The Kids are Not Alright: Hundreds of Families Face Homelessness

Written by Danielle Fletcher

Right now, there are a lot of kids who are homeless in Austin. Most people probably don’t know that there are actually 1,284 households with children without a home in our city.

973 of them are unsheltered, meaning hundreds of children are living in cars or tents. They are sleeping in places that are not meant for human habitation because all of the family shelters in Austin are full. Most families have no options. And while we know this is a health and safety issue, it also results in trauma for children, coupled with other challenges like hunger and disruption of learning. An email snippet from a provider in June reads:

“We have a lady with a baby and two toddlers on the street and have been for some weeks due to husband being incarcerated and he was the breadwinner.”

You’re probably not aware of this crisis because the kids are often living under the radar. Families revert to hiding when they fear their kids will be removed due to being unhoused. This happens all the time in families who are fleeing domestic violence. When parents escape abusive situations and face homelessness, they often turn to friends, family, hotels, or live in their cars to keep their children from being identified by Child Protective Services. Abusers use the system to their advantage and tell parents their children will be taken away if they leave.

On top of this, there are not enough shelters for families to enter in Austin. In April of this year there were 218 families on the Salvation Army shelter waitlist. Families represented 12 percent of the unhoused population in 2023 but make up 20 percent of the total population in Austin in 2025.

While homelessness is no fault of these children, they end up paying the price. They frequently do not have stable meals, they miss school, and they live with trauma, fear, and worry daily. An article on homeless youth revealed that children experiencing the adversity of homelessness are much more likely to become homeless as young adults. Our children deserve and need policies that include stable housing to protect families, because the impact of not having them in place effects the future of entire communities.

This shouldn’t be happening in Austin, a city with so much wealth. Kids shouldn’t have to sleep in cars and tents without access to adequate hygiene, facilities, or food. And we should do what we can as a community to keep families together, because children do better when they stay with the people who love them. Having adequate emergency family shelter beds in the community is critical on many levels.

The Austin City Council will vote on a 2025-2026 budget in August, but there is currently no additional funding in the base budget for family shelter. We urge them to prioritize funding for family shelter and address the crisis.

It is time to listen to the pleas of mothers and fathers who are reaching out every day to try and help their children, only to be turned away because all shelters are full. If Austin is going to make anything a funding priority, let’s make sure we help children at-risk and fund additional emergency shelter beds for families.

Ghandi said, “the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.”  “And how are the children?” is a greeting of the Masai people of Africa – they understand that the well- being of our children is the measure of a community’s health and future. But, here in Austin, Texas, how are our children?

We are grateful for Mayor Watson and City Council’s dedication to our communities’ children. The budget you will soon adopt is an opportunity for our City Council to optimize safety for the highest risk children. We hope you will make them a top priority by championing funding for more emergency shelter beds for families.

By Andi Brauer and Melinda Cantu

Andi is a social worker at Central Presbyterian Church and oversees a homeless outreach program. She is also the parent of a formerly homeless foster youth. Melinda is a Social Worker and has done work in the field of domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse and trafficking for the last three decades.

The following article was featured on The Austin-American Statesman click here to visit their site.