ABQ study shows almost 3,000 unhoused on Jan. 29

On the night of Jan. 29, at least 2,740 people in Albuquerque didn’t have a permanent home to go to. Of that group, about half were totally unsheltered, sleeping outside with no roof over their heads.

Earlier this year, surveyors with the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness fanned out around Albuquerque, asking individuals about their sleeping arrangements and their history with homelessness.

This year’s Point-In-Time (PIT) count identified hundreds more people who were sleeping in an emergency shelter or unsheltered in Albuquerque. Last year, the number was 2,394.

“Given the amount of 311 calls, knowing we house 900 people every night in our system, along with what we all see around town, it’s likely a big undercount,” said Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller in a statement.

“That’s why we continue our historic investments in housing and services. We converted a rundown hotel into housing, just bought another for young adult shelter, and are planning a new recovery housing center on top of the critical work at the Gateway — which is on schedule to help 1,000 people a day next year. It’s clear we need even more resources and partners.”

With the exception of 2022, when cold weather and fewer surveyors — about a third of the team this year — may have artificially lowered the number, the number of homeless individuals in the city has been increasing since 2013.

But there is one notable category in which numbers dropped — individuals in transitional housing programs.

Transitional housing offers a temporary place to stay for the homeless , offering resources ultimately to move people into permanent housing. In 2011, the PIT count identified 594 individuals living in transitional housing, or 36% of the individuals counted that year. In 2024, that number was just 220 – about 8% of those counted in the January survey.

The PIT report indicates that in recent years, the number of providers for transitional housing programs has dropped in the city. In 2015, there were five transitional housing providers funded through the federal Housing and Urban Development Continuum of Care (CoC) program. In 2024, that has dropped to two.

In the past year, CoC programs were able to successfully house close to 700 individuals, more than 450 households and almost 200 children.

Usually, the city of Albuquerque’s role in transitional housing is providing rapid rehousing vouchers, which can help someone pay for housing for up to two years, said city spokesperson Katie Simon.

“Transitional housing is just one of the options in the whole continuum of care. At the city, we’re definitely doing our part to invest in all parts of that continuum, because we know that we need a lot of different options for people to meet their needs,” Simon said.

The city has helped the Veterans Integration Center with its new transitional housing campus, which is expected to open in the fall by supplying funding to purchase the land the new facility is being built on.

“It’s going to be a massive expansion for them,” Simon said.

Questions answered

Survey respondents answered questions about their experience with homelessness. More than half of the unsheltered respondents said they were homeless for the first time. Of surveyed individuals who were from outside of New Mexico, the majority were from Texas and California. Most said they were not homeless when they moved to the Land of Enchantment.

A third of the women surveyed said they were homeless due to domestic violence. About 16% of all respondents said domestic violence contributed to their sleeping situation.

The most common barriers to housing chosen by respondents were access to service, application fees or deposits for housing, no housing vouchers, high rental prices, missing documentation and substance-abuse disorders.

When asked about items lost in encampment clearings, documents like social security cards, birth certificates, and drivers’ licenses were commonly cited.

Demographics

Certain demographics were overrepresented in the data. Of the more than 1,200 people who were unsheltered on Jan. 29, three out of four identified themselves as veterans.

Despite making up about 5% of the Albuquerque population, close to 16% of the unsheltered population counted were Indigenous. Blacks represent 3.2% of Albuquerque’s population but more than 8% of people sleeping outside on Jan. 29.

Limitations

The PIT report cautions that the 2,740 number is imprecise — and likely an undercount. Children are often undercounted, the report said, as “parents will often do everything in their power to make sure their child has a place to sleep inside, even while the parent is forced to sleep on the street or in a vehicle.”

If someone happened to be housed for the night of Jan. 29 — perhaps sleeping on a friend’s couch, scraping together enough for a one-night motel stay, in a hospital – or in jail — they would be excluded from the count.

Sweeping encampments could also affect the count, the report said. And many people just say no — “many individuals experiencing homelessness do not have the time of desire to complete a survey, resulting in hundreds of refusals and incomplete surveys,” the report says.