6 things that worry homeless service providers across New Mexico

Housing and homelessness service providers came together Tuesday to celebrate $16 million in federal funding for homelessness assistance.

Leaders at nonprofits and government organizations that provide homeless services shared some of the issues that worry them:

1. Producing matching funds is a challenge for nonprofits. Nonprofits often need to produce matching funds in order to receive money from federal grants. That can be a challenge, according to Dolores Nuñez, CEO of Catholic Charities in Albuquerque.

“That’s the thing that is stopping us from helping even more homeless individuals here in the community,” Nuñez said.

2. Some small NM towns don’t have a homeless shelter. Deming doesn’t have a homeless shelter, said Laura Parra, a community organizer with NM Communidades en Accion y de Fe, or CAFe, in Deming.

“We don’t have a specific place where we can put all these people that are coming into Deming, and it’s a huge issue right now that is concerning all of us,” Parra said.

3. Local organizations need to work with schools. Vanessa Porter, a community organizer with New Mexico CAFe, said she is working with the Las Cruces Public School District, and approximately 800 students are unhoused.

“That can have a big impact on education, as well as on the family,” Porter said. “So I believe we really need to make a stand to be able to partner with the schools to be able to see how (we) as local organizations can really help them.”

4. Apartment managers need to be paid better. High Desert Housing is breaking ground next month on a 47-unit property to help people get out of homelessness. The housing will include wraparound services from Health Care for the Homeless, said Kara Summers, executive director of High Desert Housing.

But it is difficult to retain apartment managers, according to Summers.

“We really need to be able to pay our managers better, because this work is really difficult. It is really, really difficult. And it does not help us when we have to constantly retrain over and over again,” Summers said.

5. More money needs to be put toward landlord incentives. Money to incentivize landlords to participate in housing voucher programs and money for housing mitigation are needed, said Laura Chavez, CEO of the Supportive Housing Coalition of New Mexico.

“We can develop housing all day long; many of us are working towards that. We can administer vouchers; many of us are. We can administer support services; many of us are. And without landlords and property partnership buy-in, we’re spinning our wheels,” Chavez said.

6. Long waitlists need to be eradicated. “We want to see what we can do jointly to eradicate long waitlists,” said Debbie Johnson, founder of the TenderLove Community Center.

The TenderLove Community Center offers day shelter, adult home health care and other wraparound services. The community center is planning to expand to include more services for youth exiting foster care.

Johnson recalled that one of her former clients contemplated suicide over the long wait time to get housing they were experiencing.