Anyone have better ideas on how to spend $101M of taxpayer money?
https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2025/04/homelessness-strategy-plan-calls-for-101m-in-spending-from-city-partner-groups/
Homelessness strategy plan calls for $101M in spending from city, partner groups
Austin’s Homeless Strategy Office is proposing a funding package totaling just under $101 million for homelessness response efforts in the city’s next budget, with about one-third allocated toward maintaining existing programs, one-third for new city investments, and one-third for initiatives expected to be funded by partner organizations.
The proposed investments broadly break down as follows:
o Roughly $3.8 million for prevention, diversion, and rapid-exit services to keep people housed or quickly rehouse them
o About $5 million for expanded street outreach and encampment management efforts
o Approximately $32.3 million plus capital costs to expand emergency shelter capacity, with a goal to add 550 new shelter beds by 2029
o Nearly $24 million for rapid rehousing programs that connect people to short-term rental assistance and case management
o Around $8 million for ongoing supportive services tied to permanent supportive housing projects already underway
o An anticipated $23 million per year in new spending after 2027 to continue growing the city’s permanent supportive housing inventory through 2034
The presentation emphasized that maintaining the city’s homelessness response at current service levels would require about $22.9 million in addition to new funds to replace expiring federal dollars. City budget officials confirmed that closing that gap on top of addressing a projected $33 million budget shortfall would likely require seeking additional tax revenue through a voter-approved tax rate election that could take place later this year.
“Assuming we don’t cut homeless related programs to balance our $33,000,000 deficit, that means we need… about $50 million of new money that we would have to come up for with next year’s budget,” Councilmember Ryan Alter said. “When we’re going to taxpayers, we have to tell them what they’re going to get for that investment. No one’s going to just say, yes. I want to pay more because it feels good. They wanna know, what’s that tangible result? What do they get out of it?”