Wednesday, September 2, 2026, 10 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
Committee: Public Health Committee
The Public Health Committee heard four public speakers who criticized the city's homeless encampment management (HEM) initiative and its daily cleanups, and approved the May 6, 2026 minutes without objection. Homeless Strategy and Operations Director David Gray updated members on the office's strategic plan, saying the Marshalling Yard shelter has served more than 2,300 people with more than 470 moving into housing, and that numerical shelter and housing targets are on hold while federal Continuum of Care funding, about $8 million of which supports permanent supportive housing locally, remains uncertain. Staff reported first-30-day HEM results of 456 site visits to 127 unique sites, 35 people connected to shelter, five citations, and a cost of about $719,316, and said quarterly updates will continue with the next due this fall. Integral Care presented the Kids Living Well children's mental health strategic plan for Austin and Travis County, and Vivent Health briefed members on HIV prevention, testing and treatment, reporting 94% viral suppression among its patients compared with about 65% countywide.
0:03 Hi, everyone. Good morning.
0:06 I called to order this meeting of the Austin public health committee.
0:10 The time is ten eight 10:01 am on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2026, and we are here at City Council chambers.
0:18 Welcome everyone to our September public health committee.
0:22 I am joined here today with our vice chair councilor uchin, as well as Council Member Velásquez.
0:28 For our agenda today, we're gonna start with public communications.
0:31 Then we will then move on to approving our meeting minutes from the May 6th committee committee meeting.
0:38 Next, we'll take up committee briefing, starting with an update from Austin homeless strategy office, strategic plan.
0:46 From then, the committee will receive a briefing from integral care on their strategic plan for children's mental
0:52 health. Finally, we'll receive a briefing on violent health's, hiv prevention, treatment and testing services.
0:59 Any questions or comments on the agenda?
1:02 Okay. We'll, now welcome speakers from the community.
1:05 May the clerk's office, please start us off with the first speaker.
1:09 We have six speakers, eli cortez, carrie ann smith, puma bza, lily hughes, alexi laer, and maggie luna.
1:44 Good morning council members.
1:46 Uh, my name is eli cortez and I'm a resident of district three and an organizer at bo
1:49 texas. For months now, our team of community organizers and leaders have been responding to the devastation caused
1:55 by encampment sweeps. We've been communicating directly with encampments and folks being pushed and removed daily in our
2:00 city. We've worked with our members to bring their stories directly to you and to the rest of
2:04 City Council on the dais in office meetings and in the media.
2:07 This work has lasted for months before the unveiling of hso strategic plan or the new daily sweeps
2:13 plan that cost us over $700,000 after one month and only placed 35 folks in shelter.
2:20 We brought us new a sign-on letter to the City Council with over 40 community organizations opposing the
2:24 new daily sweeps plan.
2:25 But the opportunity to have a meaningful community centered conversation about the impacts of this plan continues to
2:30 be delayed and postponed in the budget.
2:33 Um, many of you expanded a supported, expanded, expanding storage for people who are being swept and are
2:38 losing precious belongings and survival gear.
2:41 More storage will have a huge felt impact, and we are so grateful for your support on that.
2:45 But it's time to bring our full attention to the current daily plan.
2:49 We've shared our concerns with your offices and staff.
2:51 We've shared them at council meetings.
2:53 There are serious flaws in the implementation of the hem process, all the way from notice to outreach
2:57 to shelter placement to the day of enforcement.
2:59 The presentations that y'all are receiving only share how things are supposed to go, but every day we
3:04 are talking to people that are not having that experience and have harmful outcomes that impact health, wellbeing,
3:09 and survival. It's time to change that.
3:12 We need your leadership to intervene in these expensive mass displacement and rating operations.
3:18 We are repeatedly asked to share specific instances and times and dates and names, and contact information of
3:23 the experiences that we hear.
3:25 Our city manager recently denied hearing any instances of items being destroyed or lost in his sweep.
3:30 We have data gathered by thra and vocal text that documents how the sweeps in practice are not
3:34 following protocol. And with us today, we have 13 recent complaints that detail items lost, and we'll be
3:41 delivering them to the city manager's office today before we leave.
3:45 But this should not fall on our shoulders.
3:47 You could walk into any homeless service provider right now and meet people who have been swept and
3:52 are having these experiences or lost something in that, in a sweep.
3:56 Hso should be doing that work.
3:57 And because our city hasn't paused to meaningfully assess this plan with a community, this is the result
4:02 that we're faced with.
4:04 Our city has dive headfirst and committed to spend a lot of money on this enforcement plan.
4:07 We can afford daily encampment suites, but not to expand shelter housing opportunities for people.
4:11 Furthermore, the introduction of keep clear sites that eradicate procedure for notice or outreach will remove any semblance
4:17 of a compassionate, well-intended approach to compliance.
4:20 I wanna highlight one of the site, um, one of the, um, um, example cases that we're presenting
4:25 today to the city manager's office.
4:27 Um, a woman we met named cynthia, who is staying in the oak springs encampment that is now
4:32 a keep clearsight, which means that they'll no longer receive notice or outreach services had just received, um,
4:38 a, a tent from sunrise that was destroyed and thrown out.
4:41 Um, she was not given notice of the sweep and she was at work.
4:44 And when she came back from work, her tent was thrown out and she has lost the birth
4:47 certificates of herself and her child.
4:59 Hi, my name is carrie ann with vocal.
5:02 Before you hear today's hymns update, I want you to hear these numbers differently.
5:07 $719,364
5:14 456 Sites visit 127 unique sites.
5:20 35 People ha 35 people connected to shelter.
5:25 But two, two numbers are missing.
5:28 How many actually enter shelter and how many actually you reach permanent housing?
5:34 Because shelter connections is not the same as entrant.
5:38 It is not the same shelter and permanent housing is not the same.
5:45 Now, Austin, keep has a keep clear location.
5:47 Where the future camp sites was is quickly being abated, but your own number shows 28% sites has
5:57 repeated activity within 30 days.
5:59 Maybe, maybe returning does not mean this faster displacement.
6:06 Maybe it means displacement isn't solving homelessness.
6:10 I know displacement. I know what it feels like.
6:13 When my belongings was swept, nobody came before and offered me shelter.
6:19 Afterwards, I had to go chasing down shelter, chasing down help.
6:24 I made calls. I called the I, I made calls and paid for hotel, um, money and paid
6:31 for hotels until it ran out.
6:34 Eventually, I did end up getting into shelter because I went out searching for the help.
6:40 So when you, when you tell me connection and housing, when you tell me connection connected and housing,
6:46 those two are different.
6:48 I know the difference.
6:49 I know. Be I know.
6:51 And before you, I'm sorry.
6:54 Before we can, before we can expect anybody to recover and work and heal, we need to rebuild.
7:03 First, give the nervous system something somewhere safe to land a door, a key, a address, a home
7:10 City Council. I'm asking you to make a resolution.
7:14 Request hims reporters to follow the human being from contact to shelter, offer to shelter acceptance, to actually
7:23 shelter entry to permanent housing.
7:25 Stop measuring success by displacement of the tents.
7:29 Measure how many people no longer needed them, because if Austin knows where we can't be, then please
7:37 tell us where we can go.
7:40 Thank, thank you. Morning counsel.
7:45 My name is lily hughes.
7:46 I'm the capacity building manager at tha and a district five resident.
7:50 Today, you'll see a presentation from hso that mask the reality of what is happening.
7:55 You'll see a slide that boasts about 470 residents moving into housing.
7:59 That's one person every two to three days.
8:02 Don't pay attention to how that took three years or how the total percentage of people residing in
8:06 the marshalling yard, who I've been housed is 0.2%.
8:11 Don't ask why 50% of people hso contacted in the first 30 days of the new encampment management
8:16 plan. Were not connected to shelter.
8:18 Don't worry about the conditions of the shelters offered to them.
8:21 Don't worry about the overdose deaths happening inside of the shelters.
8:24 Don't worry about how hso is only expecting to add 40 beds to emergency shelters in 2026 while
8:30 housing costs continue to rise.
8:32 It's not like housing affordability is the main cause of homelessness.
8:36 And definitely don't worry about the data, the full story of the data.
8:39 Use the full story of the data you see.
8:40 Can't include, don't worry about the grief myself and my other coworkers carry every day.
8:46 Don't worry about the people we know and love that have died in the woods because they're pushed
8:50 further and further away from the lifesaving resources and services they needed.
8:54 Don't worry about the outreach teams that can't find their clients when they're up for housing.
8:58 Don't worry about the people that will return to what you call an encampment site and they call
9:02 home because it is the safest option for them.
9:05 Don't worry about the compassionate community members who are caring for someone in crisis because they have just
9:10 had their entire lives thrown into a dumpster because they do not have a home or safe place
9:14 to go. Definitely don't pay attention to the sweep survey.
9:18 Thra facilitated as per hso.
9:20 They don't have any verified claims about the immense harm people experiencing homelessness have endured on our city
9:25 streets. I guess the work thra has done can't be verified.
9:30 The trusting relationships we've built with our community, the extra hours spent in the heat searching for people
9:35 who, who have been swept, all of the people in crisis who come to us after a sweep,
9:40 or the $4,000 a month we are using to replace items destroyed during sweeps, doesn't count as verifiable.
9:47 This is a losing strategy for everyone.
9:49 The only thing that solves homelessness is housing this strategy.
9:53 The only positive outcome of the strategy is a short-term coverup of a worsening systemic problem.
9:58 We are asking all to pause and be thoughtful and intentional and make a plan that is not
10:04 going to keep causing such immense harm to a large portion of our city who are just as
10:09 important as those who have houses.
10:11 Thank you. Thank you.
10:15 And just wanted to highlight for my colleagues that we do have the thra summary, uh, of the
10:21 report that they conducted in our backup.
10:23 And you can see there the results from the a hundred people that they survey back in May.
10:27 Uh, so that is available for reference.
10:29 Thank you. Alright. Hello.
10:34 Good morning, uh, committee chair Fuentes and members.
10:37 Um, my name is alexi latimer and I'm a proud district two resident and a community engagement coordinator
10:42 for texas harm reduction alliance.
10:44 I'm speaking today on behalf of those in our community, or most invisibly directly and violently, violently impacted
10:50 by the strategic planning and objectives laid out by the power vested in this committee and council.
10:55 As our founder, uh, of thra joy rucker recently shared with me, we must consider every Austin ice
11:01 health as a measure of the health of our overall community.
11:04 Violence of sweeps mandatory and voluntary treatment and defunding harm reduction does not lead to improved overall community
11:11 health outcomes or public safety for that matter.
11:14 In the face of a 10%, uh, municipal social services cut back in January and an additional, um,
11:20 over $50,000 cut in the current budget that we're still hearing if a ph will reinstate, um, is,
11:28 uh, is, is is examples of that.
11:32 These austerity inducing cuts come amidst the simultaneous jump in need from the community we serve.
11:39 We take particular care to work in an outreach capacity to reach individuals who are most directly impacted
11:43 by sweeps in a way that hso May be unable to do that have resulted these sweeps that
11:50 have resulted in an increase of both missing people and overdose reversals reported to us, uh, through our
11:56 distribution of lifesaving medication and peer support straining our small team that we know we need to expand
12:03 for outreach. We will continue to carefully reiterate the fact that a harm reduction approach of seeing people
12:10 as a testament to their resilience within the conditions they find themselves in, rather than as a public
12:15 burden or hazards, leads to dignifying and compassionate relationships that make voluntary housing, healthcare, and recovery outcomes inevitable.
12:24 And overall, improving our community health sweeps costly and violent as they are directly reduce our ability to
12:33 do this empirically substantiated work, while in no way solving the health outcomes of our greater community.
12:39 Uh, we directly and will share soon, um, tangible, empirical data on the reduction of, uh, uh, of,
12:49 or the increase of capacity that we provide specifically ms through the work that we do.