Austin Mayor, Governor Clash On Homeless Issue

AUSTIN, TX — In the same week that more relaxed city rules related to activities of homeless people took effect in Austin, the governor falsely attributed a car crash to a person living on the streets.

On Tuesday morning, Gov. Greg Abbott — who's been vocal in opposing Austin City Council's recent actions aimed at decriminalizing homelessness — shared a tweet from Tyler Norris, a former staffer to Texas GOP lawmakers, claiming "...homeless people darting into traffic" had caused a car crash in downtown Austin.

Problem is, it never happened. Austin police told media outlets they saw no people on the roadway at the time of the incident after carefully reviewing video. Instead, a police spokeswoman told the Austin American-Statesman the wreck was likely caused by a motorist running a red light.

That didn't stop Abbott from issuing a threat to eliminate sovereign immunity protecting government entities from myriad lawsuits "...for damages and injuries like this caused by a city's homelessness policy," Abbott continued, before adding dramatically: "The horror stories are piling up."

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As it turns out, Abbott's report was — as Donald Trump and his fervent followers are fond of saying — fake news.

“It’s possible there was a crowd after the crash, which is not uncommon, but leading up to the crash they didn’t see anyone” near the street, Austin Police Department spokeswoman Tara Long told the newspaper.

It's not the first time Abbott has lashed out at the Austin City Council's stance on the homeless issue. Advocates for the marginalized segment documented evidence of homeless people being mired in fines associated with sleeping or lying on public sidewalks in violation of former ordinances local officials have since struck down. Evidence of police enforcement targeting the homeless helped spur the more relaxed rules, designed to alleviate stress to already-taxed lives.

Critics, including Abbott, have extrapolated the relaxed rules as tantamount to allowing homeless to set up camp at will, even though such activity continues to be prohibited in parks and is tightly controlled even after the relaxation of local ordinances.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler got into the act to set the record straight, issuing his own tweet on the matter from Hawaii, where he is attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors. "Governor: Why retweet the incendiary lie that people experiencing homelessness caused a recent traffic accident?" Adler wrote. "You blame what never happened on 'reckless' city policy. Really?"

The mayor's clarifying missive didn't stop an Abbott ally, State Sen. Dawn Buckingham, a Republican from Lakeway, to retweet Abbott's post with the caption: "This city-imposed insanity must be stopped."

City Council members on June 21 voted to eliminate restrictions on camping on public property if campers are not set up in parks or otherwise create hazards or obstructions. Local laws prohibiting panhandling and sitting or lying on downtown sidewalks also were struck down. The changes took effect on Monday.

An elderly homeless woman negotiates a sidewalk along Guadalupe Street by pushing her overstuffed grocery cart on Sunday, June 9, 2019. Photo by Tony Cantú/Patch staff.

As of early Thursday, July 4, Abbott had yet to remove his erroneous post even after its assertions were debunked by police.