Obviously you’re not a golfer. We can do a lot to address the homeless population (no I don’t mean drownings) Austin just won’t do a lot of the things cities that have been successful in helping the homeless are doing. Our former mayor toured Seattle, Portland and San Francisco instead of Vienna, Helsinki, Columbus Ohio or Salt Lake City. Those cities got rid of shelters and using a Housing first model. Shelters were seen as temporary. Houston and San Antonio have a different and successful model (mayors from NYC, Chicago and Los Angeles have visited these two to see how they’ve reduced their homeless populations by 2/3rds.) Abilene as shitty a place as it is has 0 homeless veterans thanks to their successful program.
if we cared about offering them dignity, help and choices…we’d understand that letting them live under bridges, downtown, around the lake and junking up the green belt is unacceptable. Letting them do this is not compassion. It’s dumbassery. You get them housing and you get them help. You don’t let them live where they are and use drugs and drink. None of the cities I’ve mentioned allow this. You get them help for a dignified future. And if they don’t want the help bus them the fuck out of dodge. Thats what many successful cities (San Antonio is conquering their problem.) tough love isn’t wrong in this situation. But you don’t ring the dinner bell like the former Austin Mayor and tell them all to “come on down” when you don’t have the infrastructure and hope to use all who “came on down” as a political weapon to get housing. It’s a huge problem. Doing that doubled maybe even tripled the homeless population.
I am still in Atlanta. Plus, homeless people are easy targets. Not enough points for elite assassins on my level 😜