City clears third homeless camp from downtown Austin statesman.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from statesman.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Austin officials closed a second homeless encampment, relocating dozens of people, to a city-owned hotel, and, in turn, sparing them from the risk of being cited under the city s increased enforcement against public camping.
About 45 people were moved from the site, which was under a highway overpass at Ben White Boulevard and Menchaca Road, officials said. They were relocated to the Southbridge shelter, a 75-room former Rodeway Inn in South Austin that the city purchased in 2019 to provide shelter for people experiencing homelessness.
The move appeared to have been completed on Wednesday morning. Photos taken by the American-Statesman showed crews placing tents into a garbage truck as residents loaded into a white van from the city s Parks and Recreation Department. Dozens of rats or mice emerged from heaps of trash as the encampment was being cleared out.
Like many Austinites, after New Year s Day, Lamar Boulevard is set to go on a diet.
But unlike many Austinites, the road will follow through on its slimming effort. Its so-called road diet will manifest itself in the first phase of safety improvements that will in some stretches permanently remove lanes from South Lamar Boulevard.
The jargon for what is planned for Lamar Boulevard an effort to place greater emphasis on alternative modes of transportation through more robust sidewalks and bike lanes is often referred as a road diet.
With a $6.9 million contract recently approved by the Austin City Council, the first phase of South Lamar Boulevard s diet is expected to begin in January or February. The renovation will focus on the stretch of road between Riverside Drive and Barton Springs Road, just south of Lady Bird Lake.