In Beaumont, Texas, officials use city buses during winter weather for transportation to overnight shelters and as mobile warming stations. In Calgary, Canada, the Salvation Army has a warming station program that features pop-up tents with heaters, food, winter gear and housing resources. Other cities use mobile or fixed warming stations in the cold months to assist those experiencing homelessness.
In Albuquerque, there are limited options — so a group of 16 University of New Mexico seniors have researched ways the city can adopt its own program — one that takes on greater urgency as temperatures start to drop.
The students are part of the School of Architecture + Planning’s Design and Planning Assistance Center (DPAC) — led by professor Michaele Pride. The project is one of several at DPAC that addresses issues faced by the city’s unhoused population.
Students have provided design ideas as part of a Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant that’s focused on the redevelopment of outdated public housing sites in the International District — an area that’s home to manylow-income residents and people living on the streets. DPAC students have considered ways to offer greater public restroom access for the unhoused, and have contributed to the redesign of alleyways in the International District — which has enjoyed a renaissance in recent months.
“[Homelessness] is a struggle in Albuquerque, in New Mexico, and all across the country — that’s why we take these issues on — so that students have an opportunity to understand the issues and do something about it,” Pride said.
The students have met for eight to 12 hours a week to explore the warming station options, including mobile and portable (a vehicle or the kind used at a pop-up event); adapted (using existing, underutilized or seasonal spaces); symbiotic (adding onto existing structures like transit stations, community centers, churches or health clinics); and building from the ground up.
“We said one of the high values we can offer to the community is research,” Pride said. “What have other communities built or adapted for either this purpose or something analogous?”
‘I have never been so warm’
Danielle Tsosie came to DPAC with previous experience working with the unhoused in Gallup, her hometown. She said one of the biggest challenges for those experiencing homelessness is that most are “people who have lost trust.”
“My hope is we create a [warming station] design where it builds trust and serves to create a bridge for the unhoused to start trusting services for them again,” Tsosie said. “Also, hopefully, try to build a design that others can use during their pop-up events.”
Tsosie said she’s been considering the possibility of a mobile laundry truck or stationary laundromat building — something she first thought about when doing community service in Gallup.
“My group always served food to the homeless around laundromats because of the big vents that blew out warm air outside the building. I have never been so warm and thankful for those vents when serving food in winter weather,” she said. “So what I was thinking is using that idea as a warming center, so that the unhoused will have fresh, clean clothes, stay warm in an open space, and hopefully have some food while waiting for their clothes.”
The two-week warming station project recently concluded and the students — with help from two undergrad and graduate student employees — expect to issue a final report soon. Pride said it will be in the form of a toolkit with design ideas that could be used by Albuquerque officials.
Up next for the seniors is a scheduled visit Nov. 1 to work with Colores United in Deming — an organization that provides interim shelter and other services for migrants crossing the Southern border.
“It’s great because so often in architecture schools and programs, students, more and more, especially with digital technology, almost literally live, work and learn in a bubble,” Pride said. “These students are getting a lot of very real world experience.”
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