The Downtown Austin Community Court plays a vital role in the broad array of organizations providing services and care to the city’s unhoused population. And thanks to newly won federal grants, they’ll be able to expand the work they do – and where they do it – over the next several years.
Part of the role DACC plays is right there, explicitly in the agency’s name – DACC is a “problem-solving” court that serves as a venue for people to resolve minor criminal offenses (Class C misdemeanors only). For Austin’s poorest community members, that often involves one of DACC’s deferral programs, which typically results in the court agreeing to dismiss a defendant’s criminal case if they commit to working with a case manager on agreed-upon goals – finding a job, engaging in behavioral therapy, signing up for housing assistance.
That’s all tied into the “community” portion of DACC’s mission. The agency aims to not just help people deal with arrest warrants or citations for public intoxication but to connect them with their team of case managers to address any personal and economic challenges that may have contributed to them getting caught up in the justice system in the first place.
But as DACC court administrator Robert Kingham explained, the agency’s brick-and-mortar location – in an unassuming office tower near South First Street and Barton Springs Road – can be intimidating for some of the population DACC hopes to serve. It is a court, after all, complete with a judge, prosecutors, and law enforcement personnel. Not exactly the most inviting place for someone living on the street who also has a warrant out for their arrest.
Enter the mobile court, which launched as a pilot program in October of 2023 but is something Kingham says DACC has been wanting to do for years. Now, thanks to two Department of Justice grants that City Council formally accepted at their Nov. 21 meeting, DACC will be able to run an expanded version of the mobile court through Fiscal Year 2027-28. The grants total $1.45 million and required the city to contribute about $156,000 in matching funds.
The mobile court concept is simple – take DACC’s services and bring them to people in the community, in places where the people who need those services may feel more comfortable. To do that, DACC has partnered with two of the most trusted service providers in Austin – Sunrise Navigation Center and Austin-Travis County EMS’ community health paramedics.
“We want to have the least amount of staff members at a mobile court event as possible.” – DACC Court Administrator Robert Kingham
Twice a month, DACC shows up at Sunrise Church or at an ATCEMS pop-up resource event and offers to help anyone with an outstanding court case work on resolving it – as long as they’re interested. Being available but not pressuring people to utilize the court’s services has been a key piece of the program’s success, Kingham said. (In the past years, 141 cases have been docketed during a mobile court visit and 93 warrants have been cleared.)
“We want to have the least amount of staff members at a mobile court event as possible,” Kingham said, acknowledging how that might sound counterintuitive. “The more people we have, the more resistance we saw,” he continued, also acknowledging a core tension that DACC has always dealt with – the agency has great capacity to help people in need, but they’re also a criminal court, which can scare off some who might benefit from the agency’s services.
“As our staffing levels went down,” Kingham said, “our global court participation went up.” Another factor in the program’s success has been showing up in the same spaces over and over again. At first, someone may be reluctant to look up their active cases. But, seeing DACC at an event two or three times – especially as others are utilizing the court’s services – may ease that hesitation.
“Going to places repeatedly has been key,” Kingham said. “Being able to do that over the next several years will really help the program.”
This article appears in December 13 • 2024.