AUSTIN (KXAN) — When we asked Donald Montgomery, nicknamed “Hippy,” whether he likes living at Camp Esperanza, run by The Other Ones Foundation (TOOF), just off of Highway 183 and 171, he said the answer can’t be a true “yes or no.”
“I love it here. Especially with the new iteration, the community is…personality is up, friendliness is up, stealing is down…but I have an itch to get a place that is under my control,” he told us.
We spoke to Hippy last year, after Mayor Kirk Watson announced Austin groups fighting homelessness were getting a massive chunk of money from the state, roughly $65 million. A bulk of that funding is expected to go to TOOF to help them expand operations.
But we told you then, there were a lot of puzzle pieces that still hadn’t worked their way into place, including where the expansion would happen.
That became more clear Thursday when The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) announced it had purchased the property adjacent to Camp Esperanza. It will be dedicated to the nonprofit’s expansion.