In whose backyard?
ABQ’s transients will end up somewhere. Should it be in tiny home villages or are there more wide-ranging solutions?
Issues UNM faces are instructive
THE EDITORIAL in the Journal for Monday Sept. 3 re UNM’s need to lock the Communication and Journalism building to avoid misuse of the facilities gives even more credence to the arguments against building a tiny house village with centralized toilets and bathrooms, and not in-house facilities. Quotes from the editorial describe some of the problems at UNM: “People locking themselves in bathroom stalls for hours on end, or leaving behind needles.” “A nearly naked man washing himself at the sink. …” If the homeless are doing this now in public buildings, I can see this same behavior carrying over to what will essentially be equally public facilities in the “tiny village.”
Additionally, recognizing that some of the residents of the village will be “in progress” in restoring mental health, I can also envision predators waiting in communal toilets or showers for vulnerable residents forced to attend to their most personal and private needs in a shared, i.e. “public,” space. If Albuquerque is truly trying to build self-respect, dignity and self-direction in the homeless and underserved, let’s not build a program that works against itself.
GAIL BUCKLEY CRANE Albuquerque
Services should be in one location
AFTER RECEIVING my master’s degree in social work in 1991, I began working at Salvation Army in Omaha, Neb., with the homeless population. We had an emergency shelter for women and families, provided GED classes and assistance with finding employment, babysitting services, parenting classes and access to mental health services. We had a transitional housing unit where families could stay between 18-24 months. We also were in the process of developing a follow-up program once a family moved out. These services were all provided in a centralized location. A program such as this with supportive housing and wrap-around services seems to make more sense; when people are able to change the way they think, they are able to change behavioral patterns.
JULIE HUGHES Albuquerque
Only a collaborative approach will work
(JOURNAL REPORTER) Rick Nathanson wrote a series of articles recently that provide a clear picture of the problems in Albuquerque created by the present epidemics of homelessness, drug abuse and untreated mental illness. One article discussed issues related to multiple, independent efforts to provide services aimed at these problems, but without any real oversight or comprehensive plan. Despite these efforts, or maybe even because of them, the problems seem to be getting worse.
The failure of ad hoc, often competing, efforts to solve these problems is no surprise. State and local governments need to collaborate on a plan with three equally important objectives: provide comprehensive help for the existing homeless, prevent at-risk populations from becoming homeless, and preserve and promote healthy, vibrant and safe neighborhoods. These three objectives cannot be met by stove-piped initiatives, and history has shown that they are not adequately addressed by nonprofit services or disjointed, expensive, narrowly focused government projects.
To those who govern Albuquerque and Bernalillo counties, please stop these separate, small-scale projects with competing agendas and work together to develop a comprehensive plan that addresses our city’s homeless crisis, promotes economic growth and fosters safe and thriving communities.
TROY ELLIS Albuquerque
Impacts of village must be studied
I SENT NUMEROUS messages to the Bernalillo County commissioners expressing growing public concerns regarding the current Tiny Home Village proposal. I received no responses from any commissioners, just a form email from their THV website acknowledging the receipt of my concerns. I doubt that any decision-makers read them.
So, this letter goes out to all of the neighborhood residents and businesses that may be adversely affected by having a THV “crammed” into their part of town. We need to unite in our battle against being used as “guinea pigs” in this social experiment.
This is not a Not-In-My-Backyard concern. We all want to help the homeless! But introducing large populations of homeless people into established and possibly struggling neighborhoods without adequate impact studies is ludicrous!
The county has failed to do any extensive surveys of the “unhoused” to determine the who, what, when, why and how of this very serious problem that is strangling our city. Albuquerque is NOT Austin or Seattle. Accordingly, homeless people here are not the same as homeless in Los Angeles.
Research THVs online; there are as many failures as there are success stories. What the county proposes has minimal opportunities for success and a maximum chance of doing serious permanent damage to this city we all love.
I have to ask, if you introduce 30 or 100 homeless people into a small local job market, do you really expect them all to find jobs near the new THV? “Candy-coat” THVs however you wish. A large village of homeless people will have a serious impact on local residents and businesses. It may not be a good one! Will the (County Commissioner Debbie) O’Malley/(City Councilor Diane) Gibson edict have unintended side effects, such as raising the crime rate or making ABQ an easy “scapegoat” for other cities to dump their responsibilities with the price of a one-way bus ticket? Nobody knows — because the county did not do the required due diligence to ensure success.
I admire O’Malley and Gibson for their noble compassion and courage to do something while the rest of us stand around hoping for a solution. That being said, their actions behind closed doors and O’Malley’s statements this a “done deal,” without responsible study or public debate and scrutiny is a probable violation of the Open Meetings Act and a flagrant abuse of power.
So, I ask the County Commission and City Council to withhold further action on the proposed THVs until impact studies are done and we have removed all the known problems that could turn this into a true calamity. We all want to help the homeless. But this should not be a unilateral decision. Let’s all work together to solve this problem.
MICHAEL DICKSON Albuquerque
Spending on village would be foolish
TINY HOMES are not the answer. Albuquerque and Bernalillo County’s homeless situation is not tiny. It is complex and complicated. We are dealing with individuals here who have fallen through the holes in our society. They need help, not a 116-square-foot prison.
I’m pleading with the powers that be to step back, breathe and defer this attempt to solve the homeless problem in this manner. There are answers, but homes for 30 people are not the answer. Stop spending our bond money foolishly. Homelessness is a huge problem. Please defer until better solutions are thoroughly investigated and considered.
CHAR PUNKE Albuquerque
City failed to handle incident effectively
I WRITE THIS letter to describe a situation in the alley behind my business in the hopes of influencing the city to rethink its policy and help a difficult situation throughout the city. Two weeks ago, somebody dumped three mattresses, a box spring and a lounge chair in the alley behind my business. I called the city to request a pickup of these large items, which would not fit in my Dumpster, even if I had been able to get them in. I was told that because the items were on the opposite side of the alley, the homes on that side of the alley would have to make the call. While an absurd response, I nevertheless talked to my neighbors, requesting they make the calls.
Everybody knows that if mattresses are left in an alley, a homeless person will quickly move in, which is exactly what happened. The homeless man who moved in was familiar in the neighborhood and had serious mental health issues with violent outbursts. He would rise early every morning and start screaming at the top of his lungs at imagined foes, thereby waking up my tenant. I called the police several times, something that led to the man’s arrest, first on criminal trespass charges, which led to his resisting arrest. Four more police officers were called, plus an ambulance and fire truck were summoned to the scene just in case. In addition, this man, who is seriously mentally ill, was thrown into jail, where I am sure he spent several nights. How much did this whole incident cost the taxpayers, to say nothing of the danger it caused to all involved — police, residents, mentally ill homeless person and so on?
Let’s compare that to the cost of simply picking up the mattresses when I called the first time. Why can’t the city hire a dozen trucks to be on call to respond to these frequent requests to have illegally dumped materials picked up upon being reported? And incidentally, two weeks later, after four calls to 311, the mattresses remain in my alley.
TOM GURALNICK Albuquerque