The former resort will turn out to be Pecan Gardens, which is set to area older adults in want of everlasting supportive housing (KXAN Photo/Grace Reader)
A invoice that lately cleared the Senate committee may just regulate the laws relating to how Texas’ native municipalities tell citizens in regards to the conversion of homes into shelters for other people experiencing homelessness. The regulation proposed in Senate Bill 1214, authored by means of Republican Senator Charles Schwertner, would necessitate {that a} listening to is performed ahead of changing a belongings right into a homeless refuge in Texas. Schwertner wrote in his remark of intent for the invoice that it used to be created in reaction to the Candlewood Suites acquire in Austin.
Community staff MOVE Candlewood has labored to opposite town’s resolution to convert the previous Candlewood Suites resort into everlasting supportive housing for older adults experiencing homelessness.
The regulation will require a municipality in Texas to tell other people residing inside a one-mile radius of a transformed belongings no later than 36 hours ahead of a public listening to. The legislation is handiest appropriate to homeless housing and now not to housing all the way through a herbal crisis or public emergency. The proposed regulation would additionally require a public listening to to be scheduled no later than 90 days ahead of the municipality starts the conversion.
A spokesperson for the City of Austin mentioned that whilst town adheres to the making plans and zoning rules, there are these days no necessities referring to to housing for other people experiencing homelessness. The town spokesperson famous that the proposed regulation’s requirement to notify citizens inside a one-mile radius of the valuables “is extremely burdensome, going far beyond typical zoning notices of 500 feet.”
The City of Austin additionally expressed worry that the proposed legislation may just warfare with the federal Fair Housing Act and raised considerations that the proposed regulation may just hinder town’s efforts to supply housing and products and services for other people experiencing homelessness, specifically for the reason that other people experiencing homelessness are disproportionately other people of colour and/or other people residing with disabilities.