“I don’t think the voters appreciate how deep the cuts are going to have to be,” Austin City Council Member Mike Siegel told the Chronicle last week as Prop Q, the ballot measure to increase property taxes to fund a variety of city services, went down in flames.
Siegel was talking about the cuts that will have to be made to the city’s 2025-26 budget with the defeat of Prop Q, which was envisioned as an opportunity to get homeless people off the streets and fix holes in the social safety net torn open by the federal government. City Manager T.C. Broadnax released a new proposed budget last Friday which showed the depth of the cuts. The proposed budget eviscerates funding for homelessness programs, compared with what would have been available with Prop Q. It cuts tens of millions of dollars from other social services.
The cuts to homeless services include over $10 million intended for more emergency shelter beds and long-term supportive housing. Additionally, $1.6 million is cut from public health initiatives like free vaccinations; $1.3 million is cut from the Family Stabilization Grant, which helps families avoid becoming homeless; and $1 million is cut from community violence intervention programs. Millions more are cut from programs for food pantries, city libraries, and wildfire prevention, to name just a few…