'Victims of Cicero' protests against Austin-based think tank
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Protestors rallied outside of The Cicero Institute in Austin Thursday, calling the think tank’s policy proposals and model legislation “ineffective, costly, and harmful approaches” to addressing homelessness.
The action included representatives from Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky, New York and Grants Pass, Oregon in its “Victims of Cicero” delegation. VOCAL Texas organized the rally.
“We’ve lived through the policies that Joe Lonsdale and the Cicero Institute push,” said VOCAL-TX leader Maurika Smith in a press release. “We’ve been ticketed just for trying to survive. We’ve been harassed by police for having nowhere else to go. We’ve had our belongings destroyed by police.”
Lonsdale, a venture capitalist billionaire who co-founded software developer Palantir Technologies and other companies, founded The Cicero Institute in 2016. He, and the think tank, moved from California to Austin in 2020.
KXAN reached out to The Cicero Institute for comment on the protest.
Texas has implemented Cicero Institute model legislation, according to a Supreme Court filing by the think tank. That filing was in support of the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, in a case involving camping bans on homeless people. SCOTUS upheld the Grants Pass policy in a 2024 opinion.
Cicero Institute said it “applauds” the ruling in a June 2024 press release.
“This historic ruling ensures that elected leaders have the ability to take action to improve community safety and protect property owners—action supported by a bipartisan majority of voters across the nation,” said Cicero Institute Communications Director Stefani Buhajla in that release.
At the Thursday protest, the Victims of Cicero issued a statement to Lonsdale at the protest:
National Homelessness Law Center Communications Director Jesse Rabinowitz said in VOCAL-TX’s press release that policies seeking to ticket and arrest homeless people are “backwards” and “will only make homelessness worse.”
“America can be a country where everyone – no matter who they are or how much they have in their bank account – has a place to live. Our elected officials should be solving our housing and homelessness problems instead of making them worse,” Rabinowitz said.
