Housing St John's Camp

Queertopia has been working alongside St John’s since 2021 to provide resources and support towards housing. This historically Black neighborhood is constantly being gentrified- pushed out of their legacy homes and treated like strangers in a town they created. St. John's was once a thriving Black community- now the city does Nothing proactive to preserve these homes and help these families even survive.

From 2021-2022, Queertopia did not stop pressuring the city until 40 members of St John’s camp were picked up for housing- the highest number of women and highest number of Black Austinites the city has ever included in their HEAL program. The city previously claimed this camp would never be a HEAL site. We worked together with the camp as a family to build cold weather structures, get all of their documents, all of their warrants dropped, start housing applications, etc.

Unfortunately, many of those folks were kicked out of the city’s housing program due to lack of understanding of trauma informed care, lack of harm reduction, and lack of community partnerships- shutting the campers off from their support systems. It is now 2024- the Home Depot lot has finally been cleared and St. John's Park is on constant threat of demolition -which will make it even more difficult to find our friends who we have been raising funds for years for/ and who occasionally get assigned vouchers through other programs.

Queertopia is still the main service provider for the unhoused community at St. John's. Each year we rent a hotel (through Instagram fundraising, not Open Collective) during the coldest week of the year so that pwud still have access to what they need and are not declining shelter to be forced to use in potentially life threatening conditions outside. We provide boots on the ground vital document ordering and advocacy. This Juneteenth we were able to rent a hotel for everyone from St John's who wanted to go (40 people) so that Black people would not be sleeping on concrete while white people are lounging at their homes off from work on a Black holiday.

(Needs update from 9/23-7/24:)

In the time this Open Collective has been up- y’all have supported us getting 15 people into housing at Community First Village, with 6 peoples’ rent being paid for an entire year before they successfully took rent over via jobs or benefits. Funds have also been used for emergency assistance to avoid evictions for anyone else when late. This includes when Social Security Administration does not get people's benefits checks to them on time and CFV charges a late fee. EVERY person Queertopia has financially assisted through this fund has been Black or Indigenous AND either an elder, queer, or a sex worker. Our current waitlist is comprised only of Black and Indigenous sex workers. It is not ideal to default to CFV, which is on the outskirts of Austin and who evicts tenants on the 2nd month rent is late, as opposed to keeping Black Austinites in their neighborhoods- but this is Austin’s current liberal wet dream of a homelessness solution and one of the only tangible options for folks without vouchers.

We currently sponsor 2 people’s monthly rent through our "reparations" tier plus assisting a third person who can't make their rent. We only have 3 more folks on our multi year long waitlist before reopening it! But now, thanks to discriminatory evictions, we are having to place several folks back on the list and locate other housing options.



*For transparency- Queertopia was not initially financially responsible for the waitlist made in 2022 with two other organizations, but once HEAL came through, the very well funded org who was approved $100k to payroll the campers at CFV abandoned all responsibility, leaving QT with the choice of abandoning the waitlist as well or spending years finding funding on our own, through incredible community like you. We do not abandon our friends. If Queertopia has one golden rule- it is always be intentional, always be transparent. Housing is a human right.

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PSS: That whole "today's balance" thing is really frustratingly inaccurate. Idk why it does not show an accurate representation of our current funds.