USICH Visits Austin, Texas
Last week, U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) Director Jeff Olivet and Senior Regional Advisor Tamara Wright traveled to Austin, Texas, to discuss the city’s homelessness crisis and how the federal government can help people living without a home.
The USICH team met with Mayor Kirk Watson, leadership from the city's Homeless Strategy Division, local homeless service providers, and youth who have experienced homelessness. Under Watson’s leadership, the city has supported the development of affordable housing, engaged landlords to accept housing vouchers, and helped fund the development of a community of 200 tiny-home shelters that also offer on-site health care and other services to help people transition into permanent housing.
While in the city, Olivet visited the tiny-home shelters and delivered remarks at the Bridging the Gap Symposium hosted by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). His remarks focused on transportation agencies' role in addressing homelessness.
"Public transportation is the number one mode of transportation for people without a home," said Olivet. "Along with getting to work, doctor's appointments, and food banks, transit is also often a shelter of last resort. USICH is thankful for the leadership at FHWA, TxDOT, and all the other transportation departments calling for a shift away from criminalization and toward partnering with social service agencies and nonprofits to help people move off the streets and into homes."
The Biden-Harris administration is committed to working with communities to address the homelessness crisis head-on. HUD invested nearly half a billion dollars last year to help communities (including Austin) address unsheltered and rural homelessness. Meanwhile, the White House and USICH launched the ALL INside Initiative to deploy federal teams and embed federal officials in select mayors' offices (including Dallas, Texas) to help communities cut red tape and help people move off the streets and into homes. The White House also prioritizes the most significant root cause of homelessness—the lack of affordable housing—and helped put the country on track last year to build more apartments than any other year in the previous 50. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is granting more states the innovative ability to use Medicaid to fund short-term housing and housing-related support for people experiencing homelessness. And during the pandemic, the administration built the foundation for a national eviction system, providing more federal rental assistance in those three years than in the previous 20.
Director Olivet was last in Austin in March, participating in a South by Southwest session called "2050: Reimagining Future Cities Without Homelessness," along with California Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Los Angeles Mission President and CEO Troy Vaughn. (Click to listen to the session.)