u2019s what we found out.<\/p>\n<p>The city said that all hotels are currently occupied either as shelter or as housing.<\/p>\n<p>The city spent nearly $54 million to turn the six lodging facilities \u00a0 into shelters or permanent housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The total occupancy for each housing or shelter option fluctuates at any given time, the city said. But here is the total capacity for each lodging facility:<\/p>\n<p>The motels and hotels created 188 permanent supportive housing units:<\/p>\n<p>What share of the city\u2019s total shelter and supportive housing capacity do these facilities represent?<\/p>\n<p>The Northbridge, Southbridge and SAFE Alliance shelters make up 20% of the city\u2019s current shelter inventory while Balcones Terrace, Pecan Gardens and the Bungalows at Century Park make up 15% of the city\u2019s total project-based permanent supportive housing units, according to the city.<\/p>\n<p>Do you have a question about Austin government and politics? Submit it below and we might answer it in a future story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From 2020 to 2022, Austin leaders faced\u00a0strong public backlash over plans to purchase and convert six hotels and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,1501,1823,134,133,251,27],"class_list":{"0":"post-177942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-city-council","10":"tag-austin-city-hall","11":"tag-austin-headlines","12":"tag-austin-news","13":"tag-local-news","14":"tag-texas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}