A TOUGH JOB, HANDLED WELL
Staffer able to find homeless man in ABQ for sister based in Arkansas
Mayor Richard Berry said handling calls for help is “the toughest job” in his office. One city employee who helped a family connect was recognized for her effort Friday by Berry.
The woman on the other end of the line needed to reach her brother.
He had struggled with homelessness and deteriorating health, and he was somewhere in Albuquerque, the woman said, calling from Arkansas.
It wasn’t necessarily much to go on, but Stephanie Eker, a constituent services liaison in Mayor Richard Berry’s office, managed to track the man down, and put the brother and sister in contact with each other.
That work earned her an “Employee of the Week” designation on Friday during a ceremony with Mayor Berry.
Eker was able to find the brother, in part, because he was a participant in Albuquerque’s Heading Home program, which finds homes for people who are most at
risk of dying on the streets.
“It was awesome,” Eker said in an interview. “She was in tears. ... You always like to help people who are helping others.”
Eker said she couldn’t share full details about the people involved for privacy reasons. But the woman from Arkansas was able to speak to her brother almost daily — a necessity because she couldn’t travel to Albuquerque herself due to health problems.
And the brother remained in the Heading Home program, Eker said, as far as she knows.
Eker is a four-year city employee. She handles calls to the mayor’s office from constituents seeking help from the Berry administration.
Berry on Friday called Eker and her colleagues’ work “the toughest job in the mayor’s office.”
Alan Armijo, the mayor’s director of constituent services, said Eker is a tireless worker for the city and the public.