AUSTIN, Texas — A City of Austin spokesperson reports Austin has one shelter bed for every five people experiencing homelessness.
"We used to have the Salvation Army emergency shelter option, and we don' have that anymore. So in that sense, that's the really difficult part is when you have somebody who is wanting shelters, want to go to a shelter, we just don't have that here," said Connie Geerhart with the Austin Police Department's Victim Services Unit.
It is a situation Geerhart sees once a week: an officer encountering a person who does not have a safe place to stay.
Det. Daniel Portnoy is one of two detectives. He found an elderly woman experiencing homelessness and mental health disorders last month on Lyndhurst Street. After having no luck finding a place for her to stay, he and the other officer paid for a hotel room at their own expense.
"We need to come up with a better system because there's plenty of people that are just falling through the cracks," Portnoy said.
The Wellsky Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to vulnerable populations, gifted a combined $150,000 in renewal grants to Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, or ECHO, as well as Mobile Loaves & Fishes, a social outreach ministry helping the homeless.
Kate Moore with ECHO said the organization will use the money to expand its research and evaluation efforts.
"We're able to quickly see trends in the data and see if something, if our population is increasing or if it's decreasing, we can look at inflow and see are people experiencing homelessness for the first time," Moore said. "So in addition to being able to show the need, we also are hoping to be able to show the successes of the agencies that are actually doing the hard work on the ground."
It is taking a gift and making it bigger to give back to a community in need.