I wanted to provide an update on where we are in our effort to put on the November ballot our ordinance to reinstate the ban on public camping in Austin.
We launched on March 3 and immediately we were ahead of pace.
However, when shelter-at-home guidelines began four weeks ago, our pace slowed down.
We are currently at around 4,000 hard signatures. As a reminder, we need 20,000 by July 18. Online signatures do not count for this effort.
Here's what this means:
We need to collect 143 signatures a day to qualify for the ballot.
We are now 44 days in and averaging 90 signatures a day.
At the current pace, we will not make it.
OUR PLAN
With social distancing in place and no large gatherings allowed, traditional methods of signature collection are temporarily not available to us.
So we have migrated to utilizing mail as a method of collection.
Using volunteers, we have personally mailed several thousand petitions to willing signers in the past two weeks.
If you want to receive the petition by mail, please click here to give us your address.
So how will we meet our goal?
We've spent the past week preparing a mailing of 15,000 households of supporters of our effort. That list is now ready to be mailed.
We have a cost of $10,000 for printing, folding, inserting and mailing to this universe. This is where we need your help.
If half of these households respond and the average household has two people in it, we will nearly reach our goal through this method alone.
I know this is a difficult time. I am sorry to be asking for financial support for our efforts.
But our deadline is July 18 and that deadline does not respect the challenges presented by coronavirus.
Would you help us fund the 15,000 household mailer?
> You can securely contribute here.
> You can also mail a check to "Save Austin Now" and send to 807 Brazos Street, Suite 408, Austin, TX 78701.
Thank you!
-Matt & Cleo
Save Austin Now co-founders