Austin City Council Okays 4th Hotel Purchase To House Homeless

AUSTIN, TX — Austin City Council members on Thursday approved the purchase of a fourth hotel envisioned as a makeshift homeless shelter.

During the Austin City Council meeting, council members approved purchasing the Candlewood Suites, 10811 Pecan Park Blvd., for $6.7 million. The move follows last week's approval to buy the Texas Bungalows Hotel & Suites in North Austin at a cost of $9.5 million.

“This housing saves lives," Austin City Council member Greg Casar said in a prepared statement. "It will help us get hundreds of people out of tents and into housing. We all have to pull together as a city to address homelessness, and that’s why we’ve purchased hotels in four districts now, including my own. These hotels will not only be homes for people, but will also provide services like job aid, health care, mental health resources, and more, and it’s only possible because of the transformative budget we passed last year.”

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Casar said the hotel purchases would not have been possible without funds that were redirected from the police budget after violent protests last summer. The budget cuts were part of what is colloquially known as "police defunding" that is more precisely a reallocation of budget items in what the council calls a reimagining of public safety. Locally, the police were stripped of some duties — and their attendant budgets — such as interacting with the homeless and responding to calls dealing with residents in the throes of mental crises.

Casar said the funding for the initial purchase of the hotels comes out of Housing and Planning Department 2018 General Obligation Bonds, while funding for operations and services of the hotels is to be provided from Austin Public Health, using the additional $6.5M added to the FY21 budget to address homelessness during the city council’s move to reimagine public safety.