City of Austin receives $4M grant to create reuse warehouse to benefit homeless

AUSTIN, Texas - The EPA has selected the City of Austin to receive a $4 million grant to create a reuse warehouse that will accept furniture donations from residents and then redistribute them to nonprofits working on transitional housing for the homeless.

The city is one of 25 communities to receive the grant as part of EPA's Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling Program.

"We're calling it an Austin Reuse Warehouse," said Jason McCombs, Division Manager With Austin Resource Recovery

Once fully operational, the reuse warehouse will accept drop-off furniture donations to redistribute to nonprofit organizations working to furnish transitional homes for the homeless.

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"It's an area that we see that we have an opportunity to help support the community here and that we can accept furniture to this warehouse, hopefully do some repairs, and then provide that material back to the community or non-profits, especially those transitioning out of homelessness is the goal here," said McCombs.

He says the hope is to have this warehouse up and running by 2026.

"The grant funding is really just to secure space, like real estate for the warehouse itself, and will also be used to help with equipment," said McCombs.

McCombs believes this warehouse will be a huge asset for the City of Austin's continued efforts to end the homelessness crisis and goal of zero waste by 2040.

"I think this is just building another resource that can support the community and provide another outlet, so instead of putting this furniture into the landfill, we have another outlet that we can, you know, put this furniture to a higher and better use," he said.

Council will officially put this to a vote in the Fall.