Roughly 2,500 homeless people sleep in shelters or outdoors in Austin on a given night. That estimate comes from the “point-in-time” count, an annual citywide census of the homeless community. Cities and counties must do the count on a single night to get federal money to help combat homelessness and house people living on the streets.
Advocates and officials in Austin are preparing for this year’s count on Jan. 25 – but the 2020 count will be different.
First off, the issue received much more attention last year. In June, the city scaled back bans on camping and sitting or lying down in public. That led to more visible encampments, concern about health and safety, and ultimately state intervention. By fall, the city had reinstated parts of the camping ban.