Wednesday, October 7, 2026, 10 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
Committee: Public Health Committee
The Public Health Committee, chaired by Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, heard seven public speakers, most of whom raised concerns about the No Wrong Door crisis response initiative, including defense attorneys' exclusion from client case staffings and the role of police officers. City staff briefed the committee on the social services reset, covering $101.4 million in FY27 social service funding across eight departments, contract compliance, and a timeline for new agreements to take effect in October 2027; the committee adopted Chair Fuentes' direction for staff to report contract outcomes by council district, zip code or census tract. Central Health leaders presented year-of-access results, such as reduced primary care wait times, and an FY27 budget with about $54 million in new mental health investments including psychiatric emergency capacity and a planned mental health crisis center. On No Wrong Door, the committee approved Council Member Velásquez's motion seeking legislative updates and responses to ACLU of Texas concerns, passed his motion for a community advisory group with three in favor and Vice Chair Duchen objecting, and approved the chair's motion requiring outcome tracking and quarterly reports to the committee.
0:03 Thank you. I called to order this meeting of the Austin City Council public health committee meeting.
0:08 The time is 10:00 am on Wednesday, October 7th, 2026, and we are in City Council chambers.
0:14 I am joined here today with vice chair Duchen and committee members, council members Velásquez and Alter.
0:21 Welcome everyone to our October public health committee meeting.
0:24 For our agenda, we're gonna start with public communications, then we'll move on to approving the minutes from
0:29 our May 6th committee meeting, as well as other previous meeting minutes that have been corrected.
0:34 From there, we'll take up committee discussion and possible action on the social service, social services strategy work
0:40 that has been ongoing.
0:42 The next couple of items, we will switch order.
0:44 We will have item number five before item number four.
0:47 So that is receiving the briefing from central health to receive their annual accomplishments and discuss highlights from
0:53 their recently adopted budget as, and then we'll end with the no wrong door program briefing continuation as
1:00 well as possible related action on the initiative.
1:03 Any questions or comments on the agenda?
1:06 Very good. We'll now welcome speakers from the community.
1:09 May the clerk's office please start us off with our first speaker.
1:13 Chairwoman, so we have speakers for both discussion and possible action items and pub- public comment.
1:20 Do you want to call them all up at this time?
1:23 Okay. Yes, ma'am. For public communication, joshua della rosa.
1:33 Joshua de la rosa.
1:39 For item three, joshua dela rosa.
1:45 Joshua de la rosa.
1:51 For item four, kate graziani, melis- melissa shearer, carrie ann smith, joshua delarosa, savannah lee, chris harris, katie
2:07 jo muniz.
2:28 Um, good morning. My name is kate graziani.
2:32 I'm with vocal texas.
2:35 Uh, we are back again today to urge you to slow down on the no wrong door initiative
2:40 until we have program specifics and the defense attorneys are allowed to meaningfully participate in the program.
2:49 Um, yesterday's briefing was lengthy but lacked clear details about what the program entails.
2:57 Uh, forecasted numbers were presented but no real data.
3:01 Adjacent programs and plans were laid out, but nothing specific to no wrong door.
3:09 The specifics I did hear were alarming in fact.
3:12 Someone in the program is still on the street and receiving treatment, which was described as she is
3:17 being talked to every day.
3:20 In order to get someone into a treatment bed, they were detained, searched and arrested on a felony
3:25 drug charge. An officer accidentally sent an email to the judge making bond recommendations and a client in
3:34 jail was told they had to be released to, to the custody of an officer or stay in
3:38 jail. These are not the stories of a program that is working.
3:44 And frankly, I'm surprised by council's reception and that it was added to this committee's agenda today, just
3:50 the day after our very first briefing on the program.
3:54 Serious concerns have yet to be addressed and many questions remain unanswered.
3:59 Um, that to me signals that there are some political deals being made about vulnerable people on the
4:05 streets of Austin. And we heard yesterday that the city is meeting with the authors of our camping
4:12 band, the cicero institute, a group whose founder is a mega donor for trump and who bragged about
4:17 getting prop b passed saying we got people in Austin to vote against their own City Council.
4:24 He also advocated for the return of public hangings.
4:27 He's made horrific statements about muslim neighbors and he claims that Austin, we have forfeited the right to
4:33 democracy because we ended our license plate reader contract.
4:37 His think tank is who is meeting with hso.
4:42 It is also disingenuous to compare meeting with the cicero institute to meeting with groups who are on
4:47 the ground working with folks on the streets every single day.
4:50 But now that we know that, I guess it's not a coincidence that no wrong door and the
4:54 city's enhanced encampment sweeps mirror the harmful policies of the trump administration.
5:00 Please don't let this trump aligned think tank be part of a serious policy conversation about how to
5:05 take care of vulnerable people on our streets.
5:08 We also want to help people living on the street, people with mental health crisis, people who need
5:13 support. But we can't do that by fast tracking no wrong door until these questions have been answered
5:19 and the safeguards have been put in place.
5:21 Thank you.
5:27 Whoever would like to go next.
5:28 Yes, thank you. Good morning.
5:31 I'm melissa sheer and I am the travis county mental health public defender.
5:36 Although I do not speak on behalf of the county today, I speak on behalf of myself and
5:41 the clients that we represent.
5:43 Um, I wanna clarify some of the statements that were made yesterday, um, by director harold and others,
5:52 um, about the involvement of the defense bar and no wrong door.
5:56 Um, first, we were not ever invited to join the mou or participate in its development.
6:04 The first time that I made contact with, um, the folks from no wrong door was on May
6:11 11th after a client of mine let me know that a client who's incompetent to stand trial in
6:18 the jail mentioned that a police officer had come to see them about getting housing.
6:25 And I wrote to ask, could this be possible?
6:28 Because I was not aware that these things were even taking place at the time.
6:33 Um, indeed it was possible.
6:35 Indeed that did happen.
6:37 We were not contacted.
6:38 Um, while we have met with maris and the officers involved in no wrong door, those meetings were
6:45 at our behest, and that is because we were hearing alarming things that were happening with clients and
6:52 we wanted to get on the same page, figure out what this program was, what it was about,
6:58 and what we could do to serve our clients and protect their rights.
7:02 Um, we were not contacted before or during the drafting of the mou or the release of information.
7:10 Also like to clarify that this release of information that clients are signing is four pages single spaced.
7:17 It is, um, releasing their health information, probation files, um, court files, all kinds of information about them
7:27 to 17 different organizations, including the prosecution.
7:34 Also like to clarify that there are two types of meetings held by no wrong door each month.
7:39 Two of those meetings are biweekly client level case staffings.
7:45 The defense bar is not invited to those.
7:48 I have communication as recently as Monday, again, telling us that we are not invited to those.
7:56 We recently were finally invited to the other type of meeting, which is a monthly leadership meeting in
8:03 which we are given updates on what is happening with the program.
8:07 But our clients are being staffed and spoken about, people with pending legal cases in a room with
8:15 police officers who have mirandized them, who have body cam recorded statements from them, who ask them questions,
8:24 whether they mean to or not, ask them questions directly about the things that they are charged with,
8:30 and these are statements that they've made.
8:33 I'm here for the day.
8:35 I'd love for y'all to ask me more questions.
8:37 I have a lot more that we can share.
8:40 Thank you. Good morning.
8:45 I'm katie jo muncy, attorney director of defense services and outreach for the capital area private defender service,
8:51 or caps. Our attorneys represented more than 18,000 people who could not afford counsel last year, but our
8:58 work is not limited to the courtroom.
9:00 Our case managers and social workers work alongside our attorneys to connect clients with housing, treatment, transportation, benefits,
9:07 and other services. We see every day what effective client-centered service delivery looks like.
9:13 We support the goal of no wrong door.
9:15 Our clients need exactly the kind of services the program is trying to connect them to, but good
9:20 service delivery requires trust, informed choice, coordination, and respect for the professional, professionals who already know the client.
9:27 Right now, unfortunately, we are seeing the opposite.
9:30 No wrongdoor officers are making treatment and placement recommendations without consulting the very people who know the clients
9:36 best, their attorneys and case managers, and in some instances, the clients themselves.
9:41 No wrongdoor officers are law enforcement, not trained social workers, case managers, or criminal defense attorneys.
9:47 For example, one of our attorneys received a phone call from a distraught client who'd been flown to
9:52 california by the no wrong door team, and they were instructed to engage in mental health treatment there
9:58 in order to receive a dismissal on their pending cases in travis county.
10:02 This was communicated between the no wrong door officer and the prosecutor and never communicated to the defense
10:07 attorney. The client had no idea what they were supposed to do and the client was stuck on
10:10 the streets. Had the defense team been consulted, all parties would have known that a treatment plan was
10:15 already being worked on.
10:17 Apd then had to fly the client back to Austin to resolve their cases.
10:22 We have many other examples, but for the sake of time, I'll move forward.
10:25 We ask this committee to consider the following.
10:28 Is no wrong door connecting people to services or is it creating another system of intervention around them
10:33 without adequately coordinating with the people already providing care?
10:37 Please consider the importance for no wrong door to genuinely collaborate.
10:41 Defense case managers and attorneys who already have relationship with these clients should be included in all client
10:47 care and staffings. There must be a truly client-centered approach.
10:52 Clients should understand who's providing services, what information is being sh- shared, what choices they have, and that
10:59 services will simp - not simply be imposed on them because an officer believes they need treatment.
11:05 Police involvement can undermine the varied treatment relationships and civilian case management infrastructure the program is designed to
11:11 strengthen. No wrong door has the potential to connect some of our most vulnerable residents with services they
11:17 desperately need, but the success of the program should be measured not simply by how many people officers
11:23 contact or how many referrals are made.
11:25 It should be measured by whether people actually obtain appropriate services, remain connected to care, and have meaningful
11:31 control over their own treatment in future.
11:34 Thank you.
11:45 Hello, my name is carrie ann.
11:48 Um, I'm with a leader of revocal texas.
11:50 I'm here to talk about the no wrong door policy.
11:54 Um, I personally feel that that is...
11:58 They need a lot of more research dealing with...
12:02 Not... The police should not be the first person that we see because the trust with the police
12:06 officers, we don't have that.
12:10 They should have case managers, people that's trauma-informed working with us because this just feels like it's forced
12:19 treatment. It is forced treatment without asking us what do we need and giving us the right resources
12:25 and connecting us to the right places.
12:27 It's like they're going back and forth.
12:32 I just really feel that they need to work harder on this and, and really take the people
12:39 in consideration and really partner with case managers and people who's already dealing with them so they know
12:46 what's going on and, well, firsthand, talk to the people that's being affected by, by it and not
12:52 just assuming that they need this forced treatment and falsely trying to give them housing that's not suitable
13:03 for them. Thank you.
13:10 Good morning, chair and council members.
13:12 My name is savannah lee.
13:13 I'm here with equity action.
13:14 I'm a resident of district one.
13:16 We support the goal of connecting people experiencing mental health crises with the care and resources they need,
13:21 but we have serious concerns about a model that risks making incarceration and forced treatment the pathway to
13:26 receiving that care. We know that the current cycle of crisis, arrest and release is failing people, but
13:31 we cannot break that cycle by making access to treatment contingent on involvement with the criminal legal system,
13:37 which is one of our chief concerns with no wrong door.
13:40 We also need to be honest about what the evidence tells us.
13:43 Several systemic reviews of court-ordered involuntary outpace treat - outpatient treatment showed no clear evidence that it improved outcomes