Can Homeless People in Albuquerque Get Help?

Albuquerque, like the rest of the United States, is in the midst of an affordability crisis. Like many other cities, its unaffordability is amply demonstrated through the folks at stoplights asking for spare change or food. Instead of our local media showing compassion and demanding accountability from local leaders for the moral crime of allowing folks to not have the choice of putting a roof over their head, the media tries to paint homeless people as a subhuman other, as “zombies”, but they are just people like you and me at the end of the day. This includes the ability to talk and have a conversation, which few people seem to bother to do. In my role in the Direct Aid Committee at Albuquerque DSA, I have talked to hundreds of homeless people and passed out hundreds of first aid kits, meals, and water bottles to people who otherwise have been given up by society. Never once have I been attacked, robbed, or otherwise harassed. In fact, the only violent incident I’ve had while interacting with homeless people was when a business owner pulled out a gun and threatened to shoot me and a friend for giving out food and mattresses to homeless people on public property near his business.

You’ll learn a lot more about the issues facing homeless people by talking to the ones you see going about your day than from listening to the media or fearmongering politicians. The city and private property owners constantly displace them, with the city also throwing away their personal belongings. This includes everything from tents, clothes, and food to money, birth certificates, and IDs, and the ashes of family members and pets. This makes it almost impossible for homeless people to retain enough identification documents to get a job or save up enough money for an apartment.

You can go to various homeless shelters within and outside of the city and talk with the people there. The largest of these is Gateway West, almost 10 miles from the nearest store or employment opportunities near Atrisco Vista and I-40. I’ve seen residents there show me the spoiled food they get served, and some of the people employed there have allegedly taken more desirable food like candy that was donated for their own consumption. Theft is also common, both by residents (who don’t have any personal space behind a locked door that would actually be safe for them) and the staff. There are only a few bus trips between the shelter and Albuquerque each day, making it difficult for people to go to doctor’s or legal appointments, let alone a job. Many homeless people I talked to there share the same sentiment, that while these institutions might keep you alive, they don’t provide any way for you to move on from them and support yourself. By putting the largest shelter 10 miles from civilization and 20 miles from downtown, the message is clear: the city doesn’t want you in sight, but they also won’t help you get back on your feet.

Interestingly, I have heard the same argument on the news from Republican talking heads and politicians, although their solutions are even worse than what the Democrats are doing now. I have also heard it from many regular people of all political backgrounds. The nonprofits managing the city shelters certainly seem to be delivering a lot less than the $59 million per year they get in taxpayer money. Their staff are also very well compensated, with an ad on ZipRecriuiter by Heading Home Albuquerque offering $90,000 a year for a “Director of Development”, whose job duties essentially boil down to getting more people to give Heading Home Albuquerque their money.

Screenshot of the offering on May 22nd, 2026

Heading Home and other nonprofits get their money either from your taxes or from donations by people who want their money to actually help homeless people. Instead, they are paying a few white-collar administrators huge amounts of money in order to just get the nonprofit even more money. These people not only divert money that could have gone to actually helping homeless people, but have a very direct interest in keeping these people dependent on their “charity.” If the problem was actually solved, and every homeless person was housed, they would lose their very lucrative jobs.

What can we do about it? We should be aiming to directly end homelessness and address the reasons why people are homeless in the first place. As stated earlier, the city spends $59 million dollars a year on homelessness (millions of which currently line the pockets of “Directors of Development” and other “nonprofit” staff”), when there are around 2500 to 5000 homeless people in the Albuquerque area. This is $11,800-$23,600 per homeless person per year. For $10,000, you can buy a small trailer or build a 100-200 square foot building to use for housing. The remaining money for that year (and subsequent years, to the extent it’s still necessary) could be used to pay for healthcare (physical and mental), job training, and drug treatments/rehab for people who need it.

While for things like construction you’d probably need outside contractors, administrative positions should be minimized as much as possible and held by government employees. With everything being run by the government, excess administrative positions like “Development Directors” to ask for private donations would be unnecessary, and the necessary staff could be transferred to other positions with the same or better pay once all the homeless people have been housed so they have no incentive to drag out the process. Jobs like preparing food and cleaning should be done by paying formerly homeless people living at these housing developments instead of outside contractors or companies whenever possible. This will keep costs down while also providing people with jobs. Also, all transactions by the government related to homelessness would be automatically synced with a public website, making it harder to divert funds without the public catching on.

This plan would get all the homeless people in Albuquerque permanently off the streets and housed within a year, and try to get as many of them as possible to support themselves afterward, all without raising taxes on anyone by one cent. The only people who stand to lose are the people getting rich by skimming off taxpayer money and donations. Lots of people can see the corruption and inefficiency of the status quo, especially in regards to homelessness. The Republicans are capitalizing on this, with Trump running on “draining the swamp” despite being incredibly corrupt himself. Instead of countering this with real anti-corruption and transparency reforms, the Democrats have mainly responded by sticking their heads in the stand and acting like government corruption has been under control the whole time. If we want the Democrats to win more votes than in 2024, we need to run on something different than what Biden and Harris chose that year. Getting rid of corruption and inefficiency, besides being good in and of itself, will also mean we won’t need to raise taxes as much to expand social programs, making people more likely to support them. In other words, the government can get a start on what it’s supposed to do without raising taxes on working people by ditching corrupt elites that have an interest in making government awful, including in Albuquerque. We all stand to benefit from a government whose interest is in the upward mobility of its most vulnerable residents. By electing machine-backed Democrats, a select few get rich off society’s problems; by electing true progressives, we can actually fix them.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Red Rose, any individual editor, Albuquerque DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, or any individual therein.

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