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Our monthly Austin Sierra Club meeting will be online via Zoom.

We'll start off with Announcements on current events... Tonite's main program is about Austin's Homeless strategy.

Under the direction of Austin Public Health Director Stephanie Hayden, the Homeless Strategy Officer coordinates the City’s homeless response activities among multiple departments. Our presenter will be Dianna Grey, who authored the first City of Austin and Travis County Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) strategy that lead to a financial goal to secure 350 PSH units. Dianna is a 2001 graduate of the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin.

The COVID-19 public health crisis hit the homeless community particularly hard, but alongside our partners the City moved more than 1,400 people into housing and out of homelessness in 2020. According to City data as of September 2020, there were 3,371 sheltered clients in the Homeless Management System.

In May Austin residents voted to reinstate local ordinances regarding sitting or lying down on a public sidewalk, aggressive solicitation, and camping in any public area not designated by the City for camping. A city-leased hotel near UT will be converted into a shelter for 55 people in August. The city is also looking at two sites on city-owned land to serve as temporary encampments. The city hopes to build out shelter on the campsites that could include 10-by-12 individual units or a single 300-person modular structure. In May, the city opened another retrofitted hotel that will provide temporary housing for 75 people, and it's hoping to set up overnight parking lots to serve as shelter. The City expects it can have 125 shelter beds available by mid-August.

A list of resources for the homeless can be found at https://austintexas.gov/department/take-care-your-basic-needs .

The URL to click on and join the meeting will be displayed after you RSVP. If you are new to Zoom, tutorials are available online - example https://www.youtube.com/embed/hIkCmbvAHQQ . Using your camera and microphone is optional for the meeting.

Sierra Club outings are starting back up! Check the Meetup Calendar for added events.

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