Because I reported on homelessness issues in Albuquerque for much of 2024, I was often asked: “What gives you the most hope?”
I’m nothing like an expert on the subject, but I understood the question. It’s never been easy to come up with a quick answer.
City officials have initiatives in motion, but the situation is still severe. There are at least 5,000 people experiencing homelessness here — some living on the streets and some in shelters. Many are grappling with significant mental health issues and are deep in substance use disorders. Fentanyl use is ravaging many in the homeless community.
But it’s even worse than that, as there are thousands more in the city who teeter on the edge of losing the roof over their heads.
When I think about what gives me the most hope, I’m tempted to name the city’s efforts through its Gateway system. Services expanded this year, and even Gateway West — the city’s Westside shelter — began to improve on its well-known “deplorable” conditions.
It’s more than an honorable mention that Bernalillo County and New Mexico’s congressional delegation both added significant funds to the city’s homelessness efforts.
But beyond sincere and well-meaning government officials and programs, it’s been the everyday Burqueños who provide the most hope. Some are associated with nonprofit homeless services providers, such as Rachel Biggs and Jenny Metzler at Albuquerque Health Care for the Homeless or William Bowen, Alexandra Paisano and Zoe Robb at the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness.
Others are everyday residents who take matters into their own hands and out of the spotlight. A handful of the many I met this year are mentioned below.
Anami Dass
I first came across Anami Dass in June after she’d already spent six months working on a report that cited anti-homeless sentiment and discrimination she and others saw from some city officials and the public. Dass is the volunteer chair of the city’s Human Rights Board and a harm reduction specialist in the International District.
She’s become one of the most outspoken advocates for Albuquerque’s homeless population, and it’s striking how knowledgeable she is about both the plight of those on the streets and what kind of solutions might really help.
Janus Herrera
Similarly, Janus Herrera comes to the table armed with firsthand observations. She’s shone a spotlight on the city’s lack of public bathrooms and lack of cooling stations in the summer and warming ones in the winter. Herrera is very active in her Wells Park neighborhood near Downtown, where she personally tends to those who are homeless, including some who are elderly and disabled. At the Health Equity Council, she’s studied many other issues related to vulnerable populations, like pharmacy deserts and food insecurity.
Tawnya Mullen
Sometimes city neighborhood associations get a bad rap for complaining, but that’s not the case for the South San Pedro Neighborhood Association in the International District. One of the association’s leaders is Tawnya Mullen, a nurse who helped head up the beautification of alleyways, organized a housing committee and launched a composting toilet idea so those experiencing homelessness can use the bathroom with some measure of dignity.
Ilse Biel
Ilse Biel, meanwhile, landed on my radar at a Human Rights Board-organized public hearing at the International District Library in June. She was comforting a woman who said she’d recently lost her housing voucher and was once again homeless and on the streets. I’ve never seen Biel when she wasn’t trying to comfort someone going through a hard time. Most recently, she was doing so at a march and ceremony last week to recognize the city’s homeless community members who died this year.
But Biel is also a fierce activist who speaks out at City Council meetings and before the Homeless Coordinating Council. She led a “Right to Rest” event — which included a march to Civic Plaza — in September to denounce the criminalization of homelessness.
Sarah Azibo
Finally, just this month, I met the soft-spoken force that is Sarah Azibo at the offices of City Desk ABQ. She’d just pulled off a week’s worth of events focused on the human rights of the city’s homeless population. The theme was “beyond shelters and sandwiches.”
Azibo, who said she was once homeless, described in detail how she and others recently monitored what happened to a group of homeless people who were given hotel vouchers after an encampment displacement.
It wasn’t good, Azibo said, but she and her colleagues made it more comfortable for them along the way.