The Albuquerque Journal Editorial Opinion pages feature 5 types of opinion columns submitted for publication with a 600 word policy limitation: those by the paper’s Editorial Board, those by the paper’s Community Council, those by Syndicated Columnists, those by Local Columnists and those by Local Voices. According to Journal editors:
“Local Columnists are tasked with carrying a heavy load of responsibility to help readers scrutinize issues impacting them, their community and their country. It is the Journal’s goal to publish columnists from all walks of life and varying political viewpoints to give readers exposure to all sides of local issues.”
On Sunday July 26, the Albuquerque Journal published on its editorial opinion page C2 the below 600 word “Local Columnist” opinion column by Pete Dinelli:
OPINION: Albuquerque needs a stronger response to unhoused people on the streets
The most recent Point-In-Time Survey of Albuquerque’s unhoused people found an 8% increase in the city’s homeless population, going from 2,740 to 2,960. Service providers estimate the actual number of unhoused people approaches 5,000. A 2025 report by the city found 30% of individuals experiencing homelessness self-report having a serious mental illness, 25% self-report having a substance use disorder and 66% experience some form of mental health condition. The New Mexico Justice Reinvestment Working Group found 65% of all individuals who enter the state’s criminal justice system have a behavioral health need.
Mayor Tim Keller has spent $300 million over the last four years to build five shelters known as the Gateway System. Keller is spending $85,283,471 in the 2027 fiscal year on 122 service contracts for unhoused services and shelter, while about 75% of chronically unhoused people refuse city shelter and services.
There are three recent major initiatives by Keller and the City Council directed at reducing the unhoused population on the streets of Albuquerque:
- In May, the City Council passed the “Enhanced Service and Safety Zone Ordinance” that makes it unlawful to sit, sleep, lie or camp on public sidewalks, streets, bike paths or alleys inside designated zones intended for commercial areas with high crime rates and recurring public safety concerns, including sidewalk obstructions and encampments. There are eight other state laws and city ordinances enacted to arrest for vagrancy, trespassing and illegal camping that apply to the homeless. The number of people booked into Bernalillo County’s jail who are classified as homeless or transient has skyrocketed from 3,670 in 2022 to nearly 12,000 in 2025.
- Fifty safe outdoor spaces will be offered to unhoused people at the Gateway West Shelter to provide showers, electricity and a place for an estimated number of between 15 to 50 people to set up tents and camp. Keller has advocated for 100 smaller safe outdoor spaces scattered all over the city to accommodate 10 people each for 1,000 unhoused people to camp.
- Keller’s new diversion initiative is led by the City Attorney’s Office with a $200,000 allocation. The approach shifts the city’s response from a system that cycles individuals through “arrest and release” to one that uses intervention as a pathway into services, while maintaining accountability for participation.
Simply put, all three initiatives fall pathetically short of what is needed to remove unhoused people from the streets in a humane manner. Homeless people are not above the law. They cannot be allowed to just ignore the law, illegally camp wherever they want for as long as they want when they reject all government housing or shelter assistance.
On Jan. 6, the Metropolitan Court Diversion Court was launched. The court redirects people with serious mental illness into voluntary treatment as an alternative to criminal prosecution for minor and nonviolent crimes. The court deals with people who previously have had criminal charges dismissed because they were found incompetent to stand trial. Eligible defendants are assessed by a social worker or case manager at the point of prosecution and offered on a voluntary basis a structured diversion option, including shelter intake, case management, substance use or mental health treatment, or other supportive services.
More must and can be done by the courts mandating unhoused people off the streets and ordering them into the mental health or drug addiction treatment programs they desperately need. The city attorney and the district attorney should form a specialized unit to initiate civil mental health commitments in Metro Court to secure court orders to get chronically mentally ill and drug-addicted people off city streets.
Pete Dinelli is a former Albuquerque city councilor, former chief public safety officer and former chief deputy district attorney. You can read his daily news and commentary blog at www.PeteDinelli.com.
POSTSCRIPT
The link to the related Dinelli News and Commentary article providing the research the foregoing Albuquerque Journal guest column column is based on is here: