Contact: Courtney Lucas, Project Lead, Courtney.Lucas@traviscountytx.gov, 512-854-3415

Austin, Texas – The Research & Planning Division within Travis County Health and Human Services recently completed the FY 2016 Community Impact Report. This report offers highlights of community conditions most pertinent to the services purchased within each issue area and details investment, programmatic and performance information on over $18.8 million of the Department’s social service contracts in FY 2016. At tomorrow’s Tuesday, April 11th Commissioners Court voting session, staff will present an overview of the investments in each of the nine issue areas and one pilot project.

Key findings of the report include:

• Travis County population has grown by 27% since 2006; population in areas outside the City of Austin increased by 37%
• 13% of County residents (153,579 people) lived in poverty in 2015
• Nearly 160,000 households experienced a housing cost burden in 2015
• 14% of County residents (168,371 people) lacked health insurance in 2015
• 8.7% of the Travis County population (102,577 people) were age 65 and older in 2015; this population is projected to increase to 10.4% by 2020
• 35% of clients served by these investments were under the age of 18
• 25% of clients served had incomes below 50% of the Federal Poverty Income Guidelines (FPIG) and 20% had incomes between 50% and 100% of FPIG
• A majority of clients served resided in eastern areas of the County

“Travis County strives to remain both responsive to community needs and accountable for public dollars,” said Travis County Judge Sarah Eckhardt. “The Community Impact Report, released annually by our Health and Human Services Department, demonstrates our commitment to both. It illustrates the social conditions we try to address and how our investments help respond to them.”

The report will be presented to the Commissioner’s Court during the morning of the April 11^th voting session. The report may be viewed here:

The report may be viewed here: https://www.traviscountytx.gov/health-human-services/research-planning/cir-2016.

Damita Miller-Shanklin

Ujima Magazine

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