City to consider $4M for emergency rental assistance program amid rising eviction filings

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The Austin City Council will vote in their upcoming council meeting on whether to allocate additional funding to the 'I Belong in Austin' program, which helps Austinites facing evictions pay rent.

The program is operated through El Buen Samaritano, a nonprofit outreach ministry dedicated to help families with healthcare, education, food access, etc.

"I believe in that first of all, this is not a hand-out. It's a hand-up," said Isaac Pozos, who is the chief of programs at El Buen Samaritano. "We are able to be at a place in time to help a family prevent them from being homeless."

One person that was helped through the program is Lakisha Gregory, who was facing eviction in her apartment in July after she got laid off from her job.

"It's not like I didn't want to pay my rent or anything like that. I became unemployed in a situation," Gregory said. "[The program] helped a lot for me and my children, because it made a difference in us being homeless."

Gregory told KXAN the program helped her pay rent for the months of July, August and September. She recently got a job and said she will be able pay for rent by herself now.

In 2024, Travis County recorded 13,210 eviction filings, which is the highest it's been in history according to Building and Strengthening Tenant Action (BASTA), an Austin-based tenant organizing group.

BASTA’s dashboard reports around 10,550 eviction filings by mid-September 2025 — roughly 1,000 more than it recorded during the same period in 2024.

"The increase in evictions will or an increase in eviction filings and actual force moves of tenants is going to right result in greater housing instability in the larger Austin community," said Shoshana Krieger, the Project Director for BASTA. "We anticipate by the end of this year, it will be the highest year ever, and that's a dramatic increase from 2024."

The level of eviction filings is also of concern to Austin's Community Displacement Prevention Officer Nefertitti Jackmon.

"The problem is, is much greater than the resources," Jackmon said. "These are individuals who are rent burdened. They're paying more than 30% of their income on rent and associated utilities or housing costs."

The Austin City Council will meet on Oct. 9 to allocate $4 million to the ‘I Belong in Austin’ program for the 2025–26 fiscal year—an increase from the $3.6 million it allocated for 2024–25.