How to tackle homelessness in Albuquerque? Mayoral candidates weigh in

For the third time this year, Priscilla Montaño has a warrant out for her arrest for missing court after being cited during an encampment sweep, according to court records.

To resolve a recent case, she surrendered her dog, Big Boss, and entered treatment services to get the case dropped. Days later, on Nov. 21, a warrant was issued for Montaño for missing court on a separate encampment citation.

The 67-year-old, who has been homeless for several years, has cycled between jail cells and the Albuquerque streets since July as the city aims to clear the unhoused from living in public spaces.

As the Dec. 9 election runoff for Albuquerque mayor nears, Montaño is among the thousands of individuals at the center of the political debate about how the city should address the complex issue of homelessness and its impact on the community.

The latest survey shows an 8% increase in the number of homeless people counted in January of this year — a total of 2,960 — compared to the same time in 2024.

Since 2023, the city has experienced a 24% increase in the number of unhoused individuals, according to the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness.

But those numbers may not tell the whole story.

Incumbent Mayor Tim Keller, seeking his third term, believes the total number of unhoused people is closer to 5,000. Albuquerque voters, according to a Journal poll in late September, ranked homelessness in the city as the second most pressing problem, behind crime.

Over the next four years, if reelected, Keller said he would continue his administration’s multipronged approach by increasing temporary and permanent housing opportunities, including doubling the current 1,000 overnight beds offered through the city’s Gateway system of services.

Challenger Darren White, a businessman and retired Bernalillo County sheriff, has campaigned on immediate relief, promising to clear Albuquerque’s homeless encampments on “day one,” if elected.

Whoever wins the election will inherit a class action lawsuit pending in state District Court challenging the city’s current enforcement of its homeless ordinance — citing people and clearing encampments on public property — as “cruel and unusual punishment.”

The number of city shelter beds cannot accommodate all the unhoused people living in Albuquerque, states the lawsuit filed in 2022 by attorneys representing LaDella Williams and seven other currently or formerly homeless individuals.

“The city’s intentional conduct of constantly displacing unhoused individuals without offering them an alternative place to stay constitutes an unlawful deprivation of their liberty interest. There simply is no place within the City for the unhoused to lawfully be.”

Keller

Keller said his approach to homelessness is balanced between offering help and compassion to those living on the streets while acknowledging that individuals cannot continue to sleep in parks and on sidewalks.

“We have to do both,” he said. “We have to lead with compassion and we have to offer people help. We also know that these community spaces are shared spaces and there’s a responsibility that they have to work for everyone.”

The best resolution to homelessness is not the criminal justice system, Keller said. It’s more housing. He plans to continue building affordable housing units to decrease what he said is a “massive wait time” for housing.

Keller said the city has built 5,000 affordable housing units with “another 3,000 in the can” but will need an additional estimated 20,000 to meet the demand and “help with rental protection to keep prices down.”

In the meantime, Keller advocates so-called safe outdoor spaces, sanctioned places in the city where people experiencing homelessness can camp in tents or their vehicles.

In the three years since the program began, there’s only been one sanctioned site, while five applications have been denied and four others have been withdrawn. Critics have said the program has too many requirements, such as full plumbing and 24/7 security.

In a third term, Keller said his administration would continue to shut down what he called “crime-infested” hotels across Albuquerque and try to convert them to housing units.

As a preventive method to keep people from becoming homeless, Keller said he is looking to increase the city’s eviction prevention program to create a safety net for people.

White

White envisions giving an unhoused person illegally camping outside in Albuquerque the choice of “going to the shelter, they can go to the Gateway Center, if they have some type of need for the services they provide, or they’re going to go to jail, but they’re not going to stay on the street.”

A Journal review shows judges typically sentence such offenders to “time served,” which is typically less than two days. Then, they are released from jail.

If that happens, White said, “then they’re going to go back and then they’re going to get arrested again.”

He added, “I know everybody, like the mayor, calls me cruel, but how is that fair to those people that live there?”

White said his crackdown on encampments would coincide with a general cleanup of the city.

White offered no concrete housing proposals, instead criticizing the amount of money spent on the Gateway system that has expanded this year to offer services tailored to homeless young adults.

White hasn’t proposed any specific temporary or permanent housing alternatives his administration would pursue if he is elected. He has said he is opposed to at least one alternative: safe outdoor spaces.

Current practices

Under current policy, Keller said the city initially offers services to a homeless individual. If those services are declined, a civilian city encampment team issues a notice requiring the person to leave the encampment because it is obstructing the sidewalk or the individual is trespassing.

A Priority One notice gives people two hours to remove their belongings and leave the premises; lower-level priority notices require people to leave in one to three days.

Petty misdemeanor or misdemeanor citations can be issued after a notice is given. Three citations must be issued before police arrest the individual.

The city’s civilian interaction team — comprised of employees from the Health, Housing and Homelessness department in collaboration with the Solid Waste Management Department — makes the first notice, and police will approach after, unless narcotics are involved or if the interaction team is busy.

According to encampment data from the city, over 8,500 citations were issued by the interaction team within the first six months of 2025. Solid Waste reported cleaning 910 encampments during that same period. Data for 2024 wasn’t available last week.

City officials said there are anywhere from 10 to 60 police officers on teams assigned to enforce city ordinances and state laws that affect people sleeping outside, such as obstruction of sidewalks, illegal camping and trespassing on private property.

Such interactions have had negative outcomes at times.

According to the 2025 survey on Albuquerque’s homelessness, 55% of respondents reported missing documentation as their main barrier to housing. A majority of those respondents said they had lost a birth certificate, Social Security card or driver’s license during encampment sweeps.

Several people living on the streets have told the Journal they lost important documents and sentimental objects during the sweeps. Montaño, who spoke with the Journal recently, said she lost her wedding ring and a relative’s war uniform in a July sweep.

The city has disputed such claims but has said such instances “may happen.” Keller has said the city is revising policies to prevent any such losses and will hold people who violate the policy accountable.