a statewide ban on public camping<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\nSome who work for the city, including the mayor, were disappointed.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of what we\u2019re seeing with regard to addressing people living homeless is frankly not how it\u2019s supposed to work,\u201d said Austin Mayor Kirk Watson. \u201cIt is not as easy as just saying we\u2019re going to go out and clear an encampment. Empathy is the key word.\u201d<\/p>\n
“Safety” is another key word, according to the governor\u2019s office and DPS. Among the 48 encampments and 3,000 pounds of debris cleared, DPS also arrested 31 people for numerous charges.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf the 31 taken into custody, 24 people had previous felony arrests for hundreds of crimes such as sexual assault of a child, injuring a child\/elderly\/disabled individual with intent of bodily injury, human smuggling, assault on a family\/household member, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated robbery and abandoning\/endangering a child, among many others,”\u00a0stated Sheridan Nolen, the DPS press secretary, in a statement.<\/p>\n
Illicit drugs were also confiscated, according to Nolen\u2019s statement, including methamphetamine and cocaine. DPS also says they recovered two stolen vehicles and a firearm.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be fully engaged to make sure that we are making our communities safer,\u201d said Abbott.<\/p>\n
Some, like Save Austin Now, a\u00a0political action committee opposed to Prop Q (a proposed tax increase for Austinites to expand homelessness mitigation, services for crime victims, climate change response and more) stood by the state\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n
Save Austin Now spokesperson Matt Mackowiak said, \u201cThe simple fact is Austin has moved too slowly to clean up our city from illegal homeless encampments, which harm public seats, public health, tourism and our environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some officials who work on homelessness in the city say that progress has been much more profound than the state thinks.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust last year, the City of Austin cleaned and cleared over 1,500 encampments across the city,\u201d said David Gray, from the city\u2019s homeless strategies and operations office.<\/p>\n
Gray noted that while state agencies are often in control of clearing encampments on state property, like highways, this was the first he heard that DPS officials were removing camps within city limits.<\/p>\n
He says there is usually outreach to those who are homeless first, giving them a chance to accept any offered services or move to a different location before ultimately being displaced.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe help enroll them in substance use treatment programs, or job training programs, because if you just close an encampment, without really changing somebody\u2019s situation, all you\u2019re doing is just moving that encampment from one community to the other,\u201d Gray said.<\/p>\n
He does not know whether those living in the camps were offered resources or where they moved to.<\/p>\n
Abbott says\u00a0this type of operation could be seen beyond the capital\u00a0city.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a state law, and I plan to extend this across the entire state,\u201d the governor said. \u201cThere are some communities that are stepping up and addressing this proactively, and that\u2019s what we want to see.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014\u00a0A state operation to clear out homeless encampments in the capital city is leaving some Austin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[12926,19197,1658,132,134,133,5604,1570,223,287,1569,835],"class_list":["post-27997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-andres-rendon","tag-app-homelessness","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-austin-what-you-need-to-know","tag-ctv","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27997","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=27997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}