Austin needs more homeless shelter beds for the general population — it would cost millions

The number of homeless shelter beds in Austin's system available for the general population is less than 10%, according to a review by the City of Austin's Homeless Strategy Office.

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The number of homeless shelter beds in Austin's system available for the general public -- or not targeting a specific population -- is less than 10%, according to a review by the City of Austin's Homeless Strategy Office. The number was presented during a public health committee meeting last year and highlighted in a city memo released Monday.

It's something the homeless strategy officer, David Gray, said is a "key challenge," as a large majority of the people needing shelter in our city are single adults.

"So there's some rightsizing that we need to do with respect to the shelter bed capacity and the population that we are trying to serve here," Gray told some Austin City Council members during that briefing in September.

According to Gray, roughly 28%, or 281, of the shelter beds available in Austin are for families. Another 26% are for the HEAL initiative, which are people being moved from homeless encampments identified by the City as being high risk.

There are also dedicated shelter beds specifically for men, women (which was not included in the presentation by Gray because the Eighth Street shelter had not yet opened), people fleeing domestic violence, immigrants, children and service referrals. All in all, Gray said it makes up north of 1,000 beds as of September. But according to Gray's report, only 85 of those beds, which shakes out to 8%, are available for just anyone.

"The fact of the matter is, if every single person was interested in shelter, our system would not have nearly the capacity to serve every single one of those people in the shelter situation that they desire," said Claire Burrus of shelter capacity in general in Austin. She's the director of research and evaluation with the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO).

According to data from ECHO's dashboard, there are more than 1,449 families experiencing unsheltered homelessness in Austin who have children as of the latest update in October. More than 4,000 people without children are also experiencing unsheltered homelessness.

Gray told council members that to help fill the need for people without kids, nearly 800 beds would be needed by 2025. Looking at five current City of Austin contracts for shelter beds, he estimated it costs roughly $34,000 per bed per year to provide that shelter.

That means it would cost the city just north of $26 million to meet that gap, Gray told the council.

"Our homelessness response system has housed more and more people every single year, however, the inflow to homelessness, or the extent to which people begin experiencing homelessness and lose their housing, has been outpacing the rate that we've been able to house people as a system," Burrus said.