ABQJustice recently got involved with the homeless community around Albuquerque, she said. The Tent City story is now, along with the campaign against police brutality, the primary focus of the group.
The Daily Lobo talked to Vargas about the homelessness problem.
What inspired your outreach endeavors with Tent City and Camp Resurrection?
“The extent to which residents of Tent City No. 1 are prepared to provide a sense of community, safety and identity to and for each other inspired our group’s direct action to put pressure on the city authorities. The people of Tent City No. 1 resisted the widespread notions that people without shelter should hide and be allowed to sleep only in the dingy corners and cracks of Albuquerque as if they do not exist. Instead of bowing down to this perception, the Tent City No. 1 residents embodied the saying ‘resist to exist,’ and Tent City has increasingly become iconic of both the possibility and the feasibility of a stable and structured homeless community.”
What do you believe are Albuquerque’s biggest obstacles in stemming the issue of homelessness?
“The primary obstacle is CABQ’s and Mayor (Richard) Berry’s seeming inability to have an honest conversation about homelessness in general, or truthfully address the ‘problem’ with real innovations and solutions that actually change the conditions of homelessness. What is currently happening, the best that we can gather from the outside looking in is that CABQ and Mayor Berry continue to fund service provision models that do not take into account that the homeless demographic no longer consists of men only and now rather includes an increasing number of single women, couples, families and pet owners.
“This is by no means a new trend and yet the local policies have not caught up with the reality on the streets. The city wasted so much money with its voucher program that was little more than an ineffectual Band-Aid. Permanent housing remains the ideal but a sanctioned tent city would prevent all the unsheltered people who are not yet eligible for such housing to fall through the gaps as they currently do. Our concept of a structured tent city provides housing realities.”
What are some possible solutions to overcome these obstacles?
“The acknowledgement of the full complexity of homelessness is a good place to start. We have people living out on the streets for a variety of reasons but they are all still part of our city and should be treated as human beings. We should acknowledge that these very real people have ordinary human needs, and then simple compassion. Not just from the authorities but from the Albuquerque community in general.”
What are your hopes for the future of those residents at Camp Resurrection and the general homeless population?
“What I hope for the residents of Camp Resurrection and every other person in the city is to matter in the eyes and actions of our local government. That when words like ‘solutions’ and ‘innovation’ are being uttered by the mayor they mean empowerment and justice for people and communities and not a curb filled with giant rocks aimed at ridding the city of one of its realities, the homeless.”
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
What would help you and the city best reach that final outcome?
“A simple phone call back from the Mayor’s Office would be great for starters. Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montano of CABQ could also make good on his documented promise to call us to schedule a sit down. ABQJustice does not pretend to have all the answers, because we simply don’t have them, together we all do. Yet members of ABQJustice have now worked intimately and intensively with that portion of the unsheltered population that is normally ignored.
“We have also presented the city with a viable and detailed proposal that could be implemented immediately if the city and the mayor wanted to. While this proposal might not be perfect — and it seems not to the city’s liking — we are still waiting to see a substantive proposal from the city’s side.”
Matthew Reisen is a staff reporter at the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at news@dailylobo.comor on Twitter @DailyLobo.
