Austin, TX
City of Austin working to add more beds to homeless shelter
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AUSTIN, Texas – On any given night, Austin has one shelter bed for every five people who are experiencing homelessness.
The city is working to fix that.
“When you look at what we’ve done over the last four years, we spent a considerable sum of money, at least, unofficially, over $200 million, to try to deal with the issues of people who are experiencing homelessness. We haven’t decreased the amount of people experiencing homelessness. In fact, it’s increased,” said Interim City Manager Jesus Garza.
Homeless strategy officer Dianna Grey briefed the council on shelter capacity in Austin.
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“In May of this year, we had 880 active beds,” she said.
The city owns 38% of those shelter beds and the rest are run by nonprofit partners. According to Grey’s data, Austin has one shelter bed for every five people who are homeless.
In the FY2022, there was a 92% shelter bed utilization rate with an average shelter stay of 115 days.
“Over 50% are exiting to known permanent housing locations [and]12%, we know, return to the streets, or they may enter an institution that could be a hospital, a nursing home, or maybe facing incarceration,” said Grey.
Grey told the council the goal is to have 1,500 beds by 2025. Right now, there are three projects underway that will produce 245 beds.
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“We have expanded to double occupancy [at Northbridge] that is complete, we are in the process of expanding to double occupancy in rooms at Southbridge, and you may know that Esperanza community is in the process of creating micro shelters at their site,” she said.
The city’s nonprofit partners are also working on additional projects, but Grey says it is too early to report what those could produce.
Interim City Manager Garza says it is going to take teamwork to fix the homeless issue.
“When I was a private citizen, it looked as if the city owned this issue in its totality, when, in fact, just a few short months here, it’s clearly a multi-jurisdictional issue. It involves the county, it involves central health, it involves the City of Austin, it involves the veteran’s administration, and a host of other private partners that we absolutely need to lean on to help us address the issue of homelessness,” said Garza.
Austin, TX
Texas Supreme Court overturns ruling that state Attorney General Ken Paxton testify in lawsuit
(AP) – The Texas Supreme Court on Friday overturned a lower court ruling that state Attorney General Ken Paxton testify in a whistleblower lawsuit at the heart of impeachment charges brought against him in 2023.
The court on Friday said Paxton’s office does not dispute any issue in the lawsuit by four former Paxton employees and agreed to any judgment in the case.
“In a major win for the State of Texas, the state Supreme Court has sided with Attorney General Paxton against former OAG employees whose effort to prolong costly, politically-motivated litigation against the agency has wasted public resources for years,” a statement from Paxton’s office said.
An attorney for one of the plaintiffs declined immediate comment, and a second attorney did not immediately return a phone call for comment.
The former employees allege they were improperly fired or forced out for bringing to the FBI allegations that Paxton was misusing his office to protect a friend and campaign donor, who in turn, they said, was helping the attorney general to conceal an extramarital affair.
The Supreme Court ruling noted that the Texas governor and Legislature have expressed a desire to hear testimony from the witnesses prior to agreeing to appropriate funds to settle the lawsuit.
The court said forcing Paxton, First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster, Chief of Staff Lesley French Henneke and senior advisor Michelle Smith to testify earlier could improperly be used for legislative purposes in deciding any appropriation.
Under the preliminary deal, Paxton agreed to apologize to the former employees for calling them “rogue” employees, settle the case for $3.3 million and ask the state to pay for it, prompting the state House to reject the request and begin its own investigation, leading to the vote to impeach him.
Paxton was ultimately acquitted after a Senate trial.
The Supreme Court termed its ruling conditional upon the lower trial court complying with the decision, while saying it is “confident the trial court will comply” with the order.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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A Texas city has been named among the top ten U.S. cities to live in over the next two years.
Ten Texas cities were included in the U.S. News & World Report’s 2025-2026 Best Places to Live list. For the annual rankings, U.S. News analyzed 150 major cities in the U.S. based on quality of life, job market, value of living and people’s desire to live in the area.
How did your city fare on the list? Here’s a breakdown of the data.
LIST: 10 best US cities to live
Texas’ capital secured a spot in the top 10 places to live, as determined by U.S. News.
- Naples, Florida
- Boise, Idaho
- Colorado Springs, Colorado
- Greenville, South Carolina
- Charlotte, North Carolina
- Raleigh, North Carolina
- Huntsville, Alabama
- Virginia Beach, Virginia
- Austin, Texas
- Boulder, Colorado
Austin offers healthy balance of work and pleasure, US News says
Austin had an overall score of 6.8 out of 10, compared to Naples’ score of 7.1. The Texas capital also scored 6.8 in the quality of life index, with a value index score of 6.3.
“With the slogan ‘Keep Austin Weird,’ this Texas city is laid-back to the point that if you’re dressing up, it must be a life event,” the U.S. News analysis says. “People here enjoy the outdoors, even more so with their dogs. Austin has a contagious vibrancy and enthusiasm.”
U.S. News notes Austin’s strongest assets are a mix of work and pleasure. The number of companies headquartered in Austin makes it attractive to working professionals, especially those in technology, government, education, and health care. But the capital is far from being “all work, no play.” Its claim as the live music capital of the world invites music lovers to take a listen, whether at the airport, along streets downtown, or at one of the approximate 200 venues throughout the area.
Austin also ranked no. 32 on U.S. News’ Best Places to Retire in 2025 list.
LIST: Best Texas cities to live
Here are the rankings and scores U.S. News gave for the ten Texas cities included in the list:
Ranking
City
Overall Score
Quality of Life
Value Index
#9
Austin
6.8
6.8
6.3
#48
McAllen
6.4
6.6
7.6
#62
El Paso
6.3
6.5
7.3
#77
Corpus Christi
6.2
5.8
7.0
#87
Brownsville
6.2
6.2
7.7
#89
San Antonio
6.1
6.1
6.8
#95
Dallas
6.1
6.4
5.6
#97
Houston
6.1
5.9
6.2
#99
Beaumont
6.1
5.5
7.3
#107
Killeen
6.0
5.9
7.3
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