Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Austin-based Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center for operating as a common nuisance in violation of Texas law.

Activities permitted by the center are drastically harming quality of life in the area and endangering neighborhood residents, local businesses, and the students of  nearby Joslin Elementary School.

An Office of Attorney General (OAG) investigation found that the center acts as a “magnet” for drug activity and criminal activity. 

This includes public urination and defecation and violence on or next to the grounds of the nearby elementary school.

Residents testified that individuals frequenting the center have menaced passersby with machetes, masturbated while assaulting female pedestrians, and broken into local homes and businesses.

Sunrise facilitates this by permitting a syringe distributor to hand out drug paraphernalia that creates a draw for drug activity and attendant nuisances.

Sunrise operates mere feet from an elementary school. Students and staff “bear witness to the homeless walking around naked, fornicating, relieving themselves in public, and engaging in open drug use,” according to the filing.

Over the past several years, individuals receiving services from Sunrise have repeatedly broken into the school or otherwise forced the school to enter into “lockdown” due to violent behavior. The City of Austin has contributed more than a million taxpayer dollars to Sunrise.

Residents said the homeless at the SHNC have created meth labs in unoccupied residences, according to the lawsuit. News reports claimed used syringes were found feet from the school. Many police reports revealed that police officers often arrested people affiliated with SHNC while they were in the possession of drugs, the lawsuit alleged.

Paxton asked the court for a temporary injunction preventing Sunrise from continuing to operate as a common nuisance under the Civil Practice & Remedies Code and as a public nuisance under common law.

“Drug activity and criminal behavior facilitated by this organization have hijacked an entire neighborhood,” said Paxton. “By operating a taxpayer-funded drug paraphernalia giveaway next to an elementary school, this organization is threatening students’ health and safety and unjustly worsening daily life for every single resident of the neighborhood. We will shut this unlawful nuisance behavior down.”

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