- It was so peaceful at night.

Literally when it got real dark, it just got quiet, and all you hear is the birds.

- [Narrator] The Gus Garcia Rec Center might be Christina Ralston's favorite place in Austin.

It's quiet, but more importantly, she felt safe here.

- That's where I charged my phone.

- [Narrator] But now she has to leave.

- Being homeless, it's not safe.

It's really not.

I've been beaten.

My whole camp's got stolen three times over, and having a safe place like this, it was great.

And then the city goes and just takes it out from under us.

(suspenseful music) - [Narrator] Ralston is one of scores of people impacted by recent homeless encampment sweeps across the city.

- [Worker] The Bobcat, being dropped down, they're gonna go to people's staff, demolish.

- [Narrator] Major camp removal efforts have been taking place across Austin for about a month.

City officials say it's necessary to comply with local laws and help people get into housing.

- The process that we launched on May 11th is our process for meeting the legal requirements in the state law and the local law.

- Ironically, this plan is going to increase the rates of homelessness that the city wants to literally sweep away.

- [Narrator] The advocates say these sweeps are just pushing people into an underfunded system that doesn't have space for them.

- When you reach that point where all of your shelter beds are full, and you still have encampment sweeps to do, what are you gonna offer to those people?

- [Narrator] So what is happening during these sweeps?

Is it a viable option for a cash-strapped city?

And how is it impacting some of Rundberg's most vulnerable residents?

First, let's get a better understanding of the numbers at play.

There are currently about 6,000 people experiencing homelessness in Travis County.

125 people were counted in District 4 during last year's point in time count, but the number is probably a little higher than that.

City leaders have been trying to tackle homelessness in Austin for years, but this cleanup initiative is new.

- The purpose of this initiative was to do a couple of things.

First, it was to bring a consistent process to how we do homeless encampment cleanups.

The second was to put more dedicated resources to the outreach and the cleanup process.

- This is David Gray, director of the Homeless Strategies and Operations Office for the City of Austin.

He says this new model teams up different city offices, and will help them better meet demand.

- Historically, we've averaged about 700 calls for services every month, and at our previous staffing level, there was really no way for us to keep up with that volume of service request.

(suspenseful music) - [Narrator] So what happens during a camp sweep?

Officially, these are called camp cleanups.

First, the camp is identified by city officials.

Earlier this year, the HSO released a map showing approximately where they were going to start cleaning encampments.

Nine were in Rundberg.

One was behind the Gus Garcia Rec Center where Christina lived.

Then city workers and outreach specialists are supposed to go to the camp and offer to connect people with resources.

After that, the Austin Police Department comes to the camp and post a notice that the area is gonna be cleared, usually after three days.

Finally, the cleanup: Teams of APD officers and Austin Resource Recovery workers go to the camp and start picking up items.

But advocates say it doesn't always go like that.

- It's been a very discouraging approach that isn't giving us really any results to reduce the number of people that are living outside right now.

- Eli Cortez is an organizer with Vocal Texas, a group that has been pushing back against the camp cleanups.

(truck engine roaring) - [Worker] They said HSO is supposed to be here.

- [Worker] Where?

- [Narrator] Their organization has filmed some of the sweeps, including the one at the Gus Garcia Rec Center.

- We've heard a varied degree of folks either being given two bags that they can grab or 15 minutes to grab what they can, and they lose the rest.

So folks who are losing IDs, documentation, social security cards, we've had members lose really personal belongings that can't be replaced, like even ashes of a loved one that have been thrown out.

And I think our city is under a lot of pressure to comply in a way that satisfies our state government.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] That's an important aspect of these sweeps.

It's not just that city officials are getting complaints, they're also required by both state and local law not to let people camp in public spaces.

- And what we're focused on is implementing the law that the voters of Austin approved, and that the Texas State legislature mandates, but implementing that law in a compassionate, human-centered framework.

(suspenseful music) - [Narrator] In 2021, the state of Texas passed a law that banned camping in public spaces, making it a class C misdemeanor.

It was passed just after Austin voters approved Prop B, which banned sleeping or lying in public spaces.

- The officer might have to issue the citation, but that is not why they are going out.

Those things are a byproduct of stuff that they might see in the encampment.

- [Narrator] Gray has said officers at sweeps are not there to issue tickets.

Their priority is to keep everyone safe.

But some people say that isn't happening.

- They gave me a ticket.

You wanna see it?

Right after they gave us the heads up, they came three days later, and wrote everybody tickets that they ran into.

- [Narrator] The Austin Police Department has issued more than 2000 citations for camping in public spaces since 2021.

Public camping can carry a fine of up to $500.

Advocates say those are usually waived during hearings at the downtown Austin Community Court.

But getting there can be hard for people like Christina.

It takes more than an hour to reach it by bus from Rundberg.

- More trouble on top of trouble on top of trouble.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] But for some, the sweeps did help them get into housing.

- And I met him about 13 years ago maybe.

- [Narrator] Ashley Rader and his partner Tracy have been camping in Austin for years.

For most of that time, they've been waiting to get into housing.

It wasn't until sweeps hit their area in Rundberg that they were moved into the Northbridge facility.

- They kind of bumped us up on the list because they were closing it out, you know?

So that helped us get up there, I guess.

- And now we're trying to adjust to this Northbridge community, which is really fantastic.

- It's been a blessing.

- We've been on the so-called list for 10 years, on this list to get housing, and we're still on the list, but at least we got a foot in the door.

- That's not very rapid to me.

(laughs) You know.

(suspenseful music) - [Narrator] Advocates say that this is the major issue with homelessness in Austin right now.

There is not enough space.

- We're just not going to have enough beds to put everyone.

- [Narrator] Mark Hilbelink is the executive director at the Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center.

They are the largest homelessness service provider in Travis County, and he says that space is a major issue.

- We have one bed for every six people experiencing homelessness.

So even if we want to put everyone in a shelter or offer everyone shelter, we really just, math-wise, don't have the ability to do that.

And there's different ways that you can address it.

You can either invest more in shelters or you invest in other pipelines and ways to kind of help people exit homelessness that are not going through a shelter.

I think you've got some double whammy situations going on right now.

One of those is that homeless services was extra invested in for several years under ARPA coming out of COVID.

And so a lot of that money is starting to roll off.

(suspenseful music) - [Narrator] ARPA stands for the American Rescue Plan Act.

It was a COVID stimulus package passed back in 2021, and a lot of cities use that money for housing.

Austin in particular allocated about $96 million for different homelessness initiatives.

But those were one-time funds that had to be used by the end of 2026.

Meanwhile, Austin is facing budget constraints due to falling tax revenue.

Voters last year rejected a tax rate election that would've sent money to homelessness services, and now council members are working on a new budget, and they're eyeing about 17 million in cuts to social service programs.

City officials have said each cleanup can cost about $150,000.

- Right now, it's a little too soon to know exactly what the impacts of these different funding shifts will be.

I feel really optimistic, though.

- [Narrator] Groups like Sunrise and Vocal are losing funds and having to cut back on services.

- I think everyone is very, I don't wanna say fearful, but concerned.

- Yeah, I think for all major providers, including Sunrise, there are programs that we have that are, we already know are going to be cut in the next fiscal year.

- [Speaker] I think everyone knows I was in jail.

- [Narrator] So there are dwindling funds to help people get out of homelessness, but there's also less money to prevent people from entering homelessness as well.

- It's easy for people to forget that you can be like one paycheck away, one medical emergency, one family situation away from ending up being outside.

- Those people are oftentimes helped by programs like rental assistance or eviction prevention that keep people out of homelessness.

But some of those programs were cut early in 2026 here in the city.

Some of those programs could very easily be cut in the next fiscal year.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] The City of Austin ended its rental assistance program in March, and a housing voucher program may be cut next year.

At the federal level, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced they were winding out a COVID-era voucher plan roughly five years early.

Challenges like that have impacted Ashley and Tracy.

- I just wish that they would've offered help before it came to this.

- As rental assistance goes down, as eviction prevention goes down, you're also gonna see homelessness rise.

(people chatting) - [Christina] Hi, Charlotte.

How are you doing?

(Charlotte speaks indistinctly) That's good.

- [Narrator] The city's new homeless abatement plan calls for teams to continually check and clear old encampments.

It's also adding more beds and continuing outreach efforts, and they're expected to make a report to the city council at the end of June, but with limited space and funds for the time being, there are a lot of people like Christina who don't know where they're going to go.

(somber music) - Just go find a piece of wood that nobody knows about, and hide.

That's all I'm allowed to do now.