From homeless to housed: Downtown court provides path to housing, social services

The Downtown Austin Community Court is helping the homeless community. 

Catherine Fako has spent much of her life traveling the country.“I used to hitchhike travel, hop trains. It put a toll on my life, I didn't want to do that anymore so I wanted to settle down and get my life together. 

She came to Austin a few years ago and discovered the Downtown Austin community court by happenstance.“They arrested me and brought me down here because I had too many tickets, and they signed me up,” said Fako. They signed her up for their case management program.

The Downtown Austin Community Court may sound intimidating, but the court has a philosophy different from others.“Our focus is addressing the reason that individual get in trouble and utilizing that information to connect them to services to they don't continue repeating that cycle,” said Peter Valdez, Director of the Downtown Austin Community Court. 

All the citations they help with are Class-C misdemeanors. “They would be magistrated by our judge and the prosecutor would talk [to] that individual into accepting our case management services,” said Valdez.

RELATED: DACC's Intensive Care Management helps Austin homeless, reduces repeat citations by 99%

“Everybody in Case Management is homeless. The individuals who get processed through court are not always homeless,” said Valdez.

They also take walk-ins for people simply wanting help.

Fox 7 Austin also met "Tee-Tee" who signed up for the program today. She is hoping to get housing. “Originally I'm from Memphis, Tennessee but I've traveled 43 states because I was homeless and didn't have anywhere to go,” she said.

She says the public should reconsider how they think of someone that is homeless. “Family don't want to be bothered with them, or two, they didn't have enough money to pay rent. People need to stop looking at us like we are trash,” she said.

The court prides itself on being a problem-solving court with a rehabilitative approach. It seems to be working for many. One year after she was arrested and signed up for case management, Catherine Fako was approved for an apartment.

“I have family in Florida, my mom and my kids. I wish they could see me doing better, but they will eventually,” said Fako.

In an analysis, the court conducted on 59 people who had more than 1,556 citations they found that after going through the case management program, the number of citations issued plummeted to just seven.