‘Please, not in this neighborhood’

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UNM’s Addiction and Substance Abuse Program will have to find a new home by next fall, but the residents of the program’s prospective new location object to the move.

At a meeting Thursday, about 50 neighborhood residents expressed their objections to the project.

ASAP has occupied a space near the Sunport at 2450 Alamo Ave. S.E. for the past 10 years, but ASAP’s lease will expire in July 2013.

Behavioral Health Finance Executive Director Rodney McNease said because the landlord refused to renew ASAP’s lease, another tenant is set to move into ASAP’s current space before the next school year, so the University is looking for a new location.

“Even though the space we’re in has worked fairly well, the biggest downside is really the location as far as public transportation,” McNease said. “With the lease coming due and not being able to renew the lease, it’s an opportune time to find a site where we can build a permanent home.”

McNease said the University aims to move ASAP to a vacant lot near the intersection of San Mateo Boulevard and Central Avenue. He said the new location would make the program more accessible to patients using public transportation.

“The vacant land there is not quite two acres,” he said. “Part of the reason for looking at that area to site the clinic is because a large number of patients reside in that area … and transportation for a lot of our patients is a significant issue.”

But McNease said relocating to this area would require the construction of a new building, which he estimated would be approximately 16,000 square feet and would cost about $4 million to $5 million. He said the project has already been approved by the UNM Board of Regents.

“What we’re looking on building at that site would be to replace the facility that’s there now, and it will be a comprehensive clinic that offers a range of services,” he said. “It will be a new, nice, modern building.”

McNease said the program has served about 2,000 patients struggling with substance abuse problems and with other mental issues per year since ASAP’s founding in 2000. He said ASAP has not received complaints from residents in the neighborhood surrounding its current site during its stay in the area.

“The instance of having any kind of crime associated with the clinic is very low,” he said. “We haven’t had any problems along that line. So really the relationship with the current neighborhood over time has been good.”

But Peter Dinelli, who has been living near the State Fairgrounds since 1985, said his neighborhood has worked the past 10 years to rid the place of drug-related crimes. He said that although he supports ASAP’s intentions, placing the program in the area will only attract more drug addicts.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that there’s a need for the work that you do,” he said. “The reason why these people are here is that they don’t want this program. New Mexico needs this type of program, but not in this neighborhood. Please, not in this neighborhood.”

As a retired prosecutor, Dinelli said he knows that crimes, such as murder and rape, often involve drugs. He said that because of the number of local bars, the neighborhood has one of the highest crime rates in Albuquerque, and ASAP will only increase that number.

“In fact, the last case that I prosecuted was for murder,” he said. “This community has the highest crime rates in Albuquerque. This is a community that has struggled to turn it around.”

University officials and ASAP staff spoke in the meeting to try to persuade residents that the project would benefit the area.

Department of Addiction Psychiatry Vice-Chairman Michael Bogenschutz said there is desperate need for the program in Albuquerque. Bogenschutz said drug-problems persist because drug users cannot access centers like ASAP easily, and so they do not get the treatment that they need.

“More people in New Mexico now die from the direct consequence of drug abuse than motor vehicles and firearms,” he said. “The rate of drug abuse in New Mexico is about two and a half times of the United States’ as a whole.”

Neighborhood resident Erica Landry said that until now, drug problems have been especially disturbing with homeless people in the area.

“When you walk into the neighborhood, (you can) see the needles in the gutters and watch the homeless people urinate and defecate in front of you,” she said. “That is happening every day. We have immense problems. We don’t want to add to it.”

McNease said the University has considered other locations that could house ASAP, but that it’s difficult to find an area that would fulfill zoning requirements. He said programs like ASAP should not be placed near schools or churches, and that the lot in the intersection of Central Avenue and San Mateo Boulevard is one of the few sites that readily fulfills these zoning requirements.

Although he is sure that ASAP will be in a new location by next school year, McNease is still uncertain about where it will be and what will happen to the program in the future.

“Our hope is that we can negotiate some kind of an extension, if we had to,” he said, referring to the lease. “But I think it’s fairly clear that we will have to be in a different location late next year.”