Dear fellow concerned citizen:

After nearly four months of chaos, new restrictions on homeless camping take effect today in Austin.

This does not solve the problem caused by the Mayor and the City Council, but it is an improvement.

The new restrictions include:

 > Prohibition on homeless sleeping or camping on sidewalks

 > Prohibition on homeless sleeping or camping within 15 feet of the entrance to a home or business

 > Prohibition on homeless sleeping or camping near storm drains, waterways, or in high fire risk areas

 > Prohibition on homeless sleeping or camping in highway underpasses, medians or slopes.

There is one reason why these ordinance changes happened: Because tens of thousands of Austinites made their voices heard. Without this overwhelmingly negative response to the homeless camping ordinance, nothing would have changed.

While we should all take pride in these policy improvements, an improved disaster was not our goal.

Since we launched this petition on June 17, we have said that our goal was to reinstate the homeless camping ban. Currently more than 37,000 people have signed the petition.

I am curious to see how these changes affect our city and our neighborhoods. I do not want to pick a fight with city leadership if one is not needed.

However, as I testified on your behalf several weeks ago, we want a full reinstatement of the ban on homeless camping, not minor improvements.

Now that they have amended the policy, the Mayor and the City Council do not plan to revisit the ordinance.

The Governor has said that on Nov. 1, the state will begin clearing out the highway underpass areas and monitor the situation to see if future action is needed.

The only way we will reinstate the ban on homeless camping is through a ballot initiative.

Getting on the ballot requires at least 20,000 hard signatures of Austin residents, which would be due in mid-February. Then the issue would be on the ballot in May 2020.

In order to get on the ballot, we would need to raise at least $100,000 to collect signatures, receive legal advice, and organize volunteers. We would then need a much larger effort to fund a campaign to win the election in May.

This is where I want feedback from you.

1. Do you fully support reinstating the homeless camping ban through a ballot initiative?

2. Are you willing to financially support our efforts?

3. Are you willing to volunteer to collect signatures?

Please reply to this email and let me know.

If you wish to contribute to our efforts, you may do so securely here.

Thanks so much,

Matt Mackowiak

Save Austin Now

Co-Founder

(email: matt.mackowiak@gmail.com)