Eighteen public parks are on a preliminary list of 45 possible locations for city-sanctioned encampments to shelter Austin s homeless population.
City staff members prepared the list and presented it Tuesday to the Austin City Council. The list of city-owned properties builds on the council s desire to urgently get people off the streets and into lawful encampments after voters chose to reinstate the public camping ban on May 1.
The parks include Walter E. Long, Commons Ford, Mary Moore Searight, Bull Creek, Roy G. Guerrero, John Treviño Jr., Circle C and Dick Nichols. Five recreation centers also made the list: Parque Zaragoza, Givens, Northwest, South Austin and Austin.
Matthew Ruiz gets vaccinated agains COVID-19 at a clinic in March.
More than 40% of adults in Travis County are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and nearly 58% have received at least one dose, Austin s interim medical director said Tuesday.
Still, Dr. Mark Escott told a joint session of Travis County commissioners and the Austin City Council, reaching herd immunity in the area is going to be a difficult task.
“Because of the variability in vaccine availability, because of the challenge of having a worldwide pandemic with multiple hot spots which shift around the world, it’s going to make it very challenging if not impossible to rid us, to eradicate COVID-19,” Escott said.
KUT
Workers direct cars through a mass COVID-19 vaccination clinic at the Circuit of the Americas in February.
Austin Public Health is hosting a walk-up COVID-19 vaccine clinic at the Delco Activity Center this Thursday and Friday from noon until 7:30 p.m. or until all its vaccines are administered.
Vaccines will be available to all residents age 18 and older. No appointment is needed. If supplies run out, Austin Public Health said, staff will help schedule appointments for those who show up.
APH currently only offers the Moderna vaccine, so any 16- and 17-year-olds who want to get vaccinated must find a provider elsewhere.
KUT
The director of Austin Public Health says the department needs to change its process to reach and vaccinate more people in Austin and Travis County after nearly 3 out of 4 first-dose coronavirus vaccine appointments released Monday went unfilled. In conversations with some of my colleagues across the state of Texas, a lot of us are getting to a point where we re going to have to pivot and change strategies, Stephanie Hayden-Howard told a joint session of the Austin City Council and Travis County Commissioners Court on Tuesday. Because now we re at a point where there is more vaccine that is readily available in our community. So we must be strategic and start [making] those changes.