AUSTIN (KXAN) — Nonprofit groups that work to end and prevent homelessness are asking the City of Austin to reinvest in some homelessness prevention measures — like rental and utilities help — as the homeless strategy office balances its budget.
The City of Austin will be forced to make tough cuts as federal pandemic funding dries up, KXAN has previously reported.
As a result, some groups have asked the city focus its limited resources on permanent supportive housing, other groups are asking for more interventions before someone ends up homeless. Best Single Source Plus (BSS+), a group of a dozen nonprofits that work to streamline homelessness services, asked city council members this week to consider the latter.
The group said when the City of Austin got flooded with federal pandemic funding — American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars — the city was forced to shuffle some of their money away from preventative services.
“We had some dollars through regular city funds pre-COVID to keep them in their housing, and with the ARPA dollars we did not have the ability– we were only able to help people who were already literally homeless,” said Jo Kathryn Quinn, president and CEO of Caritas.
Caritas of Austin is the lead agency in BSS+ because of its work housing people who are, or may become, homeless. That group also includes Family Eldercare, Lifeworks and Sunrise Community Church.
In a public health committee meeting last week, BSS+ members reminded some city council members about that reduction in funding. Their hope is that prevention services BSS+ used to provide might once again be funded by the city.
The City of Austin is currently working with the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO) to build a new data tool that will guide budget conversations moving forward.
According to Gary Pollack, the manager of the policy and planning unit in the City of Austin’s Homeless Strategy Office, the tool will allow the city to better predict what will happen to the homelessness response system as funding is plugged into certain services.
“My hope is that this summer, we’ll have a tool that we can start to work with as a community to start to plan for what’s next,” Pollack said.