PIT count: A look into life on Albuquerque's streets

Tents behind freeway barricades, back alleys and arroyo beds are makeshift homes for people living in the fringes of society.

Their obscurity poses a unique challenge for the scores of volunteers that must find these people and tally them for the city’s annual point-in-time count, a piecemeal project that opens the gate for millions of federal dollars for homelessness initiatives.

“There are so many unhoused people you never see,” said William Bowen, a project manager for the Coalition to End Homelessness, which conducts the count.

Bowen’s volunteers, some 200 of them, know Albuquerque’s nooks and crannies well, easily weaving through slashed fences and barbed wire where people live in relative solitude.

One of those people is 49-year-old Stephen Kraus, who thousands of people unknowingly pass each day on their way to work or school as he rests in his makeshift camp behind a freeway barricade.

With the constant whirring of cars as his soundtrack, Kraus said he whiles away the hours writing hip hop songs. Here no one bothers him, Kraus said, and he doesn’t bother anyone else.

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t appreciate the company.

“I don’t have many visitors,” Kraus said, poking his grey beard out from his tarped tent.

Kraus offered his guest, an interviewer with the coalition, his own pillow to sit on so she wouldn’t have to sit in the mud surrounding his tent.

Cross legged, team lead Alexandra Paisano accepted the pillow and asked Kraus a series of questions about himself and his situation.

These questions are part of a nationwide project to collect data on homelessness, conducted in every city that receives funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In Albuquerque alone, service providers collect around $5 million to $6 million from the federal government, thanks in part to the survey, Bowen said.

However, the project is about more than data.

For one, Bowen said, it keeps the issue top of mind for residents, politicians and journalists. It also allows service providers to find people they may have lost touch with and attempt to get them back on track to housing, detox or other services.

Moreover, some survey respondents simply needed someone to listen and, as several respondents said, to treat them “like human beings.”

This need for human connection carried over in Paisano’s demeanor while in the field.

During interviews, Paisano spent most of her interactions with survey respondents saying very little. In between stories of hardship, Paisano slipped in a question or two until all 23 prompts were answered.

Often these questions prompted bad memories and traumas.

The survey, although it collects standard information about gender and race, also asks about domestic violence, substance abuse and mental illness, which are all contributing factors that keep people in the thralls of homelessness.

On Wednesday, many of the respondents spoke of experiences with at least one of those factors.

The survey also asks about the boundaries between homeless residents and service providers.

For example, when asked if he would move to a bed in the shelter of his choice if it was immediately available, Kraus gave a firm “no."

“I stayed in that Gateway West when it was a jail, so I don’t stay there,” Kraus said.

Most respondents interviewed that day said they would decline a bed at a city shelter, choosing instead to brave the weather outdoors.

For those who skip shelters, the survey asks where respondents slept in previous nights whether that’s in a car, on a couch or on the street. It also asks where they stay, creating a detailed picture of homelessness throughout the city.

While Downtown and East Central are where people experiencing homelessness gather in the largest numbers, some avoid these parts of town.

Instead, some people bed down in areas that are more discreet, but also more precarious like arroyos, where there is a constant risk of flash flooding.

Kraus picked his spot in part to avoid police officers, who he said hassle him if he stays in other parts of town. In the nine months he’s lived on the streets, law enforcement have cited Kraus on numerous counts of unlawful camping, criminal trespass and property damage, according to court records.

Meanwhile, down the road, another survey respondent, Breea Weeks, also spoke about her fear of East Central as she waited by the bus stop on Indian School and Lomas.

With a glittering ruby red dermal piercing above her lip and faded pink hair dye, Weeks knit her brows as she recounted harrowing experiences along Central.

After being struck with a metal pole and robbed, Weeks said she now avoids the street almost entirely, only venturing over to get her methadone prescription, a drug that is used in opioid detox.

“I don’t get robbed and hurt as often over here,” Weeks said.

Now, Weeks sleeps outside of a mechanic shop in the Northeast Heights, where she and the owner have a tentative relationship.

She cleans up the property and in turn has a slightly more peaceful place to rest.

“That’s what I do to maintain humanity for myself,” Weeks said.

Weeks “desperately” wants to get off the street, she said, but doesn’t know where to begin.

As a project manager, Bowen hopes that the survey, and the funding it garners, will eventually help people like Weeks.

More money means more services and more boots on the ground, Bowen said. The coalition expects to release the results by summer’s end, though that’s subject to change.

Last year’s results revealed that nearly 3,000 people are living on the streets of Albuquerque, twice as many as before the pandemic. Though the PIT count is largely considered an undercount, it has tracked rising homelessness for years.

This year’s results will show whether or not numbers are continuing to surge, or if outreach is working to get people off the streets.

“This is a solvable issue,” Bowen said. “Countries have ended homelessness. It’s not like it can’t be done.”

Gillian Barkhurst is the local government reporter for the Journal. She can be reached at gbarkhurst@abqjournal.com