Tension is rising in a South Austin neighborhood, as the Texas Attorney General is suing the operator of a homeless services center.
AUSTIN, Texas — Doing more good than harm is how Constable Stacy Suits views Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center.
“This is a ministry doing what the Bible and Jesus says: ‘To take care of the least among us,'” Suits said. “And that’s what we’re trying to do. It’s a humane thing.”
The center is next door to Joslin Elementary School and is being sued by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who says the facility has turned a quiet neighborhood into a “hub of drugs and crime.”
Since Giving Tuesday is this week, Suits organized a fundraiser to help Sunrise fend off the lawsuit.
“So I thought there’s parts of the lawsuit that I thought was, shall we say, over dramatic,” Suits said. “And it’s like I said, it’s part of a bigger problem of not enough police.”
But Amanda Mansouri has a different view of the situation. She enrolled her son at Joslin Elementary to participate in a dual language program but she ended up fearing for his safety.
“I did witness people looking through the fence, scary people acting erratically, people who had appeared to be dressed inappropriately for the weather, who appeared to be using drugs, who appeared to not be behaving normally,” Mansouri said. “He would be scared when he would see people outside behaving strangely.”
Mansouri made the hard decision to take her child out of Joslin, enrolling him in another school. Now, she is frustrated to see the Constable’s support for Sunrise.
“If a Constable is a law enforcement person, he needs to be focusing on enforcing the law, not raising money for an organization that is the root cause of the lawlessness and crime problem in the area,” Mansouri said.
KVUE News reached out to the Executive Director of Sunrise, who provided the following statement:
I would say that Constable Suits’ fundraiser and support is evidence of Sunrise’s positive partnerships with all levels of local law enforcement. We all work as a team – including the City of Austin and Travis County – to make this area safe, beautiful and have it work well for everyone who calls this area home.
Mark Hilbelink, Executive Director, Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center
It is a partnership, which Suits is firmly standing behind.
“It’s the right thing to do,” Suits said.
