Only 24 Percent of Cleared Austin Encampment Sites Stayed Clear, the City's Own Report Finds

AUSTIN — Austin's encampment cleanup program is working a problem that mostly comes back. Only 24 percent of the 653 distinct encampment sites visited by city teams from June 8 through September 30 remained clear of return activity, according to a November 3 report from Homeless Strategies and Operations Director David Gray, reported by the Austin American-Statesman. Nearly three-quarters of the sites saw some return activity after cleanup.

The scale of the effort is in the same report: 2,347 site visits, an average of 3.6 visits per site, and more than 732 tons of debris removed. The city received 2,906 encampment-related 311 requests in the period, including duplicates, and averaged just over three days to make an initial site assessment.

The work cost an estimated $2.26 million, or about $964 per visit, most of it paying for city employees and contractors. Gray told the Council's Public Health Committee that staff were reassigned from existing duties to perform outreach and cleanup, and that their positions were already included in department budgets — the figure is largely the cost of work pulled from other assignments, spread across Austin Resource Recovery, police, transportation and public works, watershed protection, homeless strategies and parks staff.

The Homeless Encampment Management strategy launched May 11 to coordinate cleanups across departments while offering outreach before sites are cleared. The report is the program's fullest accounting so far, and it frames the question the Council now owns: the cleanups are being done, at a measured pace and a measured cost — and the sites, by the city's own count, mostly do not stay clear.