Photo: Houston METRO
Houston METRO is planning to allocate $10 Million to a new city initiative centered around homelessness.
METRO’s board is scheduled to meet Thursday to approve the allocation. It's unclear how the funds will be used exactly but the board said that city officials would be tasked with how it's spent.
On Wednesday, City Council approved an ordinance for the creation of the “Initiative to End Street Homelessness Fund.” It's goal is to end street homelessness and help reclaim back public spaces. It also includes moving homeless individuals into new rehousing hubs.
The fund will begin with $0 but will take in revenue from multiple sources including the general fund, county, state, and federal funds, philanthropic sources, corporate partners and METRO.
Former Houston mayoral candidate Bill King said this move by METRO makes a lot of sense.
"Homelessness is a huge problem in the METRO system, especially on the light rail" said King. "A lot of them get on the train right there by the jail and will basically camp out there and so that causes some real problems for METRO."
A recent survey of Houstonians found that their biggest issue with using the METRO system, whether it be a train or a bus, was there being people sleeping or that there was a bad human smell.
"I think it's absolutely in their best interest to get that cleaned up," King said of METRO.
METRO is also spending $200 million to increase ridership and improve the “customer experience" as part of their recently announced METRONow initiative.
"It has to be convenient and competitive," King added. "People normally ride METRO because they don't have another choice and if you're just dependent on that community then you have to be convenient, run on time, be clean and be secure."
Mayor John Whitmire announced a plan to address homelessness last year with an initiative that would cost taxpayers $70 million. Houston is currently facing a $300 million budget deficit but King said METRO has plenty of money to spare on this initiative.
"I think it has way too much money, maybe about $1 billion in cash, so I think this is a way to take some of the burden off of the city by not forcing the city to deal with these particular people," King said.
The METRONow plan details the addition of 350 new buses and spending $2.4 million on cleaning efforts. METRO could also end up spending millions of dollars to hire police officers to increase patrols on the buses and trains.