AUSTIN, Texas — Austin Homeless Strategy Officer Dianna Grey has submitted her resignation, the City of Austin confirmed on Wednesday.
“Dianna will certainly be missed, and I am sorry to see her go,” Interim City Manager Jesús Garza said. “She held a very challenging position as the Homeless Strategy Officer during particularly challenging times. Her impressive portfolio of work includes formally establishing the City’s Homeless Strategy Division, building a team of dedicated staff and positioning Austin to accomplish our goal of making homelessness brief, rare and nonrecurring. I wish her nothing but success in her future endeavors.”
The City hired Grey two years ago to help solve Austin’s homelessness problems. According to KVUE’s media partners at the Austin American-Statesman, Austin’s homeless population has increased to around 5,000 amid concerns about the effectiveness of the City's strategy.
Grey’s resignation comes after Mayor Kirk Watson announced a $65 million investment to combat homelessness in the city. Those funds will be given through planning and distributed evenly among three nonprofit groups: The Other Ones Foundation (TOOF), Caritas of Austin and Lifeworks.
Councilmember Ryan Alter (District 5) told the Statesman that despite concerns about the City’s homelessness strategy, Grey was not forced out. Garza asked Grey to stay when she handed in her resignation, the Statesman reported.
"I'm sad to see her go," Alter said. "I think she has done a lot of great work to try to help us address our homelessness crisis."
In May 2021, four months after Grey’s arrival, Austinites voted to reinstate a public camping ban. The group behind that initiative, Save Austin Now PAC, put out a statement after Grey’s resignation on Wednesday:
“There is no measure by which a reasonable person can conclude the city’s homeless efforts are working successfully,” said Save Austin Now co-founders Matt Mackowiak and Cleo Petricek. “It is time for the City of Austin to use the resignation of the Homeless Strategy Officer to completely reevaluate its approach to homelessness. We believe four steps are urgently needed. First, a complete and independent audit of all homeless spending since 2019 to measure outcomes, eliminate waste and duplication, and more efficiently deliver services. Second, the city must honor the voter-approved Prop B ordinance and comply with existing state law by fully enforcing Prop B through the reinstatement of the ban on homeless camping. Third, we have two successful models here in our city and they deserve to be supported and replicated: Community First Village and Camp Esperanza. Fourth, the City must abandon its Housing First policy and instead adopt a Treatment First approach. We want our homeless to be safe and receiving services, not dying under highways and being victimized in wooded areas as victims of drug dealers and human and sex traffickers. Now is the time to stop what has failed and adopt what can and will succeed.”