AUSTIN, Texas — The City of Austin is scrambling to fix the latest in a long line of setbacks in housing the homeless.

Right now, staff are working to make sure residents at the Salvation Army’s downtown shelter don’t end up on the streets. The partially city-funded shelter was set to close March 15, but the mayor has vowed to keep the doors open.

Austin continues to struggle in their homeless recovery efforts compared to the rest of the state, and the nation.

While HUD reports homelessness has gone down statewide, Austin/Travis County has the highest number of unsheltered homeless families and the fifth highest percentage of unaccompanied youth who are homeless and unsheltered in the nation.

The Downtown Salvation Army shelter has about 250 beds out of roughly 1,000 available in Austin, which has more than 4,000 unsheltered homeless people, city data shows.

Outside the Salvation Army Downtown Shelter, neighbors helped move belonging-stuffed trash bags for those who have found another place to stay.

Tuyet Sang Vo is not one of those people. She came to Austin about six months ago to find a home. What she found was a city with a massive shortage of shelters and affordable housing.

“Nowhere was available, so few days later I came back, and thank God they had a bed available for me,” Vo said.

Vo is one of 100 unhoused individuals who lived at the shelter when the news of it closing was posted on the Salvation Army’s website about a month ago. 

”I wouldn’t have ended up here if I had other places to be,” she said.

Residents tell Spectrum News 1 the only the option they were given since the announcement is to relocate to the Salvation Army shelter in Dallas.

“Single women like myself are getting the short end of the stick, because there’s nowhere for us to go,” said Katie Reale, a shelter resident for two months.

“It was such a slap in the face. I don’t understand how you can just move us out in a month!” said Carolyn Williams, who’s been at the shelter for a month.

At the latest Austin Public Health Committee meeting, Mayor Kirk Watson and council members called out the Salvation Army for “mishandling” the situation.

“This is one of the significant problems that I think was created by such a rapid closure of the facility” Mayor Watson said.

Days later, the city announced it will pay to keep the downtown shelter open for 30 days and is currently working to relocate the roughly 50 remaining residents.

Salvation Army Austin Area Commander Major Lewis Reckline refused to talk with Spectrum News. He told the committee they can’t afford to upkeep the aging downtown shelter, which costs $100,000 a month to operate.  

“We were at a point where we had to make a critical decision,” he said.

When council members asked about financial issues, Rickline told committee members the Salvation Army Downtown Shelter has an annual net loss of around $3 million. Financial reports online show the Salvation Army had a budget surplus of more than $1 million in 2021.

The Salvation Army also has a 12-month contract with the city for more than a $250,000 as part of the city’s efforts to reduce homelessness.

Despite the city dedicating millions to implement a homeless strategy division, data shows Austin/Travis County’s unhoused population has gone up, especially the number of unsheltered homeless.

Homeless advocate Paulette Soltani with the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance says this is because of rapid population growth, a lack of affordable housing and emergency shelters.

“It is negligence. We need oversight over Salvation Army and providers like Salvation Army” Soltani said.

For now, residents including Vo are breathing a temporary sigh of relief.

“I know that the crisis is scary, but lack of humanity is scarier,” she said.

The future of the downtown shelter, however, is still uncertain. The mayor says he’s interested in the city buying the property from Salvation Army and keeping it as a shelter, if the Salvation Army agrees.

Property records show the downtown shelter is worth $10.6 million. Housing experts tell Spectrum News it’s worth millions more than that.