Repurpose old BCDC for shelter

I WAS wondering why the old Bernalillo County Detention Center downtown couldn’t be used as a homeless shelter? Homelessness has been described as three categories: 1. Mentally ill 2. Drug addicts 3. People down on their luck having lost a job and then unable to pay for housing.

We need a mental health treatment center that includes long-term housing. BCDC is perfect for those patients requiring confinement. Drug addicts need initial confinement for treatment purposes. There are several private contract jails as well as government run institutions in New Mexico which are under utilized that can be converted to mental and/or drug treatment centers. BCDC can simply be an assessment and referral station.

There are plenty of jobs around the Metropolitan area but employment usually requires a residency address. The old cells can be upgraded for short term accommodations giving a mailing address for employers. It can also be used to assist employers looking for personnel. The facility had a food services cafeteria as well as showers, beds, etc. For that matter, the city and county can develop residency post boxes and a bank account system whereby employers can send pay to people who are/ were homeless. Used in conjunction with CNM/ Workforce Center a lot of people could be helped fairly quickly without great expense. As for renovating BCDC, the facility is already there, can probably house 500-1,000 people in need and if carefully overseen not be cost prohibitive. It was used by the feds up to seven years ago and been relatively physically secured, so it shouldn’t be at the same level of disrepair found in abandoned buildings around the city and county.

Instead of trying to build new housing such as tiny homes forced into unwelcome areas why not use what the city/county already owns but unused?

RONALD D. KOLENDA Bernalillo