Neither Mayor Tim Keller’s office nor the city’s Planning Department responded to a request from the New Mexico Sun on the possible suspension of applications for safe outdoor spaces (SOS), tent encampments for the homeless approved by City Council on a 5-4 vote on June 6.
The public backlash against the zoned encampments, included as part of the city’s Integrated Development Ordinance (IDO), was so great that Councilor Brook Bassan (Northeast Heights) reversed her position on SOS; she promised to introduce an amendment to repeal the program when City Council returns to session on Aug. 15. Additional bills that would repeal SOS await action.
But the July 28 effective starting date for SOS left a two-week window open for applications to be submitted to the Planning Department – the plans could be approved before City Council returns.
Brad Day, a commercial real estate owner who spearheaded the plan, earlier told the New Mexico Sun that he hoped to win approval from the city’s Planning Department for four to six sites, which will house 200-300 people, before the window closes.
Funding for SOS, however, remains elusive. Day said that the funding -- he estimates the cost at up to $200 per person per month -- was still “up in the air.” City council, moreover, approved no budget for SOS when it included it as part of the IDO.
City Council Vice President Dan Lewis, who voted against the plan, put the costs much higher than $200 per month per person.
“A homeless encampment run by San Francisco costs the city $60,000 per year, per tent, twice the median cost of a one-bedroom apartment for each tent,” Lewis, citing a 2021 San Francisco Chronicle article, wrote in a memo.
He also noted what the city is already shelling out each year for the homeless, with many not taking advantage of the benefits provided.
“The 2023 budget funds $60 million dollars to housing and homeless services,” he wrote. “The city runs the Westside shelter with over 100 beds that are unused every night.”
Pete Dinelli, a local attorney with 27 years' experience in municipal and state government law, said in a recent commentary published in the New Mexico Sun that the mayor does have the authority to suspend the program until City Council returns. He also called the zone encampments a “disaster” for the city.
“They will destroy neighborhoods, make the city a magnet for the homeless and destroy the city's efforts to manage the homeless through housing,” Dinelli wrote. “If the City allows the 6 applications for safe outdoor spaces’ to proceed and approves them all, it will be a major setback for the city and its current policy of seeking permanent shelter and housing as the solution to the homeless crisis.”
The mayor recently announced that one of the city’s largest, most crime-ridden homeless encampments in Coronado Park will be shutdown.
The Editorial Board of the Albuquerque Journal applauded the mayor’s decision in a July 31 commentary.
“The deplorable, unsanitary and dangerous living conditions at the park have existed for years but certainly grew during the pandemic and under Keller’s watch,” the editors said. “It finally became too much to bear. ‘That situation is absolutely unacceptable, so we’re going to stop it,” the mayor told local business professionals Monday.”