Community court to housing: This Austin pipeline to address homelessness is working

AUSTIN (KXAN) — It’s a solution to homelessness that’s working — and Austin City Council will vote on whether to continue that work Thursday.

The Downtown Austin Community Court helps people experiencing homelessness clear criminal cases while also connecting them to resources. Community court now serves people all over Austin, not just downtown, through its mobile court program .

For the past five years, Community Court has partnered with Family Eldercare and Foundation Communities to get some of those people — up to 80 a year, according to staff — into permanent supportive housing across the city.

“Almost 100% of the clients served through these contracts have maintained their housing for an extended period of time,” explained Robert Kingham, court administrator for the Downtown Austin Community Court. “So we’re very excited to continue that partnership with these providers and really work alongside them to jointly serve the individuals here at the Community Court.”

The CEO of Family Eldercare said on their end, every single person — 46 of them — who have been served through their partnership with the Community Court have remained in that long-term housing. None, he said, have returned to homelessness.

“That speaks volumes on how successful not only this partnership has been but the efforts of our community to keep the unhoused population that becomes housed… permanently housed,” Dr. Aaron Alarcon, the CEO of Family Eldercare, said.

Austin City Council is expected to revamp its contracts between Community Court and Family Eldercare and Foundation Communities this week to keep that work going. It’s a regular city process that allows staff to ensure they’re using the best providers for the work.

If approved, the 5-year contract with Family Eldercare could cost the city up to $5,250,000 and the 5-year contract with Foundation Communities could cost up to $2,165,000, according to council documents.

“As new housing opportunities open up in our community we hope we’ll be able to leverage the work that we’re doing through these contracts with these partner agencies to house even more individuals,” Kingham said.

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