City ordinances restrict homeless support as nonprot aid grows From the cover
Current Williamson County Jail
A closer look
What’s happening
Georgetown Police Chief Cory Tchida said using police force to combat homelessness creates a “vicious cycle,” which includes arresting an unhoused individual for a violation, such as camp- ing in public; taking them to the county jail; and then, when they are released after 24 hours, they still are facing the issue of homelessness. Because Georgetown is the county seat, William- son County is required to have the county jail within city limits or its extraterritorial jurisdiction. “Just think about it, everyone arrested in Williamson County is released in our downtown,” Morgan said at the State of the City address. “I’m not saying all of them are homeless or experiencing homelessness—I’m not suggesting that. It just creates a dynamic.” Williamson County ocials recently identied a site for the new Justice Center Complex, which
35
One ordinance passed last summer makes it unlawful to sit or lie down on public property downtown. The other restricts people from distributing food and goods in publicly owned or operated parking areas unless otherwise authorized. In response, Helping Hands of Georgetown and Kat Kares, two local nonprot organizations, relocated their volunteer eorts from the public library parking lot to St. Paul United Methodist Church. Georgetown Mayor Josh Schroeder said while homelessness is “a dicult problem” in Georgetown, the ordinances are designed to prevent the “numerous complaints” the city has received about the unhoused community. “We are not allowing the homeless problem that Austin allowed to proliferate through that community [to] happen in this community,” Schroeder said at the March 12 State of the City address. “I don’t think anybody wants that.” City Manager David Morgan said the city passed the ordinances to keep people safe, including the unhoused community. “The reality is that people experiencing homelessness is a growing issue across the country,” Morgan said. “It’s a wicked problem, which means there’s no easy solution. It’s going to take a lot of us handling it from dierent aspects to do that.” Those experiencing homelessness in the area, and others who work with homeless individuals, said the ordinances have made residing in Georgetown nearly impossible. WilCo point-in-time count The annual January PIT count aims to quantify the number of unhoused people. The lack of homeless shelters in Williamson County makes obtaining an accurate count more challenging, WilCo Homeless Coalition co-Chair Christel Erickson-Collins said.
W. 4TH ST.
E. UNIVERSITY AVE.
29
N
Future Justice Center
110
1460
N
will move the county jail out of downtown. Morgan said this decision will help alleviate the number of unhoused individuals in the area. GPD also oers a voluntary transport service called a “zone of support transfer,” though only 24 individuals have requested this service in the past year, according to GPD data.
The approach
Founder Kathy Bond said that while many local nonprots provide indispensable services for the unhoused community, there are still gaps in care. In addition, Bond said the area lacks some services, such as drug rehabilitation and compre- hensive mental health assistance. Bluebonnet Trails’ Crisis Center, which has temporarily relocated from northeast Georgetown to Round Rock while undergoing renovations, is one county-funded facility that provides help to those undergoing substance abuse or mental health crises. Its inpatient care is a short-term program, lasting from a few hours to two weeks, according to its website.
While GPD enforces criminal trespass and illegal camping citations or arrests, Tchida said the organization knows it does not address the root cause of homelessness. Schroeder and Morgan agreed that addressing homelessness requires coordination between city sta, law enforcement and local nonprot organizations. “I know there’s a strong nonprot community in Georgetown that’s really focused on this,” Morgan said March 12. “We stay in communi- cation with them on a regular basis, and we are open and ready to partner.” Kat Kares provides free hot meals in downtown Georgetown every Friday at 4 p.m. at St. Paul’s.
100 120
Police contacts with unhoused individuals in Georgetown
+758.33%
Contacts with unhoused
Number of enforcements
20 40 60 80
2025 violations
+2.04%
1,155 1,145 1,135 1,125 1,115
86 16
Criminal trespass
Camping ban violation
6 2
Sleeping in public at night Failure to use sidewalk
0
2020 2022 2024 2026
1
Obstructing sidewalk Sitting/lying down in downtown district
0
0
SOURCE: TEXAS HOMELESS NETWORKCOMMUNITY IMPACT
2024
2025
SOURCE: GEORGETOWN POLICE DEPARTMENTCOMMUNITY IMPACT
26
COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM
Powered by FlippingBook