- Coming up on "Austin InSight," Texans continue to fight the on-again, off-again construction along the Texas border in Big Bend.

Plus, a home with a whole lot of heart and an incredible origin story never before told on Austin television.

"Austin InSight" starts now.

- [Announcer] Support for "Austin InSight" comes from: Sally & James Gavin, and also from Daniel L. Skret.

(groovy orchestral upbeat music) (groovy orchestral upbeat music continues) - Hi there and thanks for joining us, I'm Laura Laughead.

Work on border security projects in Texas' Big Bend National Park is on hold, for now, but Texans fighting those plans aren't letting up.

A small victory for them came last week when Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, Rodney Scott, paused the work as he visited the region to see it for himself and meet with local leaders.

A week earlier, bulldozers and construction equipment were spotted, clearing brush and cutting a path through the National Park.

The Department of Homeland Security said this was, quote, "survey and design work, not construction."

Here in Austin, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission met for their annual public hearing.

Commissioners heard from dozens of Texans urging them to fight to protect Big Bend from border security construction.

- Big Bend is more than one park, it is local communities, the Rio Grande, public lands, sacred places, ranches, working lands, wildlife habitat, history, culture, and for many people here today, a state of mind.

We can secure the border without needless construction and permanent damage to this incredible place.

- No one expects this commission to single-handedly stop the federal government, but you can slow the roll; ask questions, demand information, require that the federal government follow every process available.

- [Laura] To better understand what's happening in and around Big Bend, we're bringing in Marfa Public Radio's Travis Bubenik; he and his colleagues have been doing lots of work covering what's happening in Big Bend.

Travis, thank you so much for being with us.

- Happy to be here.

- So, Travis, let's start with the work that was happening recently in the National Park with bulldozers and construction equipment clearing some land.

What do we know about what those crews were doing?

- Well, federal border agencies initially described it as survey and design work, basically prepping the long-border project job that they're gonna be working on.

But what we saw on the ground, and, in our case, from the air, we actually flew over the park recently and saw some of the work, is that they were clearing new paths, clearing land, clearing vegetation in a couple places of the park near the iconic Santa Elena Canyon.

And, yeah, you know, what it looked like on the ground was essentially the bulldozers clearing new roads.

And in both cases that we saw, these new roads, new pathways were right next to existing roads.

- Hmm.

And to be clear, current plans do not call for a border wall inside the National Park, right?

- That's right.

I mean, at least according to US Customs and Border Protection, the CBP has said for months now that they're not building a traditional 30-foot-steel-tall bollard border wall, you know what people think about when they think about border walls.

Instead what their plans call for are around 200 miles of new or improved roads, dirt roads that border patrol agents would use, they call these patrol roads, but also 17 miles of steel vehicle barriers.

These are shorter four to six-foot tall steel barriers that look like a mini wall kind of, they're designed to stop vehicle crossings.

Although we should know, you know, in many of the places where these are planned in the park, there's hardly if ever been any cross-border vehicle traffic that we know of, but that's what the agency's current plans call for.

And I should say along with surveillance technology, visitors of Big Bend National Park, if and when this project is complete, could see a lot of new surveillance towers and cameras along the routes where they're planning this infrastructure.

- Have we heard anything yet though from CBP commissioner Rodney Scott about what comes next or from the local leaders he's been meeting with about how their conversations are going?

We haven't heard anything from Scott directly yet, although we did see on Monday in a court filing, in a lawsuit over all of this, a representative for CBP confirmed that this pause on construction in the National Park will last at least through the end of August.

It's unclear what happens after that, but there are court battles playing out.

The last word we heard from Scott is that he, you know, met with all these local leaders, took their suggestions back to Washington and is mulling them over basically.

- We'll have to stay tuned for further word on that.

And Marfa Public Radio during all this has told the stories of people opposed to the work happening in this region, people affected by the work happening in this region.

What are some of the biggest ways they say these projects will threaten this area?

- You know, I think the most pressing one for many people, especially those in the Terlingua area close to the National Park is the threat of impacting tourism.

- Hmm.

- I mean, tourism is the economic lifeblood of the region, really, these days.

And people are very concerned that, you know, any sizable amount of new border security infrastructure out here could simply ruin the experience for people who come and visit this region for its, you know, pristine, untouched nature.

And they worry that people might just stop coming out here once we have this kind of border security in here.

So that's the most pressing concern, but, you know, there are a whole host of environmental, ecological impacts that people are worried about as well.

- Indeed.

And this issue has uniquely galvanized Texans on both sides of the aisle to come out in support of Big Bend; it is truly our gift to the nation for a reason.

Travis Bubenik with Marfa Public Radio out in West Texas, thank you so much for your time today and for your continued reporting.

- You're so welcome.

- Just a few months ago, we sat down with stakeholders from the Big Bend region to discuss some of their concerns and get their take on why preserving the region is so critical.

- Well, for us, it's not just fighting for our land, it's fighting for our livelihoods.

And what we're also fighting for is just our right to live.

Right now, the government put on the state of emergency on a border where we go to sleep peacefully at night, there's no emergency there for us.

The only emergency is this wall coming in and disrupting our entire lives.

- Out here at what I like to call a God-made barrier with the Rio Grande River, the cliffs that are part of the border out here.

So, again, to go out and want to build a barrier on top of a barrier that's already there just doesn't make sense.

- You can watch our full Big Bend roundtable on the Austin PBS YouTube channel, or in the PBS app.

Meanwhile, we're nearing two years since Travis County voters approved a tax increase to help address a childcare crisis.

Families had too few options, and the available ones were too expensive for many.

Raising Travis County has since spent $50 million to help lower income families access childcare through scholarships while helping providers cover the rising cost of offering care.

But the new revenue has yet to fix the system.

Our local government reporter, Sam Stark, explains what challenges remain.

(children chattering) - [Sam] Passion and a desire to make an impact draw many, like Diana Perez, to careers in early childhood education.

- I didn't have like the best childhood, and I always though, "Who do I wanna be for children?"

I did my first early childhood experience when I was in high school, when that class opened up in high school, I'm like, "Ooh, I'm gonna try it."

Instantly, I fell in love.

You got it, buddy, let's go.

- Perez found her purpose in the career; she now works at Austin's Open Door Preschool, teaching 18 to 20 month olds.

- This is a village that is nurturing humans, little tiny humans, to be decent people, like kind... - Four decades later, it's that passion that keeps her in the classroom, even when the pay left much to be desired.

- It's definitely not about the pay, you know?

- Perez said in her almost half century in the field, low wages pushed many of her colleagues out.

- Too many to count, I mean... And they were amazing humans, but they could not sustain themselves on the pay.

- Definitely the teacher pipeline remains a challenge.

- [Sam] Leah Meunier is the strategic advisor for Raising Travis County, the $75 million a year voter-approved initiative designed to expand access to affordable, high quality childcare around the county.

The initiative has already helped thousands of children access early childhood education, after school, and summer programs.

It's also invested some of the money into the programs themselves to help offset rising costs associated with running a small business.

- So it's very expensive for providers to open and manage infant and toddler classrooms; also additionally challenging because you have to recruit and retain educators for those classrooms.

- [Sam] The county is now turning some of the voter-approved funding towards recruiting and retaining educators.

It's now exploring ways to establish a baseline wage and trying to offset costs for providers, so they can raise wages... - The margins on childcare are just like so razor-thin- - [Sam] Yeah.

- That there's always, I think, going to be like those financial challenges.

- [Sam] To eventually make it so teachers don't have to choose between their passion and living comfortably.

- We get certificates, we do all these things, we are not glorified babysitters, and, again, the pay should reflect that.

- [Sam] For "Austin Current" and "Austin InSight," I'm Sam Stark.

- Raising Travis County funding is recurring so that money will keep coming each year with no end date.

Now from Travis County out to Williamson County.

For 60 years, Hope House in Liberty Hill has been a lifelong home for children and adults with profound disabilities.

But the story of how it began stretches far beyond central Texas; in fact, thousands of miles and decades away to Nazi Germany.

I went to Hope House to learn how one woman's experience, told in her own words, inspired a lifetime of caring for people too often overlooked, and how more than half a century later, her mission endures through loss, hardship, and, well, hope.

(birds chirping) - So it's about 100 yards from the creek up to the building.

We just had a wall of water, you can tell by the trees over there, we got up to about 10 to 11 feet.

This creek is dry 300 days out of the year; each pass, I kind of think I've got a handle on it till I come back out here again.

Reminds me that you're just not promised tomorrow and you better make a difference today.

- [Laura] Just outside of Liberty Hill, you'll find a house with a lot more heart than most.

- What I think is at the heart of Hope House is providing forever homes to children that are super special.

- [Laura] Around here, there's no shortage of smiles; no wonder they call it Hope House.

- It is a miracle for some of the most profoundly disabled children there are that have no place to go.

- [Laura] A safe space for those society has often overlooked.

- Some of the most vulnerable kids end up here that come from, you know, terrible circumstances, and one of those is just a parent who's overwhelmed and has to admit, has to throw in the towel like, "I can't do this on my own."

- [Laura] For 60 years, Hope House has been a home for children and adults with profound disabilities, they need 24/7 care and help with life's basic needs.

- So most of them are running at about an 18 to 24 month old developmental level, they need assistance in toileting, most of that is diapering, feeding, changing; but really at the heart of it is communication, majority of our folks are non-verbal.

- [Laura] Many of the folks who live here can't tell us whether they want to be on camera, so we're only showing you a few of their current residents.

The need for this specialized care is great, they only get an opening about once every five years.

- There just are not enough places, not only here in our community, but even in the state of Texas that are available to care for this high-level of disability.

A lot of these kids may end up in institutions.

- [Laura] Hope House takes care of them for life, from seven to 70.

- One of our young men has been with us about 13 years.

When he used to sit on my lap, he was about this big, and now he's this big.

(sniffles) He still sits on my lap.

(gate clacking) (birds chirping) We're gonna go see Mike's house.

It's named after one of our friends, Mike, who is one of our long-term residents who passed.

Our newest one in that group has probably been here for 30 years.

(pigeon cooing) (birds chirping) What's up?

Aw, I know.

Yeah.

(resident grunting) Oh, you hungry?

It's almost dinner time.

Yeah.

- [Laura] Shannon is their first ever resident, she's 68.

But before there was Shannon, before there was even Hope House... - This whole place is a story that began with Rose.

- And I'm not gonna say saint, but I wouldn't disagree with you if you did.

- [Laura] Rose McGarrigle was the founder of Hope House.

She worked as a nurse with the German Red Cross at a hospital in Berlin during World War II.

There, she began to understand what was happening to people with disabilities, an experience that changed the course of her life.

- Movies came onto the screens that were very geared toward getting the German people in a very clever way ready for what was to come.

It was hard to see it then, but very young, very starry-eyed.

People from the country would come in and they would say, "Nurse, I had a son here, and we got this postcard after many years telling us that he died of pneumonia."

When that repeated itself, I started to ask questions even at 17 and said, "Okay, what was this place before it became a relief hospital?"

And I was told it was an institution for the mentally retarded.

And when I asked, "Well, where are the people?

What happened to the people?"

They said, "Well, we really don't know."

And yet it was quite obvious that it was a big, big facility that all these people could not have all suddenly died of pneumonia.

- [Laura] The Nazis systematically murdered between 250 and 300,000 children and adults with disabilities from 1939 to '45, often concealing how they died from their families.

After the war, Rose worked at a mental hospital with disabled children saved from the Nazis.

She later married an American soldier, moved to Austin, and had five kids of her own.

But what she saw in Germany never left her, and she started caring for disabled children in her own home.

- So here is this middle-aged German woman coming over to the States in the mid-1950s, who's working with children that are pariahs.

Germans were not incredibly popular (chuckles) in the 1950s.

- [Laura] With the help of a friend's land donation, she built the first home at Hope House in 1976 in Liberty Hill, nestled near Little Creek.

But you won't find many photos or videos of Rose.

Those who knew her say she kept her life's work a secret; a lingering fear authorities would take the kids like they did in Germany.

Rose died in 2003.

- I mean, this is a story of a woman who was relentless, compassionate, and had a great deal of love and knew that these kids needed help.

- [Laura] Dave Gould has taken on Rose's mission.

When he signed on, Hope House was barely making ends meet.

The majority of their funding comes from the state, but it only covers about 80% of their day-to-day costs; some kids are from foster care, some families can't pay at all.

- I don't know how we're gonna do it, but I know my job is to show up every day and keep pushing the rock up the hill.

- [Laura] Today, they're celebrating a major milestone with two new cottage homes built with accessibility in mind and something we might take for granted.

- Where "This is my bed, this is my room, I can close this door, this area is mine," you just saw our kids light up.

And while we built that for our kids, what we found is our staff love it too.

- [Laura] Staff like Jen.

- There's not a lot of tantrums now.

Yeah, there's no a lot of, you know, being upset to one another because they have a lot of spot or place to go when they are upset.

This is the medication administration record.

- [Laura] She's in charge of safety and daily operations.

- This child is taking this one at 9:00 PM, so... - [Laura] She's been here 11 years and counting.

- A lot of people ask me, like, "Do you feel emptiness or do you feel incomplete because you don't have a child?"

The kids here are my children, some of them call me Mommy Jen, it makes my life complete, and I can't see myself leaving them because I don't see them as a client, I see them as my children.

- [Laura] Hope House has about 100 staff for 50 residents, but they would call themselves family.

- They are the secret sauce, they are the magic.

I'm lucky enough to wake up every day and think I have the best job in the world, you know, even on the bad days.

- [Laura] A day like July 5th, 2025.

- We did the best we could, and it was traumatic.

- We woke up during the July floods to a call from our office manager who lived here on site at Hope House behind our property saying, "Hey, there's water in my home and I can't get out."

And we just didn't understand how quickly things were gonna change.

- [Laura] In the early morning on July 5th, they experienced over 20 inches of rain in six hours.

Their beloved office mom, Sherry Richardson, and her dog, Omie, were swept away in their home in the flood waters.

- I remember my first day here, she was just talking to me about the kids that live here, and tears came to her eyes because that's what this place meant to her was this was her family.

- [Dave] That's where the cabin was.

- [Laura] A year later, it's still difficult to process.

- [Dave] Yeah.

- [Laura] Dave used to live in that very house with his family.

- [Dave] And you see these big oaks?

Unfazed.

- The end of Sherry's life was like her last act of love.

You know, her call really alerted us, "Hey, something's going on here."

- [Laura] That morning, Sherry's calls for help may have saved lives.

- So when the water was coming, this got hit in two ways, one from the creek coming up, and then one from the top down, and we got pretty much about this much water through here.

- Their original house, Rose's house, was flooded and had up to four-feet of water.

The kids inside had to be airlifted out and brought to Hope House's other homes across town.

- One was terrified, two were, "Eh."

And two were, "Do it again, do it again, do it again!"

- [Laura] With the floods devastating Central Texas, they expected maybe a handful of volunteers in the aftermath.

- So we expected 10, 15 people to show up.

I stopped counting at 200 people.

- [Laura] For 60 years, Rose kept Hope House hidden, in her mind, to keep them safe.

The flood changed that.

This time being seen didn't mean danger, it meant hope.

- From Rose to Sherry to, you know, all of our important folks that have gone before us, you know, we kind of joke about we're mining the silver lining.

And it's unfortunate how we got here, I wouldn't ever wanna repeat this particular thing, but it allows us to help our kids be seen and we didn't want this kind of spotlight, but we're here, so we're gonna tell their story.

- Soon, Hope House plans to build their own school on the property.

They've also obtained 54 acres of land out of the floodplain.

Their long-term goal is to build a community center and add another 10 homes over the next decade.

(groovy orchestral upbeat music) Before we go, an Austin Taqueria keeps racking up the recognition, this time on "The New York Times" list of the Greatest Mexican Restaurants in the Country.

Nixta Taqueria is the only Austin spot to make the list, and one of only four in Texas.

Nixta and Chef Edgar Rico have already received Michelin and James Beard Awards among others.

And, by the way, they're also featured in "Taco Mafia," an Austin PBS original docu-series.

You can find that streaming on the PBS app, and you can find Nixta on East 12th Street in East Austin.

Well, I know what I'm doing after this taping.

That's our show.

If you wanna see more "Austin InSight, you can catch all our episodes on the Austin PBS YouTube channel and in the PBS app anytime for free.

Thanks again for watching, we'll see you next time.

(groovy orchestral upbeat music) - [Announcer] Support for "Austin InSight" comes from: Sally & James Gavin, and also from Daniel L. Skret.

(bright instrumental music)