Austin Mayor Steve Adler, in response to Gov. Greg Abbott's letter last week blasting the city's policies on homeless camps, has instructed his staff to identify resources the state could provide to help solve the issue.

Abbott's Oct. 2 letter threatened to post state troopers in areas of the capital “that pose greater threats” and deploy Texas Department of Transportation staff to clean up the encampments if the city failed to act on the problem by Nov. 1.

In the months since the City Council decided in June to largely rescind a camping ban aimed at people living on the streets, encampments have grown around the city's downtown shelter, the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless,and under highway overpasses.

City staff members met Monday to discuss specific requests for state resources and had invited state officials to the meeting, but none attended.

The mayor said he believes Austin police have no trouble enforcing city ordinances related to encampments and the campers blocking public places. Last Thursday, Police Chief Brian Manley clarified how and when officers can enforce city ordinances on encampments, including those that block streets and sidewalks.

Adler said he is unsure how state troopers would help Austin police with the homeless crisis if local law enforcement are already working to keep those areas clear for pedestrians.

The mayor said there is one step the state could take, however, that the city would welcome with open arms: the approval of more funding.

"States around the country are giving significant resources to help their cities," Adler said. "Los Angeles just got $145 million from the state a couple days ago (to help with the homeless crisis). Cities in Texas don't get very much from the state. If homelessness would be a higher state priority, that would be great."

Alder added that he extended a written invitation to Abbott on Thursday, encouraging him to attend the city's weekly meeting to coordinate a plan to solve the city's crisis. Adler said he wants to turn his attention toward funding the Salvation Army Rathgeber Center in East Austin, which he said would open up about 80 beds at the Salvation Army shelter downtown.

"(The Rathgeber Center) hasn't opened yet because they don't have the money for the operations," Adler said. "We also need to go out and see if we can buy some properties. We need to house the people near the ARCH. Not by scattering people around the city to make them less visible, but by actually putting them in housing."

Abbott's letter described encampments with feces and needles causing a health hazard to the public. Adler said if the governor is concerned about health risks, like fecal bacteria contaminating local creeks, lakes and sidewalks, then the solution is working with the city to provide housing options.

"We're trying to do our best to get people out of the rivers and creek areas," Adler said. "People are leaving the creeks and rivers now to go to the overpasses because it's safer. But, it is not good for them to be there either. What I read the governor's letter to say is not to send the people back to the woods where they aren't safe and closer to our streams and lakes, but to get them into housing."

Statesman reporters Phillip Jankowski and Mark D. Wilson contributed to this article.