Where were you sleeping Monday, Jan. 29?

Where were you sleeping Monday, Jan. 29?

Last week, volunteers and members of the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness fanned out around the city, asking that question to people riding buses, resting at bus stops and sitting on sidewalks.

The Point-In-Time count tried to count all of the homeless people on a single night in January. For four days, volunteers — many of them from nonprofits and other organizations offering services for unhoused people — spread out around the city to conduct surveys and collect demographic data.

The afternoon of Jan. 31, volunteer Shasta Florian and Coalition employees William Bowen and Alexandra Paisano drove to Albuquerque’s International District. After parking near Louisiana and Central, they set out on foot.

As Florian surveyed a woman near Central and Alcazar, the woman’s dog — a tank-like canine named Pumba — gnawed at the straps of her tote bag. Volunteers with the coalition carry bottles of water and other supplies, which they offer to survey takers.

Florian, 18, volunteered for the PIT count for the first time when she was a high school student at Tech Leadership High School.

“It was kind of forced upon us last year,” Florian said. “But I enjoyed it so much and learned a bunch that I would have never learned being inside of a classroom. I had to do it again.”

Florian said she saw the “bad” and “truly sad” sides of homelessness. She learned that many were homeless because of domestic violence. She saw the effects of substance abuse. She saw a 14-year-old girl, not in school, but living on the street.

Based on their experiences, Florian and her classmates wrote a bill, which they plan to one day bring to the Legislature. The bill would allow underage kids to stay somewhere for 72 hours without having to notify parents or call child protective services.

“You have to work on the little things to make a big difference,” Florian said.

Farther down Alcazar, Paisano surveyed Dawn Dennison, who became homeless at 24. Now 32, Dennison recently started trying to find housing for herself and her mother, a 57-year-old with health issues, including diabetes. But after three months of trying to get a housing voucher, Dennison still hasn’t found permanent housing.

“I’ve been trying to get me and my mother off the street, because I care about her more,” Dennison said.

Dennison said she first became homeless because of her ex-boyfriend. She has one child, who was taken from her because of her alcohol abuse. She stopped drinking about four years ago. But she still uses drugs, Dennison said — just not “blues,” pills that typically contain fentanyl.

“That’s tearing everyone apart out here,” Dennison said.

Just a few blocks away, Sophia Cranmer rested on a large rock on the side of the road.

Cranmer, who is disabled, moved from California to New Mexico with her husband about 10 years ago after he was diagnosed with cancer. The couple ran a backpack ministry.

After her husband died, Cranmer’s car was stolen and her life changed “dramatically.” She said she didn’t have family she could call for help.

“When it rains,” she said, “it rains.”

She’s been homeless ever since. One of her sons is also homeless in Albuquerque, but Cranmer can’t find him. One of her biggest challenges is staying safe, she said. One of her friends was recently sexually assaulted.

“We all try to look out for each other,” Cranmer said. “We do the best we can.”

Cranmer has tried staying in shelters but said she’s had her belongings stolen. Now, her typical day consists of trying to make money and doing “whatever I can to survive.”

Several people approached by the Coalition to End Homelessness team weren’t interested in taking the survey. Although the coalition tracks refusals, sometimes volunteers aren’t comfortable assuming if someone is housed or not.

The count is performed nationwide. Alexandra Paisano, the coordinated entry system director at the coalition, said many agencies tie their funding to the PIT numbers — although many organizers say that number is likely an undercount.

“Even though we know they’re not official numbers of homelessness, a lot of (service providers) use this when they apply for non-HUD grants,” Paisano said. “Or, when they apply for matching funds … that’s how many people they’re basing (off) that they need to provide services for throughout the year.”

Last year, the count identified 2,394 homeless people in the city. About 1,000 of those people were completely unsheltered; others were staying in emergency shelters or transitional housing programs. At the time, organizers estimated there could be hundreds, if not thousands, more homeless people in the city that remained uncounted.

The 2022 report identified 1,311 homeless people. The difference between 2022 and 2023 may be outsized, because of a larger number of volunteers in 2023 and a more targeted approach in different neighborhoods.

It takes a few months to compile the data collected from the PIT. The 2024 report will likely be published this summer.

“I don’t think the numbers necessarily doubled,” Paisano said. “But we have seen more people over the past couple years, especially after COVID.”

Couch-surfing isn’t counted as homelessness by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD. If people stayed with a friend on Jan. 29 — even if they slept outside the rest of the week — they would not be included in the count.

Surveys are anonymous. Volunteers note the first two letters of a participant’s first, middle and last name to prevent double-counting.

Many of the questions on the survey are mandated by the HUD Fund. But others were developed by volunteers and community members, including questions about what people’s biggest barriers to finding permanent housing are, if they would use a safe outdoor space and what belongings they’ve lost in the past year.

Paisano said the second half of the survey can help inform policymakers about the barriers some people have to housing — and some of the challenges with the PIT count itself.

Nichole Rogers, Albuquerque city councilor for District 6, volunteered the afternoon of Jan. 30. Over the course of the four days, several councilors joined the coalition to survey people in different areas of the city.

Rogers was struck by a lack of long-term housing services that provide shelter for more than a night or a couple of weeks.

“We don’t have (services) here to carry people all the way through, getting them what they need to be able to stay housed and continue down the continuum all the way to homeownership,” Rogers said.

Rogers said she’s planning strategy sessions with service providers and people who have experienced homelessness to come up with policy solutions.

“We have to do better,” Rogers said. “That includes the city, that includes our providers, that includes neighborhoods, neighbors — we all have to come together.”