Council approves downtown Austin homeless shelter plan at Salvation Army, ARCH facilities

City Council on June 8 approved a $600,000 contract extension with Urban Alchemy to continue operating the ARCH alongside a one-year, $4.56 million contract to expand its work to the Eighth Street shelter. City officials said the building will have the capacity for up to 150 people.

Funding for Urban Alchemy's work comes from Austin Public Health's budget and the city's federal American Rescue Plan Act allocation. The city's one-year, $1.27 million lease of The Salvation Army facility will begin July 1 and is also sourced from APH's budget and ARPA funds.

The details

Urban Alchemy was tapped to take over management at the ARCH last summer and has been credited with a turnaround at the facility since then. Kirkpatrick Tyler, Urban Alchemy's chief of government and community affairs, said in a June 8 interview the nonprofit views the upcoming expansion of its operations as a chance to provide more safe space for those in need in the city building on its other work so far.

“When we took on the opportunity to be of service at the ARCH, we did it with the understanding that we had a desire to make a larger impact in the fight against homelessness in Austin," Tyler said. "For us, it just makes sense to be able to continue the work and successes that we had at the ARCH and to extend that one block over so that we, essentially, have a larger footprint to create safe space for our most vulnerable neighbors.”

With council's approval of the relevant funding, Tyler said Urban Alchemy will now work on various renovations and "life-saving repairs" at The Salvation Army facility, including the removal of some office space to make room for more beds and potentially linking the building with the ARCH across an adjoining alleyway.

“We’re looking at how can we make even that space that’s usable for residents that makes it feel like a community versus two shelters," he said.

With those updates to come, an exact opening timeline is still to be determined. Tyler said Urban Alchemy will work with local outreach teams and service providers to identify clients, potentially including some who used to live in the facility prior to its planned closure.

The big picture

The update comes as the city works to add more shelter beds across Austin. Two city-owned shelters are seeing their capacities doubled, and officials could soon approve a temporary shelter space at an east side civic warehouse.

Mayor Kirk Watson said the move is in addition to separate increases in more permanent housing options for the homeless that are also in the works, and that the push to fund and expand shelter space reflects a more comprehensive approach to shelter, housing and mental health.

“We all know that addressing the needs of those that are living homeless includes providing permanent supportive housing, and we need more permanent supportive housing. But without connective services and emergency support, we can’t really appropriately address the crisis that we’re in," Watson said June 8. "We can’t appropriately address the inhumane conditions of people that are living on the street, living under overpasses, living in parks—and they’re doing it right now. And we can do more."

The plan did not move forward without some reservations. João Paulo Connolly, organizing director at the Austin Justice Coalition and co-chair of the regional Homelessness Response System Leadership Council, criticized the city's spending of millions on the temporary shelter plan without any next steps in place, and with some officials also raising concern about other supportive housing projects that were on the June 8 agenda.

“I don’t believe our system will ever want to hear anyone express skepticism about our ability to fund housing when we don’t even flinch at the possibility of spending almost $6 million to put people in a leaky facility for one year," Connolly said.

While the new lease and contract will last just one year, Tyler said he hopes the shelter plan will end up solidifying shelter resources in Central Austin.

"What Urban Alchemy is committed to do is to show the viability of the ARCH and Salvation Army as a neighbor and a partner in the downtown community," he said. "What we ask residents, stakeholders, business owners to do is to look at that example and figure out how they can plug in and support and move forward in creating safe spaces in the downtown community for those who are in need of housing.”