Sunrise Homeless Navigation center creating safety concerns for Joslin elementary parents

AUSTIN, Texas — Parents of students at one South Austin elementary school say a nearby homeless center is creating safety concerns and are calling for it to be relocated.

Austin ISD parent Courtney Page says she’s apprehensive about re-enrolling her children at Joslin Elementary School in south Austin.

“We had some instances that made me feel unsafe as a parent dropping my child off,” said Page.

While her daughter attended the school for a year and a half, Page says activity around the Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center, which is located right across the street created some unpleasant run-ins.

“We were chased by an individual and they started barking at us and yelling. And then another morning we had another individual screaming at us at the top of their lungs and my daughter was scared where she actually brought her to tears,” Page said.

Courtney recently moved back to the area. While heading to register her two kids at Joslin she noticed the homeless population around the school has increased.

She now questions if allowing her children to return would be in their best interest.

“It breaks my heart because I thought it would be so cool to have my kids go to the same school as I and their GG went to. That would be amazing,” she said.

ALSO| Texas teachers group says many educators 'disgusted' by lawmaker priorities

Mark Hilbelink is the executive director of the Sunrise Homeless Center and says any sort of disruptive behavior is well controlled.

“Much of what we do at this property and the way that we designed our service delivery is based around the school and then based around being a good neighbor to the school,” he said.

Hilbelink adds center is the largest service provider for the unhoused, reaching 80% of the unsheltered population in Travis County.

“We also have a mobile team that actually goes out into encampments to engage with people in encampments. We have a housing program that puts people into apartments, and then we have a wellness program that helps address physical, mental, and substance abuse, harm reduction pharmaceutical needs for folks as well,” said Hilbelink.

Since the center is so close to a school, it only operates between 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and has a crisis intervention specialist on standby should any issues occur amongst other safety mitigation practices.

“In addition to that, we really have a great partnership with the administration and with the principal at the school, to be able to stay in real-time contact if there's any sort of situations happening on their property, on our property, in the neighborhood that would result in them you know, having to worry about potential safety concerns,” said Hilbelink.

Hilbelink feels because the facility is in a highly populated unhoused area, they often get blamed for circumstances out of their control.

“We can't really control anything that's not on our property. We do our best to work with APD, to work with, the school, to work with other folks to do what we can,” he said.

CBS Austin reached out to AISD for comment. In a statement, the school’s Principal Chaolin Chang said:

Our goal at Joslin Elementary is to maintain a safe and welcoming environment for our students, families and staff while respecting our community neighbors, including Sunrise Church and Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center.

We have not had any problems on campus associated with unhoused persons who are receiving services at Sunrise. In limited circumstances when there have been disturbances at Sunrise Church, we have worked proactively with Austin ISD police to prevent disruptions to our school. Austin ISD police are very responsive and continue to help us maintain a safe environment at Joslin.

In addition, plans are underway to add a new fence on Menchaca Road and Redd Street, which will provide an additional buffer for our campus.

My team and I keep an open door for parent issues of all kinds. We are proud of our award-winning PTA and active Campus Advisory Council and are fortunate to have their partnership in maintaining a safe and inclusive campus culture.

If our neighbors feel like a deterrent for any of our families, I welcome them to contact me to discuss any concerns.

“I just disagree with the location. I really care about the homeless, but when do the children matter here? I just want to reiterate, I love Joslin so much as a parent, I would want nothing more for them to go there. I want to register them. I just want to make sure I'm covering everything as a mom to keep them as safe as possible,” said Page.

Mark says there are only three-day centers for the unhoused and he feels adding more facilities would help alleviate the traffic at the center near Joslin. He adds a big reason why the center hasn’t been relocated is because there is no funding to do so.