AUSTIN (KXAN)— How much is the city spending overall on homeless camp clean up each year?
It turns out that answer is more difficult to find out without a lot of digging.
In 2021, Austin voters reinstated a camping ban that required enforcement of anyone camping in public spaces.
Since then the city has spent millions of dollars and cleaned up millions of pounds of trash.
KXAN has covered clean ups since the ban went into effect, many times covering the same camps being cleaned up over and over again.
“People go out and clean it up and then the next week there it is again,” said Michael, who lives near a homeless camp.
He says he would like to know how much the city is spending each year overall and how much trash is being picked up, but that can be hard to find.
In fact if you want that answer you have to get a break down from every department in the city who deals with clean up. There is no dashboard that shows this information.
“It would be nice for maximum transparency,” said Michael. “Maximum transparency in government is a huge plus.”
KXAN asked the City of Austin if there was a system in place that tracks how much has been spent on all the clean ups.
In an email, a city spokesperson told KXAN that the request required accounting from multiple departments and that we would need to file a public information request.
There are multiple city of Austin departments that deal with clean ups, but we wanted to know if they had an overall number from all the departments combined. Does the city know how much overall they spent year-to-year?
After a few emails back and forth with the city, they sent KXAN another email saying that the data the city sent only includes Austin Resource Recovery expenses and does not include expenses for other departments.
It shows that in fiscal year 2024 Austin resource recovery, which is just one of many departments that helps with cleanup, spent $1.8 million dollars on clean ups.
Should there be a dashboard to track clean up costs and how much trash is being cleaned up?
KXAN asked the city if it is hoping to develop a dashboard.
A city spokesperson sent us this statement: “The City is not yet prepared to talk about a dashboard or underlying information technology development, but media will be notified by press release when the Homeless Strategy Office is ready to make an announcement.”
KXAN did get some information from the departments that deal with clean up, but it is hard to find out the overall number, which is why we reached out to the city.
The City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department spent about $311,000 in 2024 on clean ups and cleaned up about 275 tons of trash.
PARD also shared a list of all the clean up sites they went to, detailing how much trash was cleaned up, how many times they went to the camps and where the sites were.
The Watershed Protection Department also sent us information after a public information request. Click here for more information on spending.
For information from City of Austin’s Transportation and Public Works Department click here.
Questions we asked the city
Does the city know how much it spent overall in 2024 on homeless camp clean ups?
ARR (Austin Resource Recovery) expenses in fiscal year 2024 for encampment cleanups were $1,829,464.96. This number does not include expenses for other departments.
Does the city know how much it spent overall in 2023 on homeless camp clean ups?
ARR expenses in fiscal year 2023 for encampment cleanups were $1,773,187.06. This number does not include expenses for other departments.
Does the city know how many tons of trash they cleaned up in homeless encampments in 2024?
1,720 tons
Does the city know how many tons of trash they cleaned up in homeless encampments in 2023?
1,528 tons
I saw that the city is hoping to develop a dashboard. Do you know when that would be available?
“The City is not yet prepared to talk about a dashboard or underlying information technology development, but media will be notified by press release when the Homeless Strategy Office is ready to make an announcement.”-city of Austin spokesperson
Shelter space is an issue
In a previous reporting about camp clean ups, city of Austin Homeless Strategy Officer David Gray has told KXAN that there is a lack of bed space, which means not everyone has a place to go.
Gray said on any given night there could be 6,000 to 6,500 people sleeping unsheltered on the streets.
The city has invested millions of dollars into what are meant to be temporary shelters, places like the Northbridge and Southbridge shelters.
Bridge Housing is a hybrid of emergency shelter and transitional housing to serve the target population. It features short-term housing and supportive services, with the goal of helping people achieve self-sufficiency or to access available permanent housing options.
Efforts to add beds for people experiencing homelessness are ongoing.