Violent crimes with homeless suspects, victims went up in 2019, data show

As fierce political debate continues over the impact on public safety of last year’s changes to Austin’s homelessness policies, new police data obtained by the American-Statesman show violent crimes involving homeless suspects increased in 2019, but the uptick might be part of a trend that started years before.

Violent crimes with suspects who were experiencing homelessness rose 10% last year, the largest increase in the past five years, according to data from Austin police.

In most of those cases, the victim was also homeless. In fact, the number of cases involving both homeless suspects and victims has been steadily growing — and representing an increasing percentage of all violent crime in the city — since at least 2014, the data show.

Gov. Greg Abbott has been the top critic of Austin’s changes to a camping ban aimed at people living on the streets. He has taken to Twitter several times after violent crimes to blame the city’s policies on homelessness, including when a homeless man randomly stabbed a restaurant worker to death in South Austin on Jan. 3.

Mayor Steve Adler and other advocates for the homeless have condemned Abbott’s comments, saying there is no link between people who are homeless and an increase in violence in the city.

“The overwhelming number of crimes are not committed by people experiencing homelessness,” Adler said. “The suggestion otherwise is an urban myth and silly if it weren’t dangerous.”

Overall, violent crimes in Austin saw a small rise in 2019. Austin police arrested 3,902 people for violent crimes, an increase of less than 1% from the year before, police data show.

Of those arrests, 392 suspects, or 10%, were experiencing homelessness. And of those suspects, 282, or 72%, were accused of a violent crime against another homeless person.

Greg McCormack, executive director of the nonprofit Front Steps, which manages the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless downtown, said what stood out the most to him after reviewing the data was the increase in crimes by people living on the streets against the same demographic.

“It was probably an altercation between two people who are experiencing homelessness,” McCormack said. “It looks like the least likely thing to happen with any violent crime involving a homeless individual is that it would be involving someone who is not homeless.”

‘Failed policies’

Violent crimes with both homeless suspects and victims increased 23% last year, police data show. But with the exception of 2018, those types of cases have been going up since at least 2015, when they shot up 37% from the year before.

In response to the new data, Abbott’s office underscored the increase in crimes with suspects who were homeless last year. In a statement Friday, the governor again said the city’s policies endanger public safety, “especially for those experiencing homelessness.”

Abbott’s office added that the decrease in violent crimes not involving people experiencing homelessness — down 1% last year — “offsets and masks the rise in transient-on-transient violent crime and transient on non-transient violent crime.”

“This rise in crime is a result of the city’s failed policies, including the reversal of the camping ban last year,” the statement from Abbott‘s office said.

Abbott first became vocal on the issue after the Austin City Council largely rescinded the camping ban in June. The council restored parts of the ordinance in October after intense pressure over the tents and encampments that started appearing across the city.

The new ban does not allow encampments on sidewalks, near the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless downtown or near business doorways. However, camps under overpasses, where many of the largest ones sprouted after the original ban was repealed, were not included in October’s council action.

Dozens of people experiencing homelessness were displaced in November after Abbott ordered Texas Department of Transportation workers to clear more than a dozen encampments under overpasses.

The governor picked a vacant lot in Southeast Austin near Austin-Bergstrom International Airport to serve as a temporary living space for those displaced by cleanups.

Homeless victims of crime

While Abbott‘s office focused on crimes committed by people experiencing homelessness, Matthew Mollica, executive director of Austin’s Ending Community Homeless Coalition, underscored the cases with homeless victims.

Mollica said that more notable than last year‘s 18% increase in cases with suspects who were experiencing homelessness was the number of violent crimes committed against the “vulnerable population” by people who were not living on the streets.

Austin police data show that cases in which the victim was homeless and the suspect was not actually went down 1% last year; meanwhile, cases in which the suspect was homeless and the victim was not went up 7%.

But violent crimes with victims who are homeless and suspects who are not have been more common since at least 2014, according to the data. Last year there were 157 of those cases, compared with 110 cases in which the suspect was homeless and the victim was not.

“To see people experiencing homelessness as being the victims of violent crimes is really concerning,” Mollica said. “People experiencing homelessness committing more violent crimes has never been in the data, and I don’t anticipate we will see that ever play out in any data set.”

McMormack said he hopes the public’s review of the data will dispel preconceived impressions about people living on the streets.

“Anyone who is homeless is not a criminal or a violent criminal,” McMormack said. “They are not likely to do some violent act against someone in the general public. That is simply not the case.”