Expenditures vs. Oversight at City’s Long-Awaited Homeless Facility

City Councilor Joaquín Baca is threatening to block millions in new Gateway Center funding unless Mayor Tim Keller’s administration shows clear plans and real results from the $70 million-plus homelessness project.

The ultimatum follows years of cost overruns, delays and missteps that have kept the Gateway’s main facility mostly closed since 2019, even after it took most of the program’s taxpayer dollars. In that time, Albuquerque’s homeless population grew from 2,394 people in 2023 to 2,740 in 2024, despite the city pouring millions into the program.

“I got tired of funding stuff and having no idea, and living Downtown, I see the problem get worse,” Baca told CityDesk after voting to defer $3.6 million in Gateway expansion funding last week at the City Council meeting.

The funding standoff marks a breaking point for councilors frustrated with an administration they say has failed to provide basic accountability for one of Albuquerque’s largest infrastructure projects. Baca said he will not support more money with a lack of answers and actual data about Gateway operations. 

The deferral vote gives administrators until the next meeting to deliver the comprehensive information councilors have been demanding.

Six Years of Promises, Little to Show

Gateway began in 2019 as a bold pitch to voters: turn the former Lovelace hospital on Gibson Blvd. into a one-stop hub for homelessness services, housing hundreds while connecting them to medical care, addiction treatment and permanent housing.

Voters approved $14 million in bonds for the project in 2019. The city purchased the 572,000-square-foot former hospital building in 2021 for $15 million, planning to run multiple programs under one roof.

Six years later, the main Gateway facility operates multiple programs but at limited capacity. Medical respite operates with 50 beds, most now open and occupied, while medical sobering services designed for 50 beds are not yet operational due to provider issues. 

The facility also runs a First Responder Receiving Area with 20 beds, designed as an overnight space where Albuquerque Community Safety, Albuquerque Fire Rescue and other first responders can bring people instead of hospitals or jails, with case managers on-site to connect people to services. A 150-bed housing program, meant to be the centerpiece, has yet to be launched.

The delays have been costly. What began as a $14 million voter-approved project has ballooned to more than $70 million in public investment, with additional millions requested for operations. Construction has been slowed by asbestos remediation, design challenges, retrofitting the old hospital and permitting delays that pushed opening dates from 2022 to 2023 and beyond.

Funding Transparency

Baca said his frustration comes from what he sees as a pattern of the administration asking for funding without giving councilors the information they need to decide.

At council meetings, administrators present requests for millions in new contracts, but Baca said they often can’t provide the comprehensive plans or detailed budgets he needs to evaluate them.

“You can’t just show me your plan. You can’t just show me the numbers. … You guys don’t have that, so it’s all piecemeal,” Baca said, describing his interactions with city staff over Gateway funding.

The most recent example came at the Aug. 4 council meeting, when administrators requested $3.6 million to expand Gateway housing services — $1.8 million each for men’s and women’s programs run by outside contractors Community Bridges and Chicanos Por La Causa. 

Councilors asked about total operational costs, success rates and coordination between programs. They wanted to know why previous contracts weren’t executed and how the new expansion would fit with existing services. Many questions went unanswered, with staff promising to provide information later.

“We should be a team,” Baca said, “but it’s really hard to actually get anything done if you have no idea what’s happening.”

Seeing the Reality

For Baca, the frustration is personal and political. 

As a District 2 councilor, he represents Downtown Albuquerque, Old Town and the surrounding neighborhoods where homelessness is very visible. As a Downtown resident, he walks the streets where Gateway was supposed to make a difference.

“Living Downtown, I see the problem getting worse,” he said, noting the disconnect between Gateway’s promises and street-level reality.

The councilor’s perspective shifted after he tried to visit Gateway West, the Westside shelter that’s part of the broader Gateway network. 

Administrators initially tried to prevent the visit, he said, raising questions about what they were trying to hide. When he finally got access, he found conditions far better than critics claimed — leading him to question why administrators would block oversight visits in the first place.

“I tried to go sleep there, and they didn’t even want to let me,” he said. “It’s pretty ridiculous. I wasn’t trying to do a gotcha or anything. Folks would come for public comment and say how bad it was, how dangerous, and that it felt safer on the streets. I wanted to see for myself. I live Downtown, so I asked, ‘Is it really worse than sleeping on the street?’ After my visit, it’s nowhere near as bad as sleeping Downtown.”

The experience convinced him that transparency and hands-on oversight are key to knowing what works and what doesn’t in the Gateway system.

Gateway Struggles

Gateway has shifted from a single-site concept to a network of facilities across Albuquerque, with mixed results.

Gateway West, the controversial 660-bed Westside shelter, “functions much better than it did previously,” according to Baca, but only after millions in renovations to fix what critics called “deplorable” conditions. It now provides basic shelter services but falls short of the full-service hub once promised.

The main Gateway facility operates several programs but faces challenges. About 50 medical respite beds are open and mostly occupied, while the 50-bed sobering center remains closed because of provider issues. 

City officials said contracts with providers require ramp-up periods to hire staff and scale services. The city builds the facilities and sets guidelines, but private operators run the programs and expand them gradually.

Gateway officials emphasize the facility is designed as a comprehensive system of care rather than a traditional shelter, focusing on treating underlying causes and connecting people to housing, treatment, and wraparound services.

Even when programs succeed, graduates often have nowhere to go. The housing voucher program, meant to provide permanent housing, “doesn’t work very well at all,” Baca said, leaving people stuck after treatment and stabilization.

Gateway Recovery Progress

Gateway Recovery, the facility’s substance use treatment program, currently serves 34 people — 11 women and 23 men — and has helped 388 clients through ADA-accessible pallet shelters. The program offers on-site treatment, case management, group and individual therapy, and features a community garden and dog park.

A city spokesperson said the Housing and Treatment Navigation Center achieved an 85% success rate in fiscal year 2025, connecting 549 people to long-term treatment or housing. The city plans to expand the program with 42 additional men’s beds in the coming months, eventually reaching 100 beds for women and 92 for men.

Regional Demand

The issue reaches beyond Albuquerque. Baca said mayors from small towns often tell him they send homeless residents to the city because they have no services of their own.

“I literally had mayors from small towns tell me, yeah, I send them to you guys because we have no services,” he said. “We can’t help them, but we know you guys have everything, we just send them to Albuquerque.”

That makes Gateway’s success critical for the whole state. If it fails, more people end up in Albuquerque without real solutions, concentrating homelessness here.

The result is a feedback loop: more people arrive seeking help that isn’t available or effective, visible homelessness grows, and public support for funding drops.

The Ultimatum

Frustrated by another funding request without key information, Baca gave the Keller administration a clear ultimatum — provide the data or lose his support.

“Without the answers, without actual data, without being able to see what was happening, I wasn’t going to be supporting more funding anymore,” he said during what he called their first full meeting on Gateway operations.

The move appears to have worked. Administrators agreed to provide complete operational costs, detailed service plans and clear success metrics by the next council meeting — information that should have been available from the start.

“I feel better now,” Baca said, “the fact that I said, ‘Hey, let’s actually talk about these things and really start functioning as a team.’”

He emphasized this is “just a start” of the accountability he expects going forward.

What Baca Wants

Baca wants to reimagine Gateway, balancing its promise with its limits.

“I don’t think you can get rid of Gateway,” he said. “But what the original vision was, I think those days are past.”

He supports bringing the 150-bed expansion online, but only with proof it will work. He opposes spending millions to build housing inside the old hospital, saying retrofitting around asbestos and infrastructure issues is too costly.

“I think you get more bang for your buck if you just start from scratch at this point in terms of housing,” he said. “The 150 beds, those definitely need to come online. But again, I need to see that it’s actually going to come online, how dollars are going to be spent.”

For Baca, funding must be sustainable. He wants annual state support, not one-time appropriations, noting Gateway’s long-term operational costs.

He’s also pushing citywide housing reforms, arguing Gateway’s programs are only meaningful if graduates have somewhere to go. He recently passed legislation streamlining development rules and plans more reforms to “get a lot of the red tape out of the way.”

Reimagining Gateway

The funding standoff affects 100 additional shelter beds for people experiencing homelessness as winter approaches. Baca said approving more money without accountability would be fiscally irresponsible and could backfire.

His stance reflects broader council frustration with an administration that repeatedly requests major expenditures without providing basic oversight. Other councilors have raised similar concerns about Gateway’s piecemeal funding and lack of comprehensive planning.

“I think Councilor Rogers and several other councilors are just as frustrated as I am at this point,” Baca said. “Let’s see if they provide all the information.”

The council deferred the contracts and gave the administration until the next meeting, Aug. 18, to prove it can manage taxpayer funds responsibly. 

For Baca, it’s a test of whether the City Council and administration can work together to address homelessness.

“We should at least be able to be partners to solve this issue. I think that’s not an unreasonable ask,” he said. “Lately it’s the council blaming the mayor, as if we don’t have a role in all this as well. It’s our job too.”

Expenditures vs. Oversight at City’s Long-Awaited Homeless Facility is a story from The Paper.. Publishing from New Mexico’s largest city, The Paper is your source for local, independent news, covering politics, arts, culture, and events.