{"id":429081,"date":"2026-09-07T22:47:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T22:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/429081\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T22:47:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T22:47:12","slug":"joe-lonsdale-the-rebel-billionaire-the-austin-chronicle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/429081\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Lonsdale: The \u201cRebel\u201d Billionaire \u2022 The Austin Chronicle"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of our part-time Austin neighbors, tech tycoon Joseph Lonsdale, recently made national headlines. Not just any headlines \u2013 simultaneous feature stories in the national newspapers of record, The New York Times<\/a> and the The Washington Post<\/a>, and on the same day (Aug. 22). You might chalk that up to an amazing coincidence. More likely, Lonsdale can afford really good press agents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The nearly 3,000 word Times story is headlined \u201cHow a Billionaire Shaped Trump\u2019s Homelessness Policy,\u201d and the even more glowing, 5,000 word Post version is \u201cHow one billionaire\u2019s crusade against homelessness became Trump\u2019s playbook.\u201d That\u2019s the news hook for both stories: Through his personal advocacy and his think tank\/lobbying group, the Cicero Institute<\/a>, Lonsdale has campaigned against homelessness, and the Trump administration has been enthusiastically receptive. The Lonsdale campaign used to be a state-by-state lobbying slog: The Post counts 214 laws successfully promoted by Cicero in 29 states since 2021 (the Institute\u2019s own Cicero Action<\/a> advocacy wing, as of this writing, tallies 195 pieces of legislation \u201csigned into law,\u201d with hundreds more right behind).<\/p>\n

As you might guess, the Lonsdale project is less about eliminating homelessness than eliminating the homeless. Last year, Cicero staffers helped draft Trump\u2019s executive order which, under the Trumpian heading, \u201cEnding Crime and Disorder on America\u2019s Streets<\/a>,\u201d seeks to move federal policy and resources away from the self-explanatory \u201cHousing First<\/a>\u201d process and instead emphasize law enforcement and \u201ccivil commitment\u201d (forced treatment or incarceration) for unsheltered homeless people. Lonsdale celebrated the order, and Scott Centorino, who had coordinated the administration\u2019s homelessness policy, is now a \u201csenior fellow\u201d at Cicero.<\/p>\n

The Institute promotes other conventionally conservative, \u201cfree market\u201d policies \u2013 in health care, public safety, education, and \u201cregulatory reform\u201d \u2013 but has made its institutional reputation on homelessness policy. Lonsdale says his focus on that issue was specifically triggered by an incident involving his wife in San Francisco several years ago. She was walking on San Francisco\u2019s Market Street with her child when she was harassed by either \u201ca group of homeless people\u201d (the Post) or \u201ca homeless person\u201d (the Times). The Times reports that in an interview Lonsdale recalled, \u201cShe just got screamed at, multiple times, and threatened by someone who has clearly lost their mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

As it happens, I was in San Francisco recently and walked a few blocks down Market Street. Indeed, there were quite a few homeless people on the sidewalks, although that morning none of them took any particular notice of me. Certainly anyone who has spent much time on major city streets, in Austin or elsewhere, has occasionally been accosted by an aggressive panhandler, or worse, and it can be frightening (most often for other homeless people). So I have no doubt something like that happened to Ms. Lonsdale.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the other hand, on Market Street or elsewhere, it never occurred to me because one homeless person treated me rudely, that if I had a magic wand \u2013 or a billion dollars \u2013 I should devote my money and my political energies to trying to make all homeless people disappear. But Lonsdale credits that incident as one of his motivations for Cicero targeting the homeless, and also for moving with his family from California to Texas (although he maintains a home near Stanford, featured in several flattering photographs in the Post). He complains that public officials in California wouldn\u2019t return his phone calls \u2013 but at the Capitol in Austin and now the White House, he has plenty of access to Republican officials eager to entertain his libertarian fancies, and not coincidentally, his campaign donations.<\/p>\n

One would think the word \u201chomeless\u201d itself might suggest potential solutions: How can we construct affordable housing sufficient to the need? And in fact, as Housing First proponents report, where the resources have been provided \u2013 as in recent years with veterans programs \u2013 homelessness has been dramatically reduced. If similar resources, including basic housing, were made available to more people on the street, might fewer find themselves with no other recourse than a tent and a vacant lot?<\/p>\n

As Jesse Rabinowitz of the National Homeless Law Center argues (in an online footnote to the Post story), \u201cLaws that make it a crime to sleep outside waste resources, erode trust, and make homelessness worse. None of their backwards ideas address the sky-high cost of rent, which remains the largest cause of homelessness.\u201d By contrast, University of Pennsylvania scholar Dennis Culhane told the Times, when Housing First programs aimed at veterans were sufficiently funded, veteran homelessness dropped by more than half. \u201cIf Housing First didn\u2019t work, we wouldn\u2019t have seen that success,\u201d Professor Culhane said. \u201cBut outside of veterans, we\u2019re greatly underfunded.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, bans on homeless camping have been popular, even in Austin. In 2021, local voters approved such a ban (\u201cProp B\u201d), 57%-42%<\/a>. Not coincidentally, the Save Austin Now campaign, a thinly disguised Republican operation, spent more than $800,000 promoting the ban, including $40,000 in Lonsdale pocket change and a similar amount from Gov. Greg Abbott\u2019s campaign funds, while ban opponents (Homes Not Handcuffs<\/a>) raised less than $50,000. Following the vote, once again it became open season on camping, and homeless people without other recourse returned to hiding in the woods or moving around ahead of police sweeps.<\/p>\n

The Austin law was soon followed by a similar statewide ban, and Lonsdale and Cicero have gone on to nationwide legislation and federal support for his punitive programs. The administration\u2019s intentions to shift Housing First funding to forced treatment or incarceration is currently in litigation, but should the argument rise to the John Roberts Supreme Court, there\u2019s little doubt how the vote will go. Meanwhile, hospital closings, and federal cuts to Medicaid and nutrition assistance (SNAP) and other social service programs have pretty much destroyed any prospect of substantive attempts to help the country\u2019s most visibly vulnerable people. The Trump priority, embodied in his One Big Beautiful Bill<\/a>, was tax cuts for the top 10% (or 1%), including billionaires like Joe Lonsdale.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Particularly comical in Lonsdale\u2019s rhetoric is his refrain that he\u2019s an \u201coutsider,\u201d an embattled soldier of the \u201crebel alliance\u201d fighting \u201cthe empire\u201d in defense of \u201cWestern civilization.\u201d All this while he and his billionaire allies have a death grip on national and nationwide public policy and resources, in the service of a deranged and malicious emperor whose only goals are self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement. And the most vulnerable Americans will continue to pay most dearly for all this vainglorious destruction.<\/p>\n

The Lonsdale\/Cicero Institute mantra on homelessness is, \u201cIt\u2019s not compassionate to leave people on the street.\u201d Lonsdale\u2019s alternative program is very much like the Trump approach to immigrants: Round them up and make them disappear.<\/p>\n

From 2005-2020, now-retired\u00a0Austin Chronicle\u00a0News Editor Michael King wrote about city and state politics from a progressive perspective in his weekly column,\u00a0\u201cPoint Austin.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0We\u2019re pleased to bring back his column whenever he\u2019s inspired to tackle the state we\u2019re in.<\/p>\n

A note to readers:\u00a0Bold and uncensored,\u00a0The Austin Chronicle\u00a0has been Austin\u2019s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community\u2019s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of our part-time Austin neighbors, tech tycoon Joseph Lonsdale, recently made national headlines. Not just any headlines…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,12058,1551,696,113633],"class_list":["post-429081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-cicero-institute","tag-feature","tag-homelessness","tag-joe-lonsdale"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429081","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=429081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}