In May of this year, the Albuquerque City Council passed the Enhanced Service and Safety Zone Ordinance, which aims to criminalize camping on the sidewalk. The law was sponsored by the City Councilor who represents our downtown, District 2’s Joaquin Baca. Councilor Baca recently joined Nash Jones on PBS’ New Mexico In Focus to debate the merits of this legislation with Dr. Lisa Christopherson. Baca told me the same story he told PBS, that one day he woke up and the medical examiner was removing the body of an unhoused woman who had passed away a week earlier and went unnoticed. I imagine it was these kinds of victims of life on the streets that Baca was thinking about when he also told me that many within the unhoused community do not know how to help themselves, motivating him to write this law.
This is a common trope I hear people say when speaking about our unhoused neighbors, that those who do not have shelter are simply incapable of getting themselves on their feet and we must forcibly remove them in order to get them help. Dr. Lisa Christopherson described what she saw in laws like this, and she told me that “Traumas and systemic barriers trap vulnerable people in legal loops of being unable to pay fines, being jailed, released, fined, felony, jailed. Almost as if incarceration of unhoused folks was the desired outcome.” This description rings true when the punishments for those who are caught camping on the sidewalk may face up to a $500 citation. Baca tells viewers on PBS the best way for the unhoused population to avoid these expensive tickets is to accept help and be moved to another location. This is displacement.
I had a phone call with Councilor Baca to try and determine what he saw as the biggest problems within his local community that inspired him to create enforcement codes like this. He told me about Silver Street Market, a local business that has complained about lost profits due to people camping outside their store. I interviewed an unhoused couple sleeping outside that very store. They spoke to me about the extensive process they are both caught up in trying to get shelter through a government program. They told me they cannot stay anywhere longer than a week safely. Most of all they disprove the notion that our homeless neighbors cannot stand up for themselves.
This makes statements from Baca like, “homelessness is not illegal even if it seems contradictory” even more absurd. The UNM Young Democratic Socialists of America firmly stands against legislation that harms our unhoused neighbors.
- UNM YDSA Member Thomas Abeyta
