Guns, drugs litter homeless shelter in liberal Austin, Texas, whisleblower-filmed video shows

A homeless shelter in Austin, Texas, was shown on a whistleblower-filmed video to be littered with guns, drugs and drug paraphernalia —as the liberal city grapples with a troubling rise in homelessness.  

Former city employee Andrea Gipson recorded several videos inside the Northbridge homeless center throughout 2023 before she was placed on administrative leave on July 31 after complaining about the shelter’s conditions.

“Drug use, prostitution. There are assaults happening. There are folks being drugged and robbed right on site,” Gipson told KVUE.

Her revealing videos showed the shelter in disrepair, with trashed rooms, guns on windowsills, collections of used needles, drug paraphernalia, machetes and knives strewn about.

In addition, shelter residents have been accused of cooking drugs in their rooms, getting high, engaging in prostitution and overdosing inside the facility, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

“The drug use is out of this world. It’s nothing to walk into a client room and see someone about to put a needle in their arm or put a needle in their neighbor’s arm. Smoking meth, coke, crack — any and every type of drug. There’s fentanyl users. There is drug activity and dealers and drug deals going on just right outside the gates every day,” Gipson told KVUE.

The Democrat-run city is facing a disturbing uptick in homelessness, with about 10,000 people living on the street in the greater Austin area — making up 1% of the entire population, according to the city.

As a result, there has been an explosion in homeless camps, with 168 different camps scattered across the state capital, sources previously told The Post.

The overrun shelter is now causing major mayhem for locals.

City council member Mackenzie Kelly — to whom Gipson sent the evidence — sent an email to Interim City Manager Jesús Garza calling for an investigation into the Northbridge shelter, writing: “It has come to my attention that there have been several deaths within the facility, reportedly linked to drug overdoses.

“Disturbingly, there have been allegations of clients assaulting each other, and even the presence of weapons such as machetes, knives, and hammers.”

Kelly called the shelter’s alleged issues “deeply troubling.”

Garza told the Austin American-Statesman that his department has “given instructions to the appropriate staff to go in there and make sure that those kinds of things, at least that are depicted in those notes that we’ve gotten, are not happening.”

Kelly has also asked for an audit of the shelter’s spending. The last city audit took place in September 2021, but there was “no complete inventory of agreements and associated spending for the City’s homelessness assistance efforts.”

Kelly is the only Republican member of liberal Austin’s 11-member city council. The mayor, Kirk Watson, is also a Democrat.

Austin officials couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Shelters are required to provide three hot meals a day to residents, but photos inside Northbridge show a different story, with undercooked chicken, raw sausages, and meals largely consisting of white rice.

Austin spent millions to address the homeless crisis in the Democratic city over the last few years, allocating a record $80.9 million for the 2023-24 fiscal year, the Austin American-Statesman reported.