Should the city of Galveston be relocating homeless people and transporting them off the island?

The Daily News
July 9, 2023

In response to increased complaints, island officials are surveying the city’s homeless population, perhaps with an eye toward taking those who want to leave back to where they came from, officials said.

City council members have received numerous complaints from constituents about an increase in the homeless population and have set up a task force with members of several nonprofit organizations, Mayor Craig Brown said.

The city has anecdotal information the population is increasing because homeless people are being transported to the island initially either to the Galveston County Jail or University of Texas Medical Branch facilities, Brown said.

Heath Harkins, a homeless man living in Galveston, said fear about being shipped off the island is spreading among the homeless. He called The Daily News last week to say police had been detaining and taking homeless people off the island and were following him.