Thanks to the radical leftist agenda of Austin’s “progressive” city council, it is on the brink of being a failed city. It seems elections have consequences.
A recent article by the Los Angeles Times cited a U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development study which found 25,848 homeless in Texas, with 2,255 of them in Austin.
Putting that in context, Texas’ population is 28.7 million, and Austin’s is 964,254.
So while Austin has approximately 3.4 percent of the state population, it has 8.7 percent of the state’s vagrants.
The city’s big spending, funded through property taxes, makes housing unaffordable. Add on “green” initiatives and other leftist restrictions on property use, and the costs escalate higher. By adopting policies attractive to vagrants—like camping in public spaces—it shouldn’t be a surprise that more of them would make their way to Austin.
The people of Austin have only themselves to blame. They have voted for leftist and progressive city council members who campaigned on doing leftist and progressive things. What Austin is experiencing is merely the very predictable result.
Nothing says progress like doing hard drugs under a used tarp on the sidewalk in front of the police station after stealing a woman’s purse.
As the vagrant population in downtown Austin becomes more violent, businesses are publicly panicking. But will that translate into action at the polls?
Meanwhile, if you live in Austin, you shouldn’t visit downtown. If you are planning on visiting or attending a convention there, you should rethink those plans.
