The Gateway Center will likely open in Albuquerque within the next year.

Voters approved $14 million for a new homeless shelter in 2019, according to KOB 4. The city purchased the Gibson Medical Center – now called the Gateway Center – with plans to convert it. People can be admitted to the shelter only if they have a referral from a service provider or emergency services personnel drops them off.  

Pete Dinelli, a New Mexico attorney, said the center would be better used as a treatment facility for homeless people suffering from behavioral health issues and drug addiction.

"The city has a moral obligation to help the homeless who suffer from mental illness and drug addiction," Dinelli said in a recent opinion piece. "The highest and best use for the Gibson Medical Center facility is a hospital and a mental health facility. It's a purpose for which it was originally built for [sic] and already allowed by zoning."

The city should abandon plans to turn the hospital into an overnight homeless shelter, the attorney said.

"A 'homeless behavioral health hospital and drug rehabilitation treatment center' will fill a void and provide a facility that is desperately needed to provide medical and mental health care to the homeless," he said.

The shelter will open in phases; the first phase will feature 50 beds for women only, KRQE reported. There are fewer shelter beds available for women in general in Albuquerque. The goal for the second phase is to serve 100 individuals and 25 families. Eventually, there will be a medical unit in the shelter as well.

There has been pushback against the shelter from various angles, according to KUNM. One man said the best way of managing the homeless situation is to "fix up small motels and apartment buildings around town where folks could live more stably."