City officials have put a cork in a plan to restrict alcohol use at Los Altos Park. The proposal sponsored by City Councilor Diane Gibson would have bann.
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A plan floated by two elected officials to create sanctioned “safe outdoor spaces,” aka tent cities for a growing homeless population, is premature at best and a terrible idea at worst.
The suggestion by County Commissioner Debbie O’Malley and City Councilor Diane Gibson comes as Albuquerque is moving full speed toward opening the long-awaited, scaled-down but still $14 million Gateway Center homeless shelter and services hub in the old Lovelace hospital in Southeast Albuquerque. The city describes this Gateway Center – with 150-175 shelter beds plus 25-50 slots to help people “recover from acute illness and injury” – as “a physically and emotionally safe place that will help connect people to housing” (and) “a compassionate solution to supporting those who are unhoused.”
Albuquerque City Councilor Diane Gibson
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. With mounting homelessness that Albuquerque’s new shelter alone is unlikely to resolve, some local leaders say it is time to follow the lead of other communities by expanding services to include sanctioned encampments.
Such camps, sometimes called “safe outdoor spaces,” are managed sites with tents or low-cost structures where people without homes can sleep and access bathrooms and showers. Unlike unauthorized versions, authorities do not break them up. They have become increasingly common around the U.S.; Seattle, for example, has a series of such villages, while at least one New Mexico community, Las Cruces, has embraced the model with its Camp Hope.