BASTROP, Texas (KXAN) — Nestled in the backcountry of Bastrop County lies Camp Haven Sanctuary — an alternative, non-profit homeless shelter spread across ten acres. The model: a community of sheds and tents, along with gardens and livestock tended to by the residents.
Josiah Ingalls, founder and executive director of Camp Haven Sanctuary, created his philosophy of homeless aid from the ground up, and he used his backyard to make it happen.
Camp Haven Sanctuary started partially by accident. In 2021, after voters passed legislation banning public camping in Travis County, Ingalls opened his home and Bastrop land to a handful of people experiencing homelessness.
“Here we house people, we feed people, we provide transportation,” Ingalls said. “And so, it’s a unique homeless shelter because we have to merge the needs and privileges of the permanent residents, me and my family, and the needs and privileges of the program participants.”
Ingalls was inspired to do so because he experienced homelessness after he came out to his parents and was kicked out of their home as a young adult. He spent two years on the streets before he found housing.
“After I finally got housed, I learned there was a program that would have housed me immediately,” Ingalls said. “So I basically suffered for two and a half years, because I didn’t know about the program, and no one in my homeless camp knew about the program.”
Frustrated by the lack of information on available resources for people experiencing homelessness, Ingalls was inspired to create an education-focused model to empower others in similar situations.
Is it working?
Daniel Linebrink, a current resident of Camp Haven Sanctuary, previously stayed in a city-owned homeless shelter in Austin. Linebrink described his experience with the two homelessness programs as ‘night and day,’ saying he prefers Camp Haven Sanctuary.
“The fact that it is out in the middle of the country is definitely a plus,” Linebrink said. “I was on drugs at the time and I was wanting an escape.”
The sanctuary attributes that success to the personalized structure of its participant program.
Before residents can move into Camp Haven Sanctuary, they must complete an application and go through an interview process with the staff. Once accepted, all residents complete an intake form that assesses their non-housing needs.
“Do they need mental health? If so, we partner with Bluebonnet Trails and get them an appointment there,” Ingalls said. “Indigent health care, we help them apply for that. If they need food stamps, we help them apply for that. We also help them apply for housing lists to get a housing voucher. We assist them with applying for jobs if they need to.”
Residents at the shelter pitch in to maintain the property, from gardening and caring for chickens and goats to cleaning shared areas. Ingalls said these responsibilities foster a sense of accountability and spending time in nature can be therapeutic.
“A lot of people that come here have emotional issues and mental health issues,” Ingalls said. “And so just having the animals here makes a huge difference in their quality of life and their transition to health.”
Ingalls adopts a personalized approach to support each resident on his property. His mission is to break through emotional barriers and help individuals explore fresh paths in life, offering a tailored opportunity for those seeking a new beginning.
“They’ll let you into their pain and what they’re going through and if they’re suffering from mental health,” Ingalls said. “And our ability to help relies on how much information we know and how much they will share with us depends on how much they trust us.”
Each month, Camp Haven Sanctuary residents must fill out an ‘individual exit plan’ which outlines their goals for their time in the program and their plan for a successful exit from the shelter.
“They are required to report a minimum of five actions a month that they took, whether getting housing, getting a job, getting on food stamps — whatever it is five actions minimum,” Ingalls said. “We have learned that if you don’t hold them accountable to their end of the bargain, then it’s very easy for time to just pass.”
Ingalls doesn’t stop after residents leave the sanctuary. When permitted, Ingalls and other Camp Haven staff will continue to assist residents with financial and legal needs after they move into permanent housing.
“When they come here, we care,” Ingalls said. “And so then when they leave, it doesn’t mean we stop caring.”
How does it compare to a preexisting shelter system?
Both the city of Austin and Camp Haven Sanctuary have data on “success rate,” though it is defined slightly differently by each.
Camp Haven Sanctuary has a combined success rate of 75.9%. It measures success by the number of residents who left the program with both housing and a source of income.
“So if they can’t get a job, and they need disability, we help them apply for that,” Ingalls said. “They need to have an income, even if they get a housing voucher and utility voucher they have to have an income to sustain after that voucher is over.”
Matthew Mollica — the executive director of the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO) — says they measure successful shelter exits by their ability to access permanent housing after they enter the shelter system.
“We can have folks who just need a little bit of assistance,” Mollica said. “Or folks that move into shelter, and then go into more permanent housing programs within our homelessness response system.”
The City of Austin also defines “success” as having housing upon exiting the shelter. Camp Haven Sanctuary’s success rate by that metric is 82.8%, which is 8.3 percentage points higher than the city’s, according to data from Camp Haven Sanctuary’s office.
The populations served are vastly different, though. While Camp Haven Sanctuary has served 123 people since it began three years ago, the city has a much more diverse group of clients — and many more of them.
The City of Austin’s Homeless Strategy Office (HSO) has served nearly 2,000 people in the last year and owns six shelters in Travis County, according to that office. The total city-owned shelter capacity is 941 people, with its largest shelter housing up to 300 people at a time.
The City of Austin also operates shelters with low barriers to house as many people in need as possible, according to Mollica. This differs from Camp Haven Sanctuary’s program as it bars people charged with sex crimes and certain violent crimes from living on its property.
“Client safety is a paramount priority,” a City of Austin spokesperson told KXAN. “In order to be operated as extremely low barrier shelters, the City shelters do not screen for criminal backgrounds. All City-owned shelter facilities are robustly staffed by professional shelter monitors and have 24-hour security on site.”
Spreading the model
Ingalls thinks his model works, which is why he’s encouraging others to follow.
“So when we first started, we reached out to shelters across the nation — and even some right here in Austin — and we asked, give us your rules, your guidelines, give us all that you have to teach us, how to do this work,” Ingalls said. “And we got nothing.”
This was when Ingalls said he was inspired to go ‘open-source.’ He wanted to create a singular document that had every piece of information someone could need to create a homeless shelter.
“It took us about nine months to finally get the document together, and then get it copyrighted, and then release it as open-source licensing,” Ingalls said. “And so, now that’s available for anyone to take, use, modify, as long as it’s being done for nonprofit reasons.”
Since publishing the open-source document, Ingalls reported that the page on Camp Haven Sanctuary’s website featuring the document has become their most visited content.
“We’ve been getting emails asking us for that document,” Ingalls said. “And just last week, I talked to a lady that’s looking to open up some kind of facility that’s a hybrid between a homeless shelter and a senior citizens facility. And she wanted to know about our program and how we’re doing it.”