(Credit: City of Austin)
Trash has long been a component of homelessness in Austin, but with the rise of more public camps in the wake of the city council’s decision to relax ordinances governing camping, sitting, and lying in public, some people feel the issue has steadily grown even more visible. To combat the problem, the City of Austin is launching a pilot program dubbed “Violet Bag.”
Over the next six weeks, the city will provide weekly trash pickups at four hotspots: 183 at Ohlen Road, 183 at Cameraon Road, I-35 at Cesar Chavez, and Highway 71 at Packsaddle Pass. Violet-colored bags will be placed in strategic locations around the city with the expectation that homeless people will pick up after themselves, and then bring the trash bags to one of the four pickup locations each week.
Critics of the program say they don’t expect the program to be much a solution since is does not include any sort of enforcement mechanism.
