Austin Council orders public homeless encampment management dashboard with performance metrics and 311 reporting process

City sets January 2026 deadline for implementation plan

The City of Austin is moving forward with a public-facing dashboard intended to track how homeless encampments are reported, assessed, prioritized and addressed across departments. The direction comes from a City Council resolution adopted on November 6, 2025, which instructs the city manager to present an implementation plan to Council no later than January 22, 2026.

The resolution frames the dashboard as a tool to improve data and impact analysis for policymaking and budget planning, while also standardizing how the city coordinates encampment outreach and response. The measure was sponsored by Council Members José Velásquez, Zohaib “Zo” Qadri, José “Chito” Vela and Ryan Alter.

What the dashboard is designed to show

Council’s direction outlines a dashboard that could include status updates on encampment reports, site assessments, prioritization decisions, outreach efforts and encampment response actions. The resolution also calls for the creation of performance measures tied to encampment management, signaling an emphasis on operational tracking rather than a single “map” of locations.

• How often outreach is attempted before an enforcement action
• How often posted notice is provided at least 72 hours before a cleanup or enforcement action
• The weight of debris collected during cleanups
• Average time to respond to an encampment report
• Total number of locations serviced through the encampment management process

311 reporting changes and language-access requirements

The resolution also directs the city manager to provide a plan to facilitate public reporting through the city’s 311 system for two categories of concerns: general welfare of residents experiencing homelessness and encampments themselves. The facilitation plan is required to comply with Austin’s Comprehensive Language Access Policy.

Privacy and technology constraints included in Council’s directive

Alongside transparency goals, Council’s resolution requires the dashboard plan to align with broader city technology policies, including safeguards for vulnerable populations and limits on the collection of biometric data. The resolution further calls for clear measures explaining how any collected identifiable information would be protected.

Context: intensified encampment activity and coordination demands

The dashboard directive follows heightened public focus on encampment response in late 2025, when city-led efforts reported hundreds of encampment locations addressed over a multi-week period, along with shelter placements, service referrals, debris removal and limited enforcement actions. Against that backdrop, Council’s action formalizes expectations for measurable practices—such as documented outreach and advance notice—while establishing a timeline for a citywide plan to publish standardized information for residents and policymakers.

The city manager must deliver an implementation plan to Council by January 22, 2026.