I've been traveling to Houston a lot this year for work. 2 or 3 times a month I'm in Houston. I'm also regularly in places in like New York City and San Francisco. I haven't been to Austin regularly for at least a year and a half-- I was downtown at the Omni for two days in the spring.
I give that context before I say:
It feels like this year Houston is giving those places a run for it's money in what you traditionally think of as unchecked mental illness, drug use/abuse, and harrassment from those experiencing homelessness.
I've seen more barefoot, screaming into the void mental illness and homeless people veering and intimidating the white collar population than I've seen in SF recently. Louisiana, Texas, Main, Fannin, Rusk, you name it, it's on every corner. From the JW Marriott to Vinson & Elkins to Shell Plaza it's crazy.
And I've seen more downtown police and enforcement patrols just ignore it and look the other way (and to be fair, most finance and o&g workers downtown seem to be used to it) as they focus on ticketing parked cars.
tl;dr Houston is rivaling San Fran in 2025 in smelling like urine.