AUSTIN, Texas — Residents of a southeast Austin neighborhood say they’re seeing a disturbing rise in vandalism, vagrancy, and even burglary ever since the Marshalling Yard emergency homeless shelter opened around the corner.
Candice Carpenter loves her home at Riverside Meadows.
“It’s a pretty friendly neighborhood,” Carpenter said. “We have, like, little neighborhood parties and we walk around at night.”
Though she isn’t doing much walking outside lately.
“It’s exhausting, and I do not feel safe, really.” Carpenter said.
Last week her backyard was broken into.
“Someone took the old pickets down, got into the shed, stole a generator and a bike,” Carpenter said.
Sonia Rivera with the Riverside Meadows H.O.A. says this is the third burglary in recent months.
“We’ve had theft in the neighborhood,” Rivera said. “We have folks sleeping in our yards.”
There are other issues too: graffiti, litter, alcohol, and used drug paraphernalia at their park. Problems she says started after the Marshalling Yard opened as an emergency homeless shelter just outside their neighborhood.
“As someone that lives here, I just don’t feel safe anymore,” Rivera said.
The neighborhood’s city council member Jose Velasquez says it’s a complicated issue.
“We’re always trying to balance safety with the most compassionate approach to handling our unhoused neighbors,” Velasquez said. “Finding them a home, finding them stability.”
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The Marshaling Yard opened as an emergency shelter in July of last year and was only supposed to operate for a year. But as the city is still facing a critical shortage of beds for those experiencing homelessness, the city council voted to fund its indefinite operation back in September.
“We can’t just shut that down and put 300 people out on the street,” Velasquez said. “I mean that’s just, that’s just a no-go right now.”
But these problems facing Riverside Meadows aren’t just a nuisance, they’re expensive too.
“We’ve had to put up the No Trespassing signs,” Rivera said. “We’ve had to rebuild our sprinkler system because the power was cut off by somebody who, I believe, probably didn’t want to get wet in their encampment.”
Neighbors want to see additional patrols, or more direct lines of transportation to and from the shelter to decrease foot traffic.
“I want them to have somewhere to sleep that’s not outside, right?” Carpenter said. “But the problem is, they are just dumped off into our neighborhood.”
While there are public transportation options, Velasquez says anything is on the table. He says it’s about bringing the neighborhood, police, and the city’s Homeless Strategy Office together.
“If we’re having issues in the neighborhood with crime, that is very different than having issues with the Marshall yard just being there,” Velasquez said. “And we want to ensure that we are drawing a distinction between those two things.”
And with no alternatives to the shelter currently in sight, he says these solutions may also take time.
“It is a work in progress, and unfortunately, with most things, it never comes fast enough, man, and you know, and I feel that too,” Velasquez said.
Neighbors say it’s taken too long already.
“If they’re going to put a shelter in our neighborhood, that they do something to mitigate the impacts that it’s having,” Carpenter said. “You can’t just put it here and then ignore us and not address our concerns.”
