PROP B and Beyond

After the passage of Prop B (which banned public camping except in designated places) in Austin, opponents of the ballot measure are doubling down on foolish. From the beginning, the debate over public camping centered on the chaos and crime the unregulated encampments foisted on the community. As the battle over Prop B unfolded, it became clear that those who wish to allow unregulated encampments would never attempt to address the questions around harm to communities-many of which are working class just trying to get by in Austin. While it would be too much to say they simply don’t care about the communities, it is clear many who opposed Prop B have decided that under no circumstance should impacted communities be prioritized over the the right to camp anywhere. Sadly, the city’s folly not only made a mess of many communities, it has worn on the compassion people have for the homeless.

57% of Austin, a very left leaning town, voted in favor of Prop B. Exit polling indicates something on the order of 40% of Democrats voted in favor. The present efforts to throw sand in the gears of enforcement, inflate estimated costs associated with designating camping locations, and suggestions that maybe the locations should be in city parks are simply tactics of leftists who have no regard for the democratic process or the will of voters. While there are organizations seeking long term solutions in good faith, there are other actors who are perfectly happy to sow chaos in the hope that somehow the community will “learn its lesson and do something”. But the arguments are not compelling.

Leading up to the vote, those opposing Prop B had no good arguments really. They had supported the city’s misadventure and knew citizens were not enthused with the results. In that case, the best argument was to pivot to partisan politics and try to stem the bleed of democratic votes. And post ballot, the narrative has continued. The claim is that Prop B is a Republican plot clean up the streets so they don’t have to see the homeless. The name we have for that here in Texas is horseshit. Prop B was forced on the ballot by the Save Austin Now PAC. It was co-founded by Matt Mackowiak and Cleo Petricek. Matt is the Travis County GOP chair which is the reason the camp anywhere crowd has pushed this political narrative. Cleo is a liberal democrat (Full disclosure, Cleo is my wife and she is no Republican! She is a fire breathing Democrat.) who was involved in this issue well prior to meeting Matt. She, along with others, formed the SAFE Project in opposition to a city plan to purchase a property for homeless shelter use near multiple elementary schools in a largely hispanic area. While the pushback was ultimately successful, the degree to which council members were unwilling to engage communities and the degree of arrogance on the part of some members like Greg Casar made it clear that this would be a real fight. To claim that motivation is political is nonsense. The motivation is to force the city to listen to citizens regardless of their politics and in an age where seemingly nothing can be accomplished across party lines, this should encourage Austinites. We can work together and be heard as a community.

It is true that the PAC raised a lot of money to fight the insanity foisted on the city. Of course that fuels a round of stories that this is all an elite driven thing. Another bit of HS. The opposition had no trouble latching on to democratic out-of-towner royalty like Julian Castro and Beto to try and drive voter turnout. But if people who live here and are invested in this town spend some money to highlight the insane state of affairs it becomes a story about how the elites are of hand. Austin is a city of smart people, many progressive on the political spectrum, and it is just insulting to say that they are somehow incapable of figuring out that the situation was untenable. They heard the case made by both sides and picked a winner.

Fundamentally, most Austinites understand that the homeless crisis is a confluence of factors. Mental health, substance abuse, economic hardship, and dramatically increased housing costs are some of the factors that we all understand contribute to the ongoing problem. Those opposing the camping ban claim that criminal penalties do nothing to solve the problem and in fact make it harder for someone on the street to ever get on their feet. In principle, if Austin actually issued endless citations this might hold some water. In practice however, the argument fails. In the 2 years prior to allowing the open camping, Austin did NOT issue endless citations and voluntary compliance was the norm. The point here is that, as with any ordinance, the city can decide how enforcement is handled. Given Austin is a left leaning city, it is not surprising that enforcement moved away from the purely punitive. But to suggest, as the chaos boosters do, that there is no place for law enforcement anywhere is pure folly.

Another angle currently in favor with those who support open camping is the claim that designating camping locations is just too costly. The city as of mid May ’21 has stated that a 100 person camp would cost $1.87M. This cost was part of a line item style budget. Jr Varsity is what comes to mind after even 2 min looking at the proposed budget. It is clearly not the result of a serious due diligence process and that is an utter failure of leadership. The city knew ahead of the vote that it would likely lose and still had not made an effort to plan. Included in the budget for 100 people is $600k (food), $175k (laundry), and $335k (social services) which is $1.11M of the $1.87M proposed cost. This is nonsense REGARDLESS of which side of the debate you are on. If the city is not providing these things to people under bridges, it is not obligated to do so in structured encampments and hence has no place in this budget proposal. If the city is providing these services today for the same 100 people, it is not a cost unique to designated encampments and hence does not belong in this budget. To top off the insanity, relocation services and utilities are listed as TBD. What about the remaining balance of $760k? $390k (security), $150k (operational staff), $100k (shower trailer), 70k (lighting). So in the end, actually providing secure camping with showers, toilets, security is about $7,600 per person, not the $18,700 the budget implies. What’s really crazy are the leftists who are complaining about the cost when any way you cut it, the homeless will be better off! As a progressive myself (whatever the hell that means anymore) its disheartening to see progressives lose their way on this issue. It’s also not hard to imagine that secure camps will become attractive for philanthropic and faith groups to help service. Austin organizations will adopt these camps and provide community contact in a way that is simply not going to happen in the present situation. Community involvement is he single most critical ingredient if we want to see long term success, its what homeless advocates say they want, and it will not happen in a positive way if the situation we have today is allowed to continue. As to the argument that this money would be better spent on permanent housing, life is about alternatives. There is no credible plan to permanently house everyone under a bridge in a time frame that does not force communities to live with the current chaos and that is the primary message of the ballot! Citizens simply said many are hurt by this policy, no one is helped, STOP. If we believe the city budget (excluding the $1.11M that is not part of camping), 2000 people could be put in secure locations for about $15M/yr. This is a rounding error on what the city has been spending-its time to stop majoring on minors!

Austin citizens should demand that the city enforce Prop B and let all the impacted communities get back to life without the chaos. Citizens should not tolerate the temper tantrum that is the suggestion that city parks become campgrounds. Communities need these parks. Citizens should also get loud and demand an accounting for the incredible amount of money that is spent around the homeless issue with little obvious result. We aren’t talking a meager $15M here folks. Community involvement and oversight is the only way to achieve a long term solution. There is general agreement that some form of permanent housing is the way forward-but there must be debate about specifics that will ultimately determine the cost and hence the sustainability. Short term thinking that refuses to acknowledge that costs are covered by taxpayers somewhere will lead to unsustainable approaches that voters will ultimately give up on.

In the end, the most spectacular failure on the part of the city council was simply communicating with the community. They took an approach rooted in an absolute sense of self righteousness and decided that citizens just needed to shut up and listen. Opportunity after missed opportunity to really deliver a message and a plan. There is really no other plausible explanation for how Austin embarked on such a stupid course. To this day, the mayor has not delivered a message to the community that makes any effort to bring people to the table and secure buy in. That’s hard to understand given the mayor is certainly ‘smart’-until you consider how moralizing works. Instead of understanding points of view and persuading people to come around to your way of thinking, you simply discount them as ineligible to participate. The same goes for many others in official positions related to this issue. There has been an astonishing willingness to discount the experiences of communities that one would expect progressives to really listen to. There is a lesson here for progressives.

While its critical that we understand what the city is doing with public funds, if you as an individual would like to make a contribution to housing someone in need, there are organizations like Community First (Community First! Village | Mobile Loaves & Fishes (mlf.org))that are worth a look. They provide an opportunity to make an immediate impact and in the case of Community First, and opportunity to finance the creation of a housing unit. And the one thing everyone agrees on is that there is simply not enough affordable housing in Austin.