Tent encampments have returned to downtown Austin's Ann and Roy Butler Hike and Bike Trail, renewing questions about whether city officials have a workable plan to enforce the ban on camping along the city's crown jewel recreational area and redirect occupants into shelters.
Camping on the 10-mile trail, and all other city owned parkland, has been unlawful for decades and continued to be unlawful even after the Austin City Council repealed the camping ban ordinance in most areas of the city in 2019.
But when tents started popping up along the trail early in the coronavirus pandemic, city officials declined to take action, pointing to nonbinding guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that discourages disrupting encampments because it could lead to disease outbreaks.
That eventually drew criticism from Mayor Steve Adler, who called it a mistake by the city staff to let people live on or adjacent to the trail and lamented a failure to manage public spaces that should be available to everyone to enjoy.
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The lack of enforcement was viewed by some voters as reason to approve the return of the camping ban under Proposition B in the May election. Heidi Anderson, executive director of the Trail Foundation — a nonprofit that in October entered into a contract with the city to take over control of the trail — said earlier this year that donations to the foundation had dried up from members who had become upset with the state of the trail.
The presence of tents also coincided with increased litter in and along the banks of Lady Bird Lake — a problem the city attributed in part to scaled-back cleanup services during the pandemic.
The tent problem seemed headed toward resolution in August when the city staff assigned to address Austin's homelessness crisis selected an area along the trail on West Cesar Chavez Street for removal of tent residents, shifting them into a hotel. About 60 people were relocated. The hotel functions as a shelter under the council's housing plan, which is dubbed HEAL, for Housing-Focused Encampment Assistance Link.
But tents have made their way back to the trail, this time clustered on the easternmost end near South Pleasant Valley Road. In a recent trip around the trail, the American-Statesman counted roughly 40 tents or temporary living structures, with all but a handful in that specific area and several positioned along the banks of Lady Bird Lake. It was an increase from earlier in the year when roughly a half-dozen tents were in the area.
The city says it is aware of the tents and that the Parks and Recreation Department evaluated the location and documented "substantial growth" since October. The number of 311 calls related to homeless encampments or people experiencing homelessness on parkland has increased through the year, from about 30 calls per week to more than 100 calls per week, the city said.
Park rangers often visit the area and request voluntary compliance, the city said. The parks department is working to have extra trash pickup in the area and, with other departments, hopes to establish a plan for this location in early 2022, the city said.
Anderson, of the Trail Foundation, did not respond to a message seeking comment on the trail encampments.
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A review of court records shows that since the May election, the Austin Police Department has issued 176 citations throughout the city for camping and two other offenses associated with people experiencing homelessness — panhandling during prohibited hours and sitting or lying in public spaces. All of the offenses are punishable as Class C misdemeanors. None of the citations was issued related to behavior on the hike-and-bike trail.
Police Lt. Lawrence Davis said the trail has become a destination for people who were displaced from other encampments, including under overpasses, where enforcement has picked up. He said the Police Department recognizes that the trail is "significant to the city" but said strongly enforcing the ban comes with complications — people might move to areas of even greater concern because the city does not have enough shelter space to provide a bed for everyone who wants one.
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A plan from the city and other public and private entities aims add 3,000 housing units in the next three years. It would cost in excess of $500 million, all but about $100 million of which has been identified. Much of the money is coming from the federal American Rescue Plan Act, from which the city allocated $106.7 million and Travis County allocated $110 million.
"When we do enforcement, it's not randomly showing up and enforcing," Davis said. "We want that response to be meaningful. We have to consider where the folks are going to go. We have to make sure it's not closer to a school, closer to a community or closer to private land."
Davis said he is unaware of whether there has been an increase in criminal activity on the trail other than camping.
The city says the trail encampment has been evaluated for selection under HEAL, suggesting there has been some thought about removing the tents and moving the people into a hotel. The city has purchased four hotels to house those who are homeless; two are operational at this time. In the early days of the HEAL strategy, the city announced the specific locations it had chosen to address. That no longer happens, presumably to avoid swarms of people moving to certain areas in search of housing.
To this point, more than 150 people have been taken to the hotels, known as bridge shelters, from five encampments deemed dangerous because they are near high-traffic roads or areas prone to wildfire or flooding. That's just a fraction of the roughly 2,200 people believed to have been living outdoors or in a vehicle in early 2021.
The second phase of HEAL began in November with the clearing of an encampment in South Austin on city parkland off of Old San Antonio Road.