Residents living near I-35 and Oltorf continue to worry about a homeless navigation center that city officials are placing in the area. A group of them recently formed a nonprofit called the South Austin Neighborhood Safety Alliance, which is meeting regularly with city and county officials, local law enforcement, representatives from the Travis Early College High School, and the community violence intervention group Life Anew Restorative Justice in hopes of limiting the types of services the new center will offer to homeless people.
SANSA held a community meeting on June 23 to discuss the latest developments with the planned center. Group co-founder Erika Shadburne told us the Oltorf area is already struggling with issues related to a large homeless population and that neighbors fear the presence of a new navigation center will exacerbate them. “It’s a fragile community,” Shadburne said. “There’s not a lot of room here for a mistake.”
Austin’s City Council voted last October to put the center at 2401 S. I-35 Frontage Road to help homeless people find housing, jobs, medical care, and, possibly, food and showers. The center was expected to begin offering the services this spring, but SANSA members said they have learned that the city is delaying the opening until the summer of 2027 as it renovates the property…