Item 72 - Marshalling Yard / Emergency Shelter

[Vanessa Fuentes]

Colleagues,

At our June meeting of the Public Health Committee, HSO presented a brief update on the Marshalling Yard Emergency Shelter, including the Council authorized extension of operations through March 2025. On the upcoming 9/26 Council Agenda, Item 72 seeks approval to indefinitely operate and fund the Marshalling Yard until an alternative shelter is identified and operational.

I am concerned by the indefinite timeline of this proposal, as it is unclear when an alternative site will be identified, let alone operational. The city has been in search of a new site for some time now, and to my knowledge there has been little progress. Furthermore, HSO staff’s update to the Public Health Committee included a schedule to ramp down operations and close the Marshalling Yard in March 2025. And while Item 72 does include reference to increasing positive exits from the Marshalling Yard, it does not include any timeline to resolve operations.

I am also concerned about the cost implications of this proposal. We’ve had a wide range of operational costs presented and it is unclear what is required. The original contract for one year of operations was authorized at $9.14 million, and the eight month extension was funded with an additional $500,000. We must have a better understanding of the remaining authorized budget as well as the monthly costs to continue operations before we approve further extensions.

This cost concern leads to my last concern, that the funding source for continued operations is also undefined. The authorized budget of nearly $9.7 million was entirely funded by ARPA funding earmarked specifically for emergency shelter and crisis services. Considering the financial cliff that we are facing with the completion of ARPA funding, we must have a transparent discussion about how we will fund the Marshalling Yard’s continued operations.

I am working on an amendment to this item and look forward to further discussion with you all.

Yours in community,
Vanessa

[Colleen Pate]

Thank you, Council Member Fuentes, for your thoughts. I appreciate your concerns and share them. We’re at a difficult time with this issue, but I think we can make it work so that we meet most of our goals and address most of our concerns.

The Homeless Strategy Office has indicated that our Homeless Response System is currently short more than 600 emergency shelter beds even with the 300 beds at the Marshalling Yard. Emergency shelter not only provides a safe place for people, but it also serves as an entry point into the network of services. We know that those living homeless want those services because they are using them. And we know that the Marshalling Yard currently plays a critical transitional role for clients as Permanent Supportive Housing units come online, shortening the time from the day someone enters the coordinated Homelessness Response System to the day they move into a PSH unit.

Our decision to close the Marshalling Yard without an alternative being ready is already having negative consequences to our services system. Technically, we’ll stop doing intake at the Marshalling Yard in November, but the reality is that we’re doing virtually zero intake right now because of the anticipated closing. HSO is also curbing intake at all City shelters and pausing HEAL initiative efforts to ensure current Marshalling Yard clients will have a place to transition upon closure. This creates enormous problems to the whole homeless services system.

I understand the concerns regarding the indefinite time frame of keeping the Marshalling Yard open. I considered setting a date in the draft resolution that I put out, but I worry about setting an arbitrary date and then not being able to find an alternative in the set frame. We did that. The original resolution to close the Marshalling Yard was passed in April and here we are without an alternative site. We simply can’t start going backward. Slowing intake, in and of itself, is going backward. And that’s much less of a problem than what we’ll face when we absolutely have to stop intake or, worse yet, close the shelter without an alternative. At that point, we’ll be even further behind on shelter beds and have more people out on the street and fewer people moving positively into the system. That situation works for no one.

Like you, I’m also worried about where the money will come from. One of my big concerns is that much of the system over the past few years has been funded by a lot of one-time ARPA money being used for ongoing operational expenses. That’s catching up with us and we’re going to need to plug holes. My resolution asks the city manager to identity funds. In other words, at a time when past fiscal actions have created a challenge for us now, we need the manager to do a fiscal analysis and make a fiscal recommendation. We’re not prepared to make the call right now about where the money comes from.

I’m attaching a Version 2 of my resolution. This incorporates suggestions made by Council Member Ryan Alter. Among other things, it assures that funding identified by the manager must come from something other than dollars currently allocated to the homeless response system. This will avoid robbing Peter to pay Paul. It also calls for an explicit target for the rate of positive exits along with a strategy to achieve it.

And it calls for the manager to report on where we are at least quarterly to your committee, the Public Health Committee. The report shall include status of finding an alternative, data regarding exits and a sustainable funding plan for both the Marshalling Yard’s temporary operations and operations of the replacement.

You and this entire Council have demonstrated your commitment to this important issue. Thank you for your collaboration, thought, work, and help. Thanks to all of the Council.

Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts as we work through this difficult challenge.

http://assets.austintexas.gov/austincou ... 065353.pdf

Kirk
On behalf of Mayor Watson