City, Pueblo Clear Homeless Camp

    When Sara Vigil tells people around Española about her neighborhood north of the local Wal-Mart, almost everyone knows about it.

    Since she moved to Carr Lane about 18 years ago, there have always been some issues with drug addiction there.

    But the sale and use of drugs in the area has increased in the past two or three years, especially in the summer, because people go to the nearby bosque west of Carr Lane, Vigil said.

    For at least the last two years, the bosque has hosted a homeless camp, where people have built makeshift shelters out of beds, shopping carts, sheets and other materials they could find.

    Both this summer and last, one could find food, needles and clothing for children and adults scattered throughout the bosque, which is owned by Ohkay Owingeh.

    Last week, Ohkay Owingeh, the Española Police Department and other groups partnered to clear the bosque of needles, debris and overgrown brush and trees, and confiscate all of the personal property abandoned by people who were living there.

    Española Police Chief Louis Carlos said the groups disposed of about five to six-hundred needles and about 60 yards of trash — about 120,000 pounds.

    About 60 to 70 volunteers came to the cleanup Aug. 4, and 10 to 12 were present Monday to start a week of removing excess shrubbery.

Formerly homeless

    Ralph Martinez, a driver at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, was one of the volunteers who helped Aug. 4.

    Martinez said he knew the area was always problematic for residents, and cleaning it up felt good. When he was homeless in Española between 2006 and 2012, the bosque was one of the places he lived.

    He said he started experimenting with drugs in high school, and had developed an addiction by 2001, and realized his addiction was hurting people around him.

    “The Carr Lane area was a real convenient place to slip away from reality,” he said. “I stayed there quite often.”

    When Carlos entered the camp early in the morning on Aug. 3 to clear the homeless camp, he found it empty. City officials placed a sign notifying people about the upcoming cleanup at least a week before, he said.

    He said one of the reasons people were gathering in the bosque was because of nearby drug dealers and places where people go to use, including what he referred to as the “ant hill,” at 312 Carr Lane.

    Carlos, whose father struggled with his own addiction to heroin, called the building the “ant hill “ because “it’s the epicenter.”

    Earlier this year, city police found someone who had fatally overdosed in the building, and on another occasion, a fire burned part of one of the rooms before city firefighters extinguished it.

    “You know what saddens me honestly?” Carlos said. “Is that there’s children that play here. Every time I come over here or check on this property, they’re playing, there’s only a quarter-inch, a half-inch slat of wood that’s keeping them out of this. That’s it.”

    The home is one of 42 abandoned properties in the city that city councilors found this summer to be threats to the public health, safety and welfare.

    “Not all 42 homes are like that,” City Manager Kelly Duran said. “We do have the worst of the worst, and some of them just need some minor rehabbing, but nonetheless they are on the list.”

Years in the making

    Española Police Department Det. Manuel Romero, who is also a tribal member of Ohkay Owingeh, said the cleanup was the outcome of years of work shared by the Department and the Ohkay Owingeh Tribal Police, which started with coordinated drug busts on nearby Starlighter Loop in 2016.

    “Everybody had a common goal,” he said. “Everybody finally got fed up, and we’re happy that the city, and the tribe, put the resources, and it’s amazing.”

    Over the summer of 2017, Española police increased citations for trespassing, loitering and panhandling in and around businesses on North Riverside Drive, where homeless and low-income people tend to gather.

    During a public meeting on Aug. 23, 2017, former police chief Matthew Vigil said officers approached homeless people and told them to leave private property, and gave them information about where to find food, shelter and drug treatment.

    At the time, Romero said at least two people went into treatment programs because of the operation.

    He said most people approached did not appear interested in the service offered, and that’s when he decided that they were a threat to public safety.

    “We went out, we made contact with about 32 people, and it’s interesting because people that were there told me they were going to change after being offered services, were still there,” he said. “All that told me was, they are there to harm the public. They had the opportunity to help themselves.”

    Romero said officers later demanded identification from 32 people loitering or panhandling near the businesses, and ordered them to leave.

Few resources

    The purpose of last week’s cleanup of the bosque was to “address the socio-economic issues that are present” in the area, according to the city’s operational plan.

    “Within this dynamic, along with other factors, such as social, economic, technological, and political environments, scarcity of resources has fostered an environment within the Carr Lane vicinity to harbor illegal, immoral, and negative acts against society and Mother Earth,” city officials wrote. “As a consequence, the littered and disgraced landscape has threatened the quality of life not only for our Mother Earth, but also concerned citizens.”

    When asked where the homeless individuals living in the bosque will go, Carlos said, “Good question, it’s the universal of finding somewhere else to flop.”

    Both Vigil and Martinez said the cleanup is a good start.

    Vigil said the cleanup gives her hope that the neighborhood could be known for something other than drug use.

    However, Martinez said more could be done to provide homeless and impoverished Españolans with the basic necessities.

    “Just because we cleaned up the bosque area doesn’t mean we solved the problem,” he said. “The homeless don’t have nowhere to turn, to even attempt to put their feet on the ground, even if they wanted to.”

    He said the people staying there will probably go to their other spots around the city for a while, either along the river, in fields or abandoned buildings.

    Homeless residents of Española have few options since there is no homeless shelter in the city. There are shelters in Santa Fe and Taos, but those are at least 25 miles away from Española.

    There is no affordable housing program run by the city of Española, but Rio Arriba County has one with homes in Tierra Amarilla and Ojo Caliente.

DreamTree

    “What we’re seeing a lot in Española is there aren’t enough resources for homeless people,” Shanti Taylor, street outreach case manager for DreamTree Project said in an interview last fall, as she was distributing backpacks full of supplies in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart in Española.

    “There’s one domestic violence shelter that I’m aware of,” she said. “But men, women, children, intact families, if they’re homeless here, they have to go to Santa Fe, basically, or Taos.”

    Since March 2017, DreamTree has given out backpacks full of wool blankets, clothing, food and hygiene products in Española and Taos, and occasionally in the outlying parts of Rio Arriba, Taos, Mora, Colfax and Union counties.

    “In the whole of Northern New Mexico, there’s just not enough resources, period,” Faye Unold, a New Mexico Highlands University student and clinical intern for DreamTree, said. “That’s a really big barrier. The cost of housing is too high, and the wages are too low. It keeps people homeless because there’s this large gap, between income and rent.”

    There is no minimum wage ordinance in Española, where a third of the population lives in poverty.

    The average fair market rent for a two-bedroom rental unit in Rio Arriba County, in 2018, is $762, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

    Before taxes, a person working a 40-hour per week job at minimum wage, in the County, would spend more than 63 percent of their $1,200 in monthly wages on rent for an average two-bedroom house. HUD defines affordable housing as spending 30 percent of earnings on housing.

Rehab needed

    Unold said in her experience working with addicts, it is “frustratingly hard” to get into rehabilitation, and Taylor said there are no rehabilitative resources for people under the age of 18.

    “It seems like Española could benefit from having a detox, and it’s always been surprising to me that there is not one here,” Unold said. “I think a portion of the hospital dedicated to be a detox would be ideal. Medical care would be right there, it would be perfect.”

    City officials wrote in their plan that they hope to develop the area into “an open space opportunity for a natural habitat, river walk, and or open space that preserves nature’s beauty, and a healthy society.”

    “We encourage the community to help us take back the Valley,” Duran said. “The city can’t do it alone. Ohkay Owingeh can’t do it alone, but when we rally up together as a community, any thing’s possible, everything is possible. It’s time for truth-telling. We can’t ignore the socio-economic issues that we have.”

    Vigil said she has thought about selling her home before. However, the cleanup is giving her a lot of hope, she said.

    “We finally are beginning to feel hope and encouragement and supported,” she said of the coalition behind the cleanup. “This is a big first step.”