‘If you don’t have a home, what do you do?’: Covid-19 highlights Austin’s homeless crisis

Donald Montgomery spends most of his day waiting for the sweltering Texas heat to subside. Then, in the evenings, he springs into action as a volunteer medic at the state-sanctioned homeless camp where he lives.

Equipped with his small jump kit and first responder training, Montgomery witnesses a broad range of suffering in the camp “from skin rashes to actual death”. Earlier this month, two lifeless bodies were discovered. Montgomery suspects drugs were at fault.

“Some of these folks will never, ever come out of here,” he said. “Some of these folks, like me, are bound and determined to do nothing but [get out].”

The campsite is tucked away from the rest of Austin, but during the coronavirus pandemic, people living on the street have become more visible.

“People tell us, ‘shelter in place,’ or ‘stay home.’ But if you don’t have a home, what do you do?” asked Darilynn Cardona-Beiler, director of adult behavioral health systems at Austin’s Integral Care.

When Covid-19 hit Texas, it rendered Austin a ghost town. People experiencing homelessness believed “they were purposefully left outside so that they would die”, said Amber Price, a community health paramedic.

On a recent shift, Price met a man idling by the creek. Scarring stretched across his chest, and with a twinge of embarrassment, he admitted to setting himself on fire.

Then, he asked for hand sanitizer.

Reliable sources of respite, hygiene and sustenance temporarily closed their doors, and shelters designed to hold as many people as possible limited occupancy to fight off the virus’s spread.

At the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless (Arch), visitors seeking day services – restrooms, showers, internet – couldn’t just walk into the facility anymore, a “heartbreaking” tradeoff to shield the men sleeping there, explained Amy Price, director of development and communications at Front Steps, which manages the Arch.

“You don’t want to have barriers that keep people from getting help. So we’re a low-barrier shelter during a pandemic, when safety protocols are escalating,” she said. “That’s the conundrum for every single shelter.”

The city’s network of homeless services has tried to provide alternative resources, installing portable toilets and hand-washing stations, using libraries, recreation centers and a community court to supply the basics, facilitating large-scale food distributions, and converting motels into refuge for medically vulnerable people.

And it is working. Apart from an outbreak that infected more than a dozen residents at a shelter downtown, the combination of routine surveillance testing, isolation quarters, protective lodging, increased safety measures at shelters and outreach to encampments has stymied a potential barrage of cases, said Tim Mercer, a physician with Healthcare for the Homeless through CommUnityCare.

At the state-sanctioned camp, which the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, opened last year, Andie and Vanessa – who only shared their first names – felt confident that they already beat Covid-19 at the end of last year, when they were diagnosed with upper respiratory infections and flu-like symptoms. They were told they tested negative for the illness in March, though a lack of formal results or official printout left them worried their caregivers might be lying to them.

That’s just one of many anxieties they have to stomach at the camp. Running water doesn’t always work. The port-a-potties don’t get cleaned as often as they should. Their electronics, food, water, clothes, a drill and an air compressor have all gone missing; “everybody steals everything out here,” Andie said.

Vanessa feels sure she’s come close to heat stroke, and as summer drags on, the couple are shouldering considerable expenses for a generator and fans inside their setup.

“On a daily basis, the three main things that you deal with is heat, flies and meth heads,” Andie said.

Elsewhere in Austin, tents along walkways and underpasses offer at least some semblance of social distancing. But they also make homelessness more conspicuous, heightening awareness and sometimes fanning concerns held by Austinites who, after controversial reforms, were already miffed by the city’s perceived leniency toward public camping.

“It’s horrific, what we’re seeing. We’re seeing massive camps. Massive makeshift camps, with tremendous amounts of trash,” said Matt Mackowiak, co-founder of the nonprofit Save Austin Now.

The group’s supporters were already outraged months before the pandemic came to town. They adamantly rejected Austin’s decriminalization of homelessness last summer, a policy change that has allowed people living on the streets to emerge from the shadows without legal repercussions.

“We don’t believe it’s compassionate to tell a homeless person they can sleep on the sidewalk in 95-degree heat in July,” said Mackowiak. “Our view is not that they should be in jail. Our view is that they should be in shelters and in transitional housing,” or at the camp where Montgomery, Andie and Vanessa live.

Save Austin Now’s platform has seemingly appealed to large swaths of the electorate. In a city with fewer than 1 million residents, more than 24,000 signatures backed a ballot petition to restore or expand restrictions on camping, panhandling and sitting or lying down in public. However, some of those signatures were later disqualified by the city clerk’s office, which determined the petition didn’t attract enough support to trigger a vote in November.

Mackowiak and his allies want to “save Austin from becoming Los Angeles, or San Francisco, or Seattle, or Honolulu,” Democratic strongholds known for crowded encampments. Much like those metropolises, Austin has been hyped as a glamorous destination for years, routinely nabbing the top spot on US News and World Report’s “Best Places to Live” list. That reputation has both buttressed its national standing and altered its cultural fabric as Californians, Floridians and New Yorkers relocate to central Texas.

Austin’s skyline has stretched ever upward in a glass canopy of futuristic apartments, trendy eateries and luxury hotels. Tech entrepreneurs and coastal elites have all but displaced fun-loving hippies as the city’s stereotypical cast of characters, and a well-curated cosmopolitan sheen downtown puts pressure on the iconic mantra, “Keep Austin Weird”.

Meanwhile, housing prices have significantly outpaced wage growth, slapping generous dollar amounts on life in the so-called liberal oasis. “The number one reason that people are homeless, are experiencing homelessness, is because of the cost of living,” said Price, the paramedic.

Racial injustice also plays a role in Austin’s chronic homelessness problem, with Black residents accounting for only 8% of the area’s overall population but 35% of the homeless population. Austin has an enduring legacy of segregation and discrimination that has corralled and concealed its diverse demographics for decades. In recent years, those biases have manifested through pernicious gentrification.

“The systems in our country are racist, and that’s how we have – why we have – people who aren’t supported by them, and why homelessness exists,” said Matt Mollica, executive director of Austin’s Ending Community Homelessness Coalition.

Now, a flailing economy is threatening further calamity as the financial downturn deepens and social safety nets become political footballs. “If people don’t have income for long enough, and can’t pay their rent, then there’s a reality to that. That can lead to homelessness,” said Vella Karman, Austin’s interim homeless services officer.

Already, some locals who receive outside support have lost employment amid the pandemic, complicating their pathway to self-sufficiency, warned Susan McDowell, executive director of LifeWorks. The organization, which provides housing, shelter, mental health services and workforce education to young Austinites, is encountering far fewer people who are comfortably bouncing back.

“More youth are falling into homelessness,” said McDowell. “More of them need our help in a substantial way. And the youth that we are currently helping will need our help for a longer period of time.”

Back at camp, Andie and Vanessa might actually qualify for protective lodging. But they aren’t willing to give up their location for a temporary stay at a motel, only to turn back around and have to fight someone for space.

“If we left right now, whatever we left behind would be gone by tonight,” Andie said. “And this spot would be gone by tomorrow morning, easily.”