Radio Austin
radioaustintexas.com
Austin homeless.
We will collect our reporting on Austin Travis county homeless issues on this page, inluding homeless issues, homeless resources, and those who are addressing the issue, notably Mobile Loaves and Fishes, MLF.
Lisa Cox
Radio Austin Station Lead and Reporter
Austin ECHO
Mobile Loaves & Fishes
Sunrise Navigation Center
Amplify Austin Day
03/07/2025
Amplify Austin Day, at the link above, has some nice promotion of MLF
03/04/2025
Can Austin End Homelessness While Sweeping People Away?
Source: Invisible People
Can Austin end homelessness?
How much shorter a homeless persons life in Austin / Travis County is comparted to the national average is now clearer. A detailed, first-of-its-kind report by the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, better known as ECHO, tallied 1,010 deaths of unhoused people in Austin and Travis County between 2018 and 2023 (even that is probably an undercount with this difficult- to-track population). The average age of death was 50 – a full 20 years younger than the typical lifespan of a person in housing.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Formerly homeless people who had housing at the time of their death lived nearly a decade longer than those who died on the streets, the ECHO study found.
“This underscores what we already know: Supportive housing is the cure,” said Danica Fraher, ECHO’s health care systems manager and lead author of the report. “Saving lives requires urgent, coordinated action across systems.”
Drug overdoses were the largest cause of death among those who were homeless. Those deaths surged from 21 in 2018 to 91 in 2023. Nearly threequarters of the drug-related deaths involved methamphetamine. Half the time, the methamphetamine contained fentanyl.- Source AAS -1/12/2025 P B1
Thanks to our reporting on Sunrise Community, Austin’s largest homeless support service being dismantled by the City Counsel because it was near a school, drugs and alcohol, etc. First reported by the Austin American Statesman, MLF’s CEO Alan Graham noticed it and was successful in intervening. Radio Austin is working with the Community for a better community.
02/19/2025
A local public health provider is helping homeless people stay out of the emergency room by connecting them to long-term health care. Central Health, Travis County’s public hospital district, runs its new bridge program out of the organization’s Capital Plaza clinic, located off I-35 near Windsor Park. There, unhoused people can get care for acute issues like wounds, allergies or illness, or be seen for chronic concerns, like breathing issues or mental illnesses. Source: KUT 90.5
last updated 03/07/2025