Austin, TX - On Tuesday, November 26, 2024, Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center was notified via the press that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit to stop Sunrise from providing humanitarian services to people experiencing homelessness at its South Austin location.

“It is regrettable that the Attorney General Paxton took this route, especially during the week of Thanksgiving, but Sunrise intends to keep offering services to people in our community who need them,” said Mark Hilbelink, Executive Director of Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center. “We are committed to being a good neighbor. We will continue to work, every day, to support Joslin Elementary School, our neighborhood, and our entire community.”

Austin, Texas – Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center, the highest-volume provider of homeless services in Travis County, is expanding Austin’s first dedicated homelessness hotline call center, thanks to funding from the City of Austin. The expansion, which increases availability from 4 hours a day to 12 hours a day, will provide even greater access to critical services and coordinated housing assessments for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.

Thanks to your support, we served over 10,000 clients in 2023, assisting more than 800 households in securing safe, affordable housing!

Sunrise has significantly expanded its ability to meet the growing needs of our community. Our impressive growth is attributed to innovative programs and a commitment to data-driven services, producing the amazing statistics we are excited to share here in our 2023 Year in Review.

We're excited about expanding and refining our work in 2024 as we empower people experiencing homelessness.

This past fall, we initiated our inaugural 3-year Strategic Plan. This blueprint outlines our primary objectives for the upcoming months, and the prospect of witnessing our continuous growth is genuinely exciting.

As we embark on this new journey in 2024, I am grateful for the unwavering support of our community, the dedication of our team, and the resilience of those we serve.

Together, we can continue to make a meaningful impact on the lives of our unhoused friends.

Volunteers at Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center gave bandanas soaked in ice cold water to people experiencing homelessness during the summer heat.

Last week’s freeze was the first major test of the changes Austin has made to its cold weather and emergency shelter precautions since the winter storm in February 2021, and it showed that despite improvements in the city’s coordination and planning, weaknesses persist.

Last year we connected over 6,500 people experiencing homelessness to innovative, low-barrier solutions and housing resources across Austin.

Dozens of staff from the City of Austin and partner agencies helped shelter hundreds of vulnerable people from the cold weather at up to five overnight Cold Weather Shelters between Thursday evening and Tuesday morning.

John Marcus Gordy, who has been homeless since he was evicted in July, warms up by a fire at the Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center on Friday December 23, 2022.

Standing in a gravel lot, with the sun pinned high in the October sky, Steve sees his former self as he makes his daily rounds through a homeless encampment filled with people grappling with substance use disorder. When he is approached by a man in the camp who admits his recent struggles with substances, Steve offers advice in the form of an analogy.

AUSTIN, Texas - With temperatures quickly dropping Thursday, community members have been doing what they can to help out the homeless community to stay warm.

The city of Austin announced Wednesday it was opening up to three cold weather shelters Thursday for anyone needing a warm place to sleep as an Arctic cold front makes its way south to Central Texas, plunging overnight temperatures into the teens and creating dangerous outdoor conditions for people experiencing homelessness.

Like any good Christmas party, Sunrise Homeless Prevention Center’s celebration had holiday music, food, and Santa himself present. The cold though would soon be an unwanted guest once the sun went down and the unhoused in attendance would search for somewhere to get out of the cold.

Earlier in the year, the Travis County Medical Examiner's Office reported that fentanyl-related overdoses had increased by 237% since 2020, making overdose the leading cause of accidental death in the county. In May, the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance organized a rousing town hall that brought first responders, drug users, homeless outreach organizations, and public officials together and highlighted the urgency of expanding the city's and county's response to the opioid crisis. The declaration of a public health emergency unlocked $350,000 in new funding and staffing for local harm reduction organizations and the county, and a plan to increase availability of methadone treatment for opioid addiction through Integral Care.

On Nov. 16, members from several community groups fighting homelessness stood outside the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance center to celebrate securing nearly 7,000 free 31-day bus passes for unhoused Austinites.

Hotline devoted to Austin's homeless population.

The Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center will officially launch a hotline on Tuesday to connect people experiencing homelessness with housing assessments and other resources.

Austin, Texas – Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center, the highest-volume provider of homeless services in Travis County, is officially launching Austin’s first homelessness hotline call center which allows people experiencing homelessness to connect to integral services and coordinated housing assessments directly by phone, which are often difficult to find offered in person.