AUSTIN, Texas — This weekend, volunteers with the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, also known as ECHO, will hit the streets of Austin for a Point-in-Time count, which gives city leaders a better idea of how many people are living on the streets.
The count is federally mandated to provide a snapshot of the homeless population at a specific point in time across the United States. It also helps find those who are new to experiencing homelessness and need help.
“We get to a couple people who have not experienced our homelessness response system and need information about how to get connected,” ECHO Executive Director Matt Mollica said. “There is an opportunity to do this as well.”
On Friday, volunteer Emily Stingle helped prepare more than 1,500 kits that will be handed out during Sunday morning’s point-in-time count. It’s something she put together to support the cause as volunteers go to different parts of Austin to survey those sleeping outside and gather data.
The count comes as ECHO and the city teamed up to draft a new model for how Austin will address homelessness.
“The model that says this is what we need over the next 10 years to address homelessness in our community,” councilmember Ryan Alter said. “It’s us saying yes, this what us as a city is going address our resources to.”
Leaders will talk about it at Thursday’s city council meeting. Alter said a big part of that plan is for everyone to work together and create more structure for the city’s service providers.
“If we have a group like Caritas or Urban Alchemy, certain things … they vary,” Alter said. “We want to have a good playbook so where to plug in those service providers, maybe there is a service provider who is doing four or five things right now but [they’re] really good at good at doing two or three if you know what system needs.”
Alter said the ultimate goal is to get people housed, but that comes with a cost. According to Alter, the plan could cost up to $35 million each year for the next decade.
“That’s not something as a city has lying around, nor just any other governmental entity,” Alter said. “So we are going to figure out how to do what we do over the next 10 years.”
If you are interested in volunteering for Sunday’s point-in-time count, visit ECHO’s website.