New Austin dashboard to give glimpse into homeless encampment clean-up, closures

AUSTIN, Texas - A new dashboard launching soon will give residents a glimpse into how the crews are moving through the city to clean encampments.

What they're saying:

"What we've heard from the community is they want a way to really understand the whole picture of what the city is doing when it comes to encampment, cleanups, and closures," said David Gray, director of Austin Homeless Strategies and Operations.

Now, through a new city of Austin dashboard, Austinites will have a way to access that information.

"It's not as simple as going in with a backhoe and taking a bunch of people's stuff. We want to engage with folks. We want to give them a chance to get into shelter and get into services and document the progress along the way," said Gray.

The dashboard will be led by the homeless strategy office working with other city departments like Austin Transportation and Public Works, APD, EMS and others.

"Oftentimes, it's really hard for the public to see the whole picture of what's going on in the city when it comes to homeless encampment, engagement and cleanup and closure. And so this dashboard will give people a comprehensive look at the work that we're doing," said Gray.

Here’s how it works: 

• 311 calls for service will populate the dashboard
• Anyone can see where the calls are being made and how quickly the city responds

Dig deeper:

David Gray, director of Austin Homeless Strategies and Operations, says the system is modeled after similar dashboards in other cities like Portland.

"They upload photos of the work that the city is doing. They upload progress updates of the work that the city is doing. It's even color coded, so it's very easy to understand what things are in progress versus what things are being completed," said Gray.

Portland’s dashboard shows data like response times, numbers of campsites reported, number of people at each site, photos before and after cleanup, and the amount of garbage collected.

"I could tell you right now that in 2024, we cleaned and cleared over 1,500 encampments across the city. We had our three-week encampment cleanup surge at the end of last year that hit over 670 sites, but we know this information. For the public, there's really no clear, accessible way for you to find the information," said Gray.

Gray says the Austin dashboard will protect the privacy and safety of people living on the streets while also providing more transparency for taxpayers.

"The city is spending a lot of money to do these encampment cleanups and closures. Our taxpayers care about where their money is going. And it's important. It's a value that we hold to be transparent about the work that we do," said Gray.

What's next:

Gray says the dashboard is expected to launch in the coming weeks.