Election season is back! This fall, half of Austin's City Council seats are up for election... and that's a lot of candidates! But don't worry, as always, we're here to break it all down for you.

In this episode we cover the District 4 (north/east Austin) City Council race. Host Amy Stansbury sits down with four of the candidates:

José "Chito" Vela (interview starts at 9:20)

Monica Guzmán (interview starts at 29:13)

Louis Herrin (interview starts at 48:40)

Jim Rabuck (interview starts at 01:09:13)

Eduardo "Lalito" Romero did not respond to our interview request. You can learn more about him via the League of Women Voters Guide - https://austinvotersguide.org/LWVAA-VG-EN.pdf

Not sure which Council district you live in? You can look it up here - www.austintexas.gov/government

Election season is back! This fall, half of Austin's City Council seats are up for election... and that's a lot of candidates! But don't worry, as always, we're here to break it all down for you.

In this episode we cover the District 6 (northwest Austin) City Council race. Host Amy Stansbury sits down with both of the candidates - Mackenzie Kelly and Krista Laine.

Not sure which Council district you live in? You can look it up here - www.austintexas.gov/government

Election season is back! This fall, half of Austin's City Council seats are up for election... and that's a lot of candidates! But don't worry, as always, we're here to break it all down for you.

In this episode we cover the District 10 (west Austin) City Council race. Host Amy Stansbury sits down with five of the candidates:

Pierre Huy Nguyễn (interview starts at 9:18)

Todd Shaw (interview starts at 31:50)

Edwin Bautista (interview starts at 51:15)

Mike Siegel (interview starts at 1:16:01)

Adam Powell (interview starts at 1:36:10)

Gary Bledsoe did not respond to our interview request. You can learn more about him here - https://www.bledsoeforaustin.com/

Not sure which Council district you live in? You can look it up here - www.austintexas.gov/government

Election season is back! This fall, half of Austin's City Council seats are up for election... and the mayor's race is on the ballot... that's a lot of candidates! But don't worry, as always, we're here to break it all down for you.

In this episode we cover Austin's mayoral election. Host Amy Stansbury sits down with four of the five candidates running:

Kirk Watson (interview starts at 6:36)

Kathie Tovo (interview starts at 36:15)

Carmen Llanes Pulido (interview starts at 1:10:20)

Jeffery Bowen (1:41:30)

The final candidate in the race, Doug Greco, did not respond to our interview request. You can learn more about him on his campaign website - https://www.grecoforaustin.com/

Election season is back! This fall, half of Austin's City Council seats are up for election... and that's a lot of candidates! But don't worry, as always, we're here to break it all down for you.

In this episode we cover the District 10 (west Austin) City Council race. Host Amy Stansbury sits down with both candidates - Marc Duchen and Ashika Ganguly.

Not sure which Council district you live in? You can look it up here - https://www.austintexas.gov/government

After a bit of a break, our podcast mini series on homelessness is back with a look into one of the solutions to homelessness - Rapid Rehousing. Host Amy Stansbury speaks with Eli Cortez and Alfredo Reyes Jr. (VOCAL-TX) about what the program is, who it does (and doesn't) work well for, and their advocacy efforts to try and improve the program at the local level.

Later in the episode, we also hear a brief update from Austin City Council Member Ryan Alter.

On May 4th, voters in Travis County will get to vote for 3 seats on the Travis Central Appraisal District Board of Directors. It's a super confusing election, but as always, we're here to explain it all for ya!

This episode features interviews with nearly all of the candidates, including Don Zimmerman, Jett Hanna, Shenghao "Daniel" Wang, Jonathan Patschke, Matt Mackowiak, & Dick Lavine.

Our podcast mini-series on homelessness continues with a focus on emergency shelter, which is meant to provide people with a safe place to sleep (temporarily), while they work to get connected to more permanent housing. But in Austin, we don't have enough emergency shelter beds, which can mean long wait lists, just to find a place to sleep that isn't outside.

How do our shelters deal with this? And how does emergency shelter in Austin work anyway? To help answer these questions, host Amy Stansbury spoke with Max Moscoe and David Gomez of The Other Ones Foundation (which runs Esperanza Community) and Kirkpatrick Tyler of Urban Alchemy (which runs the ARCH).

This episode of the The Austin Common Radio Hour kicks off a mini-series on homelessness in Austin. In this first episode, we focus on some of the first steps a person experiencing homelessness might take on their path toward receiving services and eventually gaining access to housing.... visiting the Sunrise Hub (a homelessness services day center in south Austin) and taking a Coordinated Assessment (which is both a wait list and a prioritization tool for determining who gets access to subsidized or supportive housing services).

But what happens when that wait list is really long? To help answer that question, we spoke with Mark Hilbelink (executive director of the Sunrise Navigation Center) and Alesandra Dominguez (director of crisis response at ECHO).

On December 7th, Austin City Council will vote on the HOME Initiative, a proposal to allow up to three housing units to be built on single-family lots. The idea is to increase the city's supply of "missing middle" housing, but like so many debates related to housing and land use, the issue is complicated.

In this episode of The Austin Common Radio Hour, host Amy Stansbury interviews several people with an array of perspectives on the issue - Austin City Council Member Leslie Pool, Carmen Llanes (Executive Director of Go Austin/Vamos Austin and a former Austin Planning Commissioner), and Jake Wegmann (who sits on the faculty of the Community and Regional Planning Program at the University of Texas at Austin).