Following is a guest opinion column written by Jaemes Shanley. Mr. Shanley is the President of the Mark Twain Neighborhood Association located in the mid heights and is the Vice President of the District 7 Coalition of Neighborhoods which boasts membership of 14 neighborhood associations. Mr. Shanley requested to publish his guest column on www.PeteDinelli.com and has been the case with past guest columns submitted and published, he was not compensated for it. His column is being published “free of charge” as a public service to the public and as part of the ongoing coverage of issues in the 2025 municipal election. Jaemes Shanley is a write in candidate for City Council District 7 opposing incumbent City Councilor Tammy Feibekorn. You can read Jaemes Shanley’s biography in the postscript below.
NO MATTER THE ELECTION OUTCOME, WE MUST FIX THIS
By JAEMES SHANLEY
By this stage of the 2025 election cycle, we have heard every mayoral candidate respond repeatedly to questions about issues of major concern to Albuquerque voters. Concerning homelessness, their responses are remarkably lacking in specific practical actions that will course correct what is currently failing, implement new more effective approaches, or not result in endless litigation and overflowing expensive incarceration facilities. Yes, it is a complicated and challenging issue. That does not make it unsolvable.
We expect our elected leaders to ensure delivery of the services and amenities which make our urban life possible, with optimal reliability and efficiency. We expect them to improve over time, as budgets, systems, and technology allow. Those needs are ongoing, whether law enforcement, fire rescue, emergency preparedness, animal welfare, water, sewer, power, public transit, roads or waste management. We do not expect any of these civic “needs” to be definitively “solved” or “fixed”. The systems and infrastructure by which they are delivered must therefore be permanent.
THE HOMELESS CRISIS
Homelessness is the one crisis issue in Albuquerque today that can and should be definitively solved and must not be allowed to become a permanent feature of our city. It matters not how we came to have 3,000 – 5,000 living here unhoused. We have them. And the conditions of their existence have rendered them a “de facto nomadic population” among us, condemned to all the deprivations imposed by their “place” being a sidewalk, median, alleyway or strip of earth devoid of any amenities. As I have learned from doorstep conversations in my district, this is the top-of-mind anxiety among Albuquerque’s housed residents today. It is inescapably present and visible today along most of our major corridors and at many if not most roadway intersections. It is also a stark contradiction of the most foundational requirement of civilized urban life: that every community member has stable, secure, safe, and sanitary shelter.
ALL ARE BEING PUNISHED!
We have not, despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent over the past 7 years, reduced their number. While our politicians and we ourselves latch on to assorted nuggets of partial or inaccurate information to assign responsibility somewhere, or embrace inadequate or ill-conceived solutions from “sweeping” them from one street location to another, rounding them up and sending them somewhere else, bus tickets to their points of origin, incarceration for misdemeanors, banishing them to giant compounds somewhere out on the west mesa, etc., we are collectively paying an enormous cost for this unsolved crisis. In terms of public safety, public transport, commercial activity, redevelopment potential, and attractiveness to companies, entrepreneurs, and skilled professionals, this unsolved problem is blighting Albuquerque’s present and future. To quote Shakespeare’s Prince of Verona, “All are punished!”.
This is a solvable problem….and in relatively short order; certainly, much faster than our current trajectory, which has no end in sight. The resources required to solve it exist within our community. While we can borrow some practical elements from other cities (including from Gallup Mayoral Candidate Lyndon Tsosie), Albuquerque can define and implement its own comprehensive solution. You might ask, “well, if that’s true, why haven’t we done it already?”. The simple answer is that we failed to treat this as the emergency it is and to engage the entire community to get behind a project to fix it.
CALAMITY CREEP
Call it calamity creep. We have not done what we would do if 3,000 – 5,000 of Albuquerque’s housed residents were suddenly left homeless by fire or flood. We have accepted that other categories and causes of misfortune somehow do not qualify for the collective effort and priority needed. As a result, we have thousands of “neighbors” living in deplorable conditions of vulnerability and desperation. While this crisis persists, essential city services from the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) are diverted and distracted from their core mission of law enforcement and response. Our bus system requires supplemental security and is unattractive to many city residents. Small businesses, already hard pressed, experience the combined consequence of threats to their premises and customers being deterred from visiting them. A burgeoning percentage of commercial properties along major corridors are abandoned or surrendered.
Let’s recognize some inescapable facts and perhaps re-read the Parable of the Lost Sheep, The Parable of the Good Samaritan, or listen to Joan Baez’ 1960’s hit “There but for Fortune”.
It is unrealistic to expect anyone living a precarious existence “on the streets”, often with little or no sleep, to be capable of making a rationally informed decision about “services”.
- Every day spent living unsheltered adds layers of trauma, anxiety and damage to these individuals, and increases their vulnerability to a host of depredations, including addiction.
- The longer people are left to live like this the longer it will take to bring them back into the community as full participants.
- Desperate circumstances will almost inevitably produce desperate behaviors. Fix the former and we can end the latter.
We have to get these people off the streets, for the sake of every one of us!
ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS
Getting the unhoused off the streets will require transitional housing that is realized quickly, affordably and temporarily ….. all of which is possible. Small micro-communities can be “curated” by those with the skills and established trust to offer a hand that will be taken for that necessary step off the street. The skill and experience needed to guide and support individuals through their transitions, once in stable shelter, also exist and the peer support level can be expanded via training, even among formerly unhoused.
We have a vast inventory of empty or abandoned commercial buildings that are unlikely to be occupied commercially in the near to medium term. I counted 623 of them myself on just 5 corridors. Most of those buildings have toilets, running water, heating and cooling. Both the City and the County have tools available to incentivize owners to permit temporary repurposing of selected buildings.
We have a galaxy of skilled, experienced, knowledgeable and committed people in our community willing and able to be active participants in ending this crisis. Most of them are not “at the table” today.
We live in a State that, because of oil and gas royalties, has the fiscal soundness to invest strategically in short term solutions to prevent long term financial burden. New Mexico has also passed and enacted legislation (SB1 & SB3) to fund long term sustainable behavioral health care that will be a necessary component of this crisis solution.
CONVENE A SUMMIT OF EVERYONE
It is past time for our elected City leaders to convene a “summit of everyone” in the community whose efforts connect or can connect in some way to this crisis and to work through their ideas and perspectives until an executable plan is defined. And then, to fix this mess….with urgency.
I witnessed and experienced a nation implement and succeed with such an approach to a different but even bigger crisis, in Australia in 1983. The resulting “Accord” unleashed a sustained economic boom and resulted in one of the best national healthcare systems on the planet.
The “summit” Albuquerque needs to convene must include:
The Albuquerque Police Department, Albuquerque Community Safety Department, the Albuquerque Fire and Rescue Department and the Solid Waste Department
The City Health, Housing, and Homelessness Department (HHH) including the Gateway System managers and operators
The Albuquerque Public School “McKinney-Vento” program leaders
Relevant personnel from Bernalillo County and the State of New Mexico
The many non-profits and coalitions (both city-contracted and not) engaged in various issues impacting the unhoused, including:
- Housing
- Food / meal providers
- Healthcare providers (major hospitals + Healthcare for the Homeless)
- Shelter providers
- Substance abuse treatment providers
- Behavioral health treatment providers (supplemental to addiction)
- Life skills training / peer support
- Vocational rehabilitation & training
- Unhoused Pet support and protection
The Individual and group philanthropists addressing elements of homelessness including:
- Faith based groups and charities
- Non- faith-based group homes and charities
- Operators of Safe Open and Safe Indoor spaces
Individuals and representative groups who have experienced homelessness including:
- Homeless union
- Storytellers with past or present experience of being on the streets
Agents and experts in definition & rapid creation of Transitional Shelter/Housing including:
- Modular housing providers, including tiny home communities
- Local architects, planning specialists, and builders
- Leaders of volunteer labor aggregators like Habitat for Humanity
- ABQ Planning Dept. including IDO code authorities
- Bernalillo County Assessor
In considering the challenges and complexities of such an undertaking, let’s not forget that, based on an unhoused population of 3-5,000 (less than 1% of Albuquerque’s population), we have already spent over $300 million, without measurable impact on our streets. Even if inadequate, the Gateway System has been a complicated program of expenditure, construction, and contracting which I have observed to be, even now, baffling to our City Council who authorized its funding, by absence of clear metrics and reported outcomes. We should not be daunted nor deterred by complexity.
Let’s not make homelessness a permanent feature of Albuquerque. We can reclaim our heritage and future and add to it the reputation of being a city that confronted a devastating crisis and solved it with effective humanity and benefit for every resident. Let’s fix this now – together.
Respectfully
Jaemes Shanley
CITY COUNCIL DISTRICT 7
District 7 is the mid heights city council district. The district is predominantly very established neighborhoods surrounding the uptown retail business district including the Commons, Winrock and Coronado Shopping Centers. The District boundaries are generally Montgomery Boulevard on the North, I-25 on the West, Lomas on the South and Eubank on the East.
District 7 Incumbent Democrat Tammy Fiebelkorn is opposed by Democrat Jaemes Shanley who has been qualified as a “write in” candidate by the Bernalillo County Clerk who is responsible for administering local elections including the city’s municipal election, the public school board and AMAFCA.
On July 7, Tammy Feibelkorn qualified for the ballot by submitting 500 nominating petitions signatures. She submitted the required $5.00 donations for public finance and has been given $58,205.00 to run her campaign.
On September 2, Jaemes Shanley filed with the Bernalillo County Clerk his declaration of candidacy as a write in candidate along with the required 500 nominating petition signatures to run for City Council. Jaemes Shanley is a privately financed candidate. His name will not appear on the ballot and voters are required to write in his name in the box provided on the ballot.
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
The six candidates for Mayor and the other 12 candidates for City Council would be wise to take into account what Jaemes Shanley has outlined in his guest opinion column on how the city should be addressing the unhoused crisis.
Jaemes Shanley knows what he is talking about and he would make a fine city councilor an provide the real leadership that District 7 so desperately needs on the City Council.
Voters in District 7 now have a real choice and are encouraged to take a little more effort and write in Jaemes Shanley as their new city councilor.
Early voting commenced on October 18 and ends on November 1 with the election on November 4.
IF YOU LIVE IN DISTRICT 7, PLEASE WRITE IN JAEMES SHANLEY FOR CITY COUNCIL.
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POSTSCRIPT
Jaemes Shanley first arrived in Albuquerque in August 1969, after graduating High School in England, to attend UNM from which he graduated in 1973. His parents followed a year later, and his father retired in Albuquerque after a 30-year career as a US Naval aviator. In 1971 they purchased a home in the Mark Twain neighborhood where they resided for the remainder of their lives. Jaemes worked in the private sector in sales, marketing, and business strategy for U.S. corporations in Australia, Japan, and the United States. His work required extensive travel throughout Asia Pacific and Latin America, routinely on the ground in more than 30 countries. Jaemes and his wife returned to Albuquerque in September 2006 to renovate and take up residence in his parent’s Mark Twain neighborhood home where they reside today on their family “compound” along with 5 rescued cats. Jaemes drives the corridors of Albuquerque on an almost daily basis to deliver carrots to his horse, Rembrandt, who resides in Corrales.