Enough is Enough — Save Austin Now
By Matt Mackowiak
We are now in the closing days of the May 1 Municipal election.
Voters can cast ballots on the final day of early voting (Tuesday, April 27 from 7am-7pm) and on Election Day (Saturday, May 1 from 7am-7pm).
This is the most consequential municipal election in Austin’s modern history.
We have a stark choice: Do we step back from the abyss? Or do we plunge headfirst into it?
The public camping ordinance has failed our city, as even Mayor Steve Adler publicly admitted in February (two days after we submitted 27,000 signed petitions).
The ways in which this policy have failed are infinite, but here are a few that are undeniable:
1) The homeless community has exploded, from around 2,500 to what I estimate to be 5,000 now, although according to Austonia a report commissioned by consultants for the city recently put the estimate at 10,000.
2) Homeless fires are on track to double last year’s all-time record (to 503), endangering homeless Austinites and their personal property and our courageous firefighters.
3) City parks are being destroyed all over the city, despite the fact that the camping ordinance specifically exempts parks from legal camping.
4) Every single major highway intersection is worse today, and this is especially visible on Hwy. 183 and Hwy. 71, as well as on IH-35.
5) Public safety in Austin is at the worst I can ever remember (I arrived in Austin in 1984), with our homicide rate set to double this year (after last year’s all-time record), and regular violent attacks by homeless individuals happening almost daily at this point. A quick review of the Citizen app will cause you to lose sleep at night.
6) Public health in our city is far worse today than it would be without the ordinance, as the city had no plan for the human and physical waste created by camping, and we regularly see human feces, drug needles and other waste at encampments across the city.
7) Tourism has taken a direct hit. Major hotels are losing conferences, visitors are shocked to see what’s become of Austin, and the related economic effect on the hospitality and service industries has been profound.
A public camping ordinance has never succeeded anywhere it has been tried in the U.S. Never. Not once.
Recent examples of these proven failures include Los Angeles (LA County now has 100,000 homeless individuals according to an LA Times story in 2019), San Francisco, Seattle, Portland and Honolulu. Denver preemptively banned public camping 18 months ago (with more than 80% in support). San Diego recently reversed its camping ordinance after their beaches and tourism industry were being destroyed.
Public camping is not allowed in any other Texas city, including the progressive cities Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. Only Austin has taken this deeply irresponsible step.
San Antonio has a highly successful model in Haven for Hope, which is a regulated, clean, safe campground where the homeless receive services like mental health and drug and alcohol abuse training and job training. Haven for Hope’s leadership supports Prop. B in Austin (reinstatement of the camping ban) and supports a statewide ban on public camping currently under consideration by the state legislature. They know that unregulated camping doesn’t work.
In the closing days of this campaign, hysterical claims have been made by Prop B opponents. This is because they are losing and they cannot argue that their policy is succeeding.
What are their false claims?
1) They claim (through false and intentionally misleading ballot language) that the camping ban only applies downtown and on the UT campus. This is false. The ordinance language (which is what becomes law if Prop B passes) clearly states that the camping ban is citywide.
2) They claim that our effort is a partisan (GOP) effort. It’s not. Save Austin Now and Save Austin Now PAC are nonpartisan (an educational nonprofit and a political action committee, respectively), founded by a local Democrat (Cleo Petricek) and myself, with direct support from the Austin Police Association and SafeHorns, both of which are nonpartisan organizations.
3) They claim that we wish to ‘criminalize homeless existence’. No, it has never been, nor will it ever be, illegal to be unhoused in our city. Instead, we wish to reinstate a public camping ban which was successful for 23 years when there was no crisis. During that time, the Austin Police Department has testified they were getting 93% voluntary compliance. The city council threw out a 93% successful system for 7% who refused to comply. That’s insane.
But the single most persuasive reason to conclude we must reinstate the public camping ban is this: The homeless are worse off today in Austin than they were before.
They are being targeted by predators every hour of every day, in unsafe, unsanitary, unregulated campgrounds where sex trafficking, human trafficking, rape, stabbings, fights, and drug deals are regularly occurring. The women who are homeless are the most vulnerable population.
We need more shelters. We need more transitional housing. We need a central, regulated campground like Haven for Hope. We need to spend tax dollars more efficiently and transparently. We need to ditch the hotel/motel strategy and instead pursue models like Community First Village which have been highly successful.
Austin was a great city. It can be again. But in order for it to be a truly great city in the future, this social experiment must end because it is making life worse for everyone here.
We have been working as volunteers for 26 months first to bring this ordinance to the ballot and now to pass this ordinance to save our city and restore public safety and public health, while forcing the city council to actually advance real and proven solutions for the homeless.
It is simply unconscionable that Mayor Adler and Council Member Greg Casar continue to peddle the fiction that Prop B would not rescue our city from their disastrous policy.
On May 1st, we have one chance to save Austin now.
I pray that we take it.
-Matt Mackowiak
Save Austin Now PAC co-founder
Find out how, where and when to vote here: https://www.saveaustinnowpac.com/vote-may-1st
Support Save Austin Now PAC here: https://secure.anedot.com/save-austin-now-pac/donate
