Nighttime temperatures in Austin
will not be cold enough this week to
warrant the opening of warming
shelters But last month's prolonged
freeze did highlight the lack of
nutritious food being served at one
refuge in town We're gonna hear from
someone who's taking shelter there
and the people helping to fill
that need Plus Travis County
District Attorney Jose Garza is
joining a group of DA's banding
together to hold federal officers
Accountable to the world of law
what brought them together and the
complicated process that the project
is hoping to tackle Those stories
are coming up on today's show.
The Austin Signal is a production
of KUT News, hosted by
Jerry Quijano.
And a new photo exhibit at the
Central Library celebrates
black-owned businesses in Austin and
their role in preserving the city's
cultural history.
Come hear more about it.
That's up next on Austin Signal.
Howdy out there, this is Austin
Signal. Thank you for tuning in to
listener-powered public radio KUT
News. It is the first Monday
of February 2026,
just about 9% finished with
the new year.
We're glad that you're starting off
the new week here with us.
A quick note before we roll
on with the show. Today is the
deadline to register to vote in
Texas to be eligible for the March 3
primary. Voters will be deciding who
will appear on this fall's ballot
for races.
That include governor, U.S.
House and Senate, and state
legislature.
You can check if you're registered
to vote at votetexas.gov.
And remember, you cannot register
online to vote.
You can mail in or bring in a
registration form to your county
elections office.
That form is available, again,
votetexis.gov, it has to be
postmarked or submitted today.
We have more about that at kut.org.
Also on the website is a story about
women who during last month's harsh
free state at an Austin shelter
without proper food, leading
to online backlash and even
regular folks sending over some
pizzas for them.
For more about that story, we are
joined by QUT's Government
Accountability Reporter, Andrew
Weber. Thanks for starting your
Monday off with us, Andrew.
Yes, sir. Thank you for having me,
Jerry. So tell us which
shelter was this and who's
responsible for operating the
shelter.
This is the Eighth Street
Shelter, which I think a lot of
folks would know by its previous
moniker, the Salvation Army Shelter.
It operated as that for years.
And it's actually the longest
standing shelter in Austin,
but it serves only women.
And so it's about 165
folks regularly.
There were about 300, more
than 300 folks who,
and the shelter is
run now by Endeavors,
which is a nonprofit in San Antonio.
And, uh, this...
This situation there at the 8th
Street shelter got some recent
criticism, obviously because of the
freeze that we had last month, but
it seems like this wasn't an
isolated instance at this location,
correct?
Yeah. Yeah. This all started because
of a Reddit post and folks were
like, hey, these conditions,
this food rather doesn't look great.
It was sort of a paltry
sandwich. It was two pieces of bread
and a packet of peanut
butter and jam.
And some folks had sort of intimated
that it might be that
sort of conditions, that
food service might be sort the norm
there, so we decided to check it
out.
And you spoke to somebody who has
taken shelter at 8th Street before.
Were they there during this recent
freeze? Who did you speak with?
Yeah, yeah. I spoke with a woman who
wanted to be known as Star.
She didn't want to, you know, give
her a real name because she didn't
wanna speak out and maybe get kicked
out of the shelter.
She's been there since May.
So that's a while.
And she said that the
sandwiches that they offered
over the freeze are pretty much what
they offer every day for lunch.
And that a lot of the food,
even if it is a dinner,
something like chicken, it usually
comes in pretty cold.
It really isn't enough to
fill you up.
We're hungry, you know, because it's
not nutritious, really.
Majority of us are hungry all the
time.
Yeah, and so I reached
out to Endeavors, the non-profit,
and I didn't really hear anything on
the record from them.
They deferred to the city, who
said that this was an isolated
incident and that they were working
on this and that food service was
adequate outside.
Reporting on the homeless community
here in Austin has been something
that you've been doing for lots of
years here at KUT.
And often in these situations,
community members and community
organizations step in to fill
the gaps that are
there in the community.
One such person that you talk about
in your story is Pamela Bryant.
Who is she? Tell us a little bit
about her.
Yeah, yeah, Pamela Bryant runs
a nonprofit called Walking by
Faith Prison Ministry.
She previously was homeless, so
she's been sort of an activist,
a service provider for the last
couple of years. Since 2023, when I
met her, she was out giving hot
meals to folks in camps who weren't
in shelters.
And when she was
on the streets, she said that a home
cooked meal from her grandma meant
the world to her and sort of gave
her time to reflect and see
how she could doing better and you
know maybe get off the street.
But when you give them that home
cooked food, they remember and
sometimes it touched their stomachs
and it touched their souls and it
touched their mind and
that's when you can have a
relationship, a decent
conversation with them where they
want to change.
Okay, we have been speaking with
Andrew Weber.
He is KUT's Government
Accountability Reporter.
We're gonna have a link to his
reporting in today's show notes, and
you can always find more over at
kut.org.
Thank you, Andrew, for your
reporting on this story.
Appreciate it, Jerry.
The push and pull between states'
rights and federal overreach is a
tell as old as the country itself.
Its most recent iteration is in
the form of US immigration and
customs enforcement operations in
cities around the country, cracking
down and arresting protesters,
legal observers and US citizens.
With the lack of federal government
oversight over what some are calling
questionable actions, a set of local
district attorneys from across the
country are banding together to hold
federal officers accountable to the
rule of law. It's a project called
the Fight Against Federal Overreach,
and Travis County's District
Attorney Jose Garza is part of the
coalition.
He's with us today on Austin Signal.
And, Dea Garza, thanks for speaking
with us. Dea. Thanks for having me.
So, I think the average listener
of KUT has been well aware of
the things that have been going on
in this country, particularly in
Minnesota, but also here in
Texas as well.
So, tell us a little bit about this
project, how it came together, and
how y'all decided uh...
That you needed to to band together
and work together
Well first, it's been a week
since what appears
to me to be murder
of Alex Preti.
Like so many people last
weekend when the shooting happened,
I was outraged.
As I said, I heartbroken not just
for the people in communities
involved but for all of us because
of what that shooting
means about the current state of
our democracy.
And so I was so grateful when my
colleague from Philadelphia, Larry
Krasner, reached out to me
during the weekend to
ask me to help be
part of the solution.
Many of us are in
frequent communication.
We deal with the same challenges,
regardless of whether we're on the
west coast or north or south
or east coast.
And it just
made sense for us to get
together.
And to start doing our part to keep
our community safe.
And so that was last week and the
same weekend as the killing of Alex
Preti, that all kind of started
bubbled up?
That's correct. Okay, so what
are the advantages, and you
mentioned the DA from Philadelphia,
I believe. There's a few from
Virginia as well, Dallas.
What are the advantage of this group
of district attorneys working
together as opposed to individually
in this moment?
Well, we should be clear as a
starting place that, you
know, contrary to
the comments from our vice president
and other commentators in
the administration,
federal law enforcement agents
are not absolutely immune
from criminal prosecution.
Each of us has a responsibility to
uphold the laws in our state.
And if a law enforcement
officer breaks the laws of the state
of Texas...
We have an absolute obligation to
hold them accountable.
But we should also be clear that
holding accountable federal agents
is difficult.
The law and procedure
around that kind of legal
process can be complicated.
We are also well aware that
in this moment of
heightened and pitched partisanship,
that if ever any of
us were in a circumstance where we
had to make the difficult decision
about whether or not a federal law
enforcement agent should be held
accountable, that we
anticipate that we would be up
against the full weight of the
federal government and probably
the full of the
right-wing political apparatus,
including its funding and legal
infrastructure.
And because of that, there is
real value in prosecutors
across the country coming
together to share information.
To help teach each other
about the complicated process
that is entailed if
a federal law enforcement officer
needs to be held accountable,
and so that we can pool resources.
And I think the real
reason behind this,
I think, is the same reason
that animates so much
of the activity that we
see happening on the streets of
Minneapolis, Chicago, Los
Angeles. Here in Austin over
the weekend. I think the point is
that in this moment
where what we are facing
feels so big and existential,
us coming together is a reminder
to our communities and
to each other that we are not alone
in this moment, that we're
more powerful together.
And I think that's what
we're trying to get across and what
we trying to accomplish in this
moment.
When are y'all planning to meet
and and what does that what might
that end up in telling?
We're actually getting together
later this week in person.
I think there's a couple of things
that we hope to do, and again, most
importantly, we hope to learn
and share information.
We are really
fortunate to be joined in this
coalition by the prosecuting
attorney in Minneapolis, and
she is currently
investigating the
conduct that all of us witnessed
last week, and so it
will be an opportunity for us to
hear in real time.
What that experience has been like.
Just as someone who's
observing what's happening in
Minneapolis, I know that the legal
proceedings have been
unusual.
Your listeners may have read that
the state of Minnesota had to go
into federal court to get a
court order ordering DHS
to preserve evidence.
So it will be important for all of
us to be aware of the kind of legal
steps that they took so that we can
be prepared to take the steps
if we need to.
And then there's also a
member of our coalition who has
successfully prosecuted
a federal law enforcement agent
in Virginia.
And so it'll be an opportunity for
us to learn in more detail what
that process and experience was
like.
And then I think there are some
concrete steps that each of us need
to take to
prepare our communities to
respond to the kind of violence that
we're seeing across the country.
We'll be talking about those
tangible steps, and I hope that
I will be.
Coming back from that meeting with
some real tangible steps that
our community can take.
In the Minneapolis,
D.A., that is, of course, in a state
that has a Democratic governor.
That seems as though maybe there
might be a little more willingness
to work hand-in-hand
in that state.
But here in Texas, Governor Greg
Abbott is a Republican.
He's often made it a point to stop
instances of a Democratic-led
city governance or actions.
I'm thinking here in Austin
specifically about ordinances
like plastic bag bans or Uber
regulations. Uh, on social media,
uh, g- Governor Abbott said quote
local prosecutors should be working
with not against federal law
enforcement to enforce the law and
keep our community safe That was the
end of his quote there.
What do you have to say to that?
Well, the governor has a
responsibility to keep all
Texans safe, not
to be subservient to
this president.
At the end of the day, the governor
of the state of Texas works for
the people of the State of Texas.
And I would remind him of that,
just as I am proud to work for the
People of Travis County.
What I wake up every
morning thinking about is
the work that we have to do to
keep our community safe.
I am deeply concerned that what
the governor wakes up every morning
thinking about is how he can better
serve Donald Trump.
They have become one
in the same, which is deeply
disappointing, but not at all
surprising.
And I'm going to continue to be
focused on the
work of keeping our community safe.
We are
really grateful to have fantastic
working relationships with
all of our federal Law Enforcement
Partners from ATF.
To FBI, to the United States
Attorney's Office.
We work together day
in and day out to keep this
community safe.
We're in close contact with those
agencies and we're gonna
continue to be.
What we're talking about here is
instances where federal
law enforcement break state law.
And in those circumstances, I would
think and hope that everyone in
the state of Texas would be
committed to upholding the
laws of our state.
That's what we're gonna do.
If the governor chooses to do
something else, that's up to him.
Do you think this is something that
your voters want you to pursue in
your role as Travis County District
Attorney?
What I have seen over
the last several weeks is
the compassion,
the heart, and the persistence
of this community.
At the end of the day,
the work of the district attorney's
office is guided by
the laws passed by the state
of Texas legislature.
And what the legislature
has said is that
the role of the local prosecutor
is not to seek convictions, but
to see that justice is done.
And the fundamental question
that animates our democracy and our
judicial system is who gets
to decide what justice
is, who gets decide when
justice is down. And I think the
answer is really simple.
You do.
Every single person listening to
this broadcast does.
The people who live and
work and vote in Travis County get
to decide what justice is
They have said repeatedly and
clearly what they think justice
is, and it's my responsibility
to see their aspirations
and their visions for justice
in our community through.
Alright, we have been speaking with
Travis County District Attorney Jose
Garza, D.A.
Garza. Thank you so much for talking
with us here on Austin Signal.
Thank you for having me.
And in more news, Texas prisons
without air conditioning get so hot
in summer, temperatures would
violate state standards for other
lockups like county jails.
That's according to a new analysis
of four years of heat data.
The Texas Newsroom and Data Fellows
at UT Austin's Media Innovation
Group spent over a year analyzing
temperatures at dozens of state
prisons without AC.
We have more about that story at
kut.org, and we have more
Austin Signal coming up
after this break.
This is Austin Signal, thank you for
making us part of your Monday.
A new photo exhibit at Austin's
Central Library celebrates
black-owned businesses and their
role in preserving the city's
cultural history.
And as Stephanie Federico reports
for KUT's Art Beat,
the show also includes some
personal treasures.
Stephen Hatchet is standing in front
of an old barber's chair.
As you can see in the right hand
side of the armchair there
is an ashtray.
The leather is creased and worn.
Stuffing pokes out from one corner
of the seat.
Right below the ashtray is
a lever so that the barber
can pump the
chair up higher or lower.
There's oil smeared around the base.
Because back in the day you had to
fill that oil and get those gears to
work.
Thousands of customers got their
hair cut in this chair over the
decades.
It might seem weird to have a
barber's chair in a photo exhibit,
but look behind it at the giant
photo on the wall.
In it, barber Kevin Asprey can be
seen through the front window of
Marshall's barber shop on 12th
Street in East Austin.
It's one of about a dozen
photographs in Hatchet's show called
Holding Spaces.
The exhibit combines photos with
objects from black owned businesses
in Austin, objects that he
calls artifacts.
That overlay, that image,
works perfectly as he's
looking out over
the chair.
That is the artifact that
speaks true to why he does it and
is still there doing it.
Hatchet is a portrait photographer
and co-founder of a nonprofit called
Of Color.
The group supports the work of
underrepresented communities in
Austin.
In holding spaces, he makes the case
for supporting black businesses in
the communal spaces they create.
He argues that's needed to preserve
cultural history and fight
gentrification.
He's also hoping to tell a deeper
story of resilience and belonging.
Even though the idea of
displacement and
folks leaving Austin is
a very real thing, the folks
that choose to stay, the folk that
choose do the work, and the folks
that choose the whole space,
they are the lifeblood of the
culture here.
The exhibit includes portraits and
stories from Rich's Art Gallery,
Black Pearl Books, Kickin' It ATX,
and others.
Taylor Danielle Davis is an
independent curator and cultural
arts producer.
She helped put the show together.
And there's been a huge fight to
protect cultural spaces, especially
in East Austin and the historic
Sixth Square.
So to hold onto those spaces and
to really highlight
that they're here and that
they are important, that they doing
great work, I think that that's what
this project means to me.
Davis says she worked with Hatchet
to make the exhibit feel more
immersive and to bring businesses
into the gallery space.
They collected objects, like the
barber's chair, from some of the
people featured in the photos.
There's also a collection of books
recommended by Black Pearl,
a sneaker from Kicken at ATX.
All of those little things sort of
make this more than just a photo
exhibit, and that was really
exciting to kind of work with him to
figure that out.
Across the room from the barber's
chair, there's a giant vinyl photo
of Minnie Little.
She's staring into a mirror at her
salon, Chag Noir.
There's a plastic baggie in a glass
case next to the photo.
In the bag is a lock of curly gray
hair.
This was one of Little's offerings
for the exhibit.
As soon as I picked it up and I held
it in my hand, I was like, this
feels very heavy.
I was, like, who's is this?
She said, that's my grandmother's
hair, very casual about it.
A lot of these participants, I
invited them to submit
artifacts that meant something to
them.
To the right of the shag noir
artifacts is another display with
handmade wooden spoons.
They belong to Chi Indika.
She owns Love Fats Ice Cream.
She says she grew up using similar
spoons on trips to Kenya when she
was young.
It's just something that like
reminds me of my family and
like the food that I used to
eat when I would go to Kenya and
still eat.
A photo in the exhibit shows Indika
smiling from the service window of
her former ice cream shop on North
Lamar.
She says her business has allowed
her to build a new community.
It's just a beautiful place to
experience some joy and
to be able to be
around like-minded people and new
people that you wouldn't necessarily
be around.
Indica had to close her shop last
year after her rent went up almost
$1,000.
Her new brick and mortar space in
East Austin isn't open yet.
Back in the gallery, Hatch says he
came up with the idea for the
exhibit after hearing stories about
the pressure to keep black-owned
businesses open.
What came out of hearing their
stories became sort
of a spiritual awakening around the
idea of
us wanting to hold a
space for our humanity and
safety and in
camaraderie with what
it means to be black in Austin.
Hatchet moved here from Chicago nine
years ago.
He says black newcomers can feel
disconnected in a city until they
find community.
These Austin business owners want to
stay to provide that community.
They need to be here.
I think that's the most important
piece to me is at the
end of this exhibit, if folks
can get an eye over
the shoulder of one of these
entrepreneurs and learn that
through the blood, sweat, tears,
the ability to say,
I deserve
to be here and here's why.
For KUT's Art Beat, I'm Stephanie
Federico in Austin.
The Holding Spaces exhibit is
up through March 29th at the Central
Library in downtown Austin.
There is an artist reception
happening this Thursday at
the gallery on the second floor of
the library.
That is from 5.30 until
8 p.m. We're gonna have a link to
this story and the others we covered
today in our podcast show
notes. And that is it for
today's episode of Austin Signal.
Thank you for including us in
your Monday.
We're here every weekday at one
o'clock, and you can find more from
us at kut.org
slash signal.
Kristen Cabrera is our managing
producer.
Rayna Sevilla is our technical
director.
Thank you to Andrew Weber, Stephanie
Federico, and Rene Chavez for
their help with today's show.
I'm Jerry Quijano.
We will talk to you tomorrow.
Have a great day.