HANDLING HOMELESSNESS

“It’s....weird.”

Tamera Norton struggles to describe the last two years of being homeless.

After her husband died, she found out he’d gone through the $20,000 she’d put away for emergencies. On disability, Norton wasn’t able to keep up with expenses.

She spent time in Mountainair with friends, helping them build their own home. Then she couch surfed in Albuquerque, and when she felt like she’d worn out her welcome, she transitioned to living in her car.

Eventually, Norton’s car was towed and, by the time she found it, the fees had climbed to $1,200. With not much left, she and her dog, Cutie Pie, made their way down to the village of Los Lunas and finally to the shade of the bosque on the west side of the Rio Grande, off the south side of Main Street.

Along the way, Norton lost her disability benefits and is currently trying to get them reestablished. That effort is made even more difficult due to the recent theft of her backpack, which contained her driver’s license and birth certificate.

“That’s something I’ve never seen the likes of — homeless stealing from homeless,” she says, shaking her head.

Most days she puts in time dumpster diving, “to see if I can find something someone might want. The good Lord has taken care of me. Something always comes through for the day.”

Norton is one of numerous people who have made the bosque their home — some for months, others for years — who have, for the most part, remained out of the public’s eye. In the last two years, the number of people experiencing homelessness in Valencia County has increased, according to Noelle Chavez, director of the Valencia County Resource Center in Belen.

Since the resource center began operating in 2022, Chavez has seen an increase in the number of unhoused population, including more senior citizens, families, unaccompanied minors and teenagers with their own young children.

It’s hard to get an accurate census of unhoused people, but looking at rough numbers, Chavez said the McKinney-Vento programs for the Belen and Los Lunas school districts serve about 400 families total.

The McKinney-Vento Act provides rights and services to children and youth experiencing homelessness, which includes those who are sharing the housing of others due to loss of housing, economic hardship or a similar reason; staying in motels, trailer parks or camp grounds due to the lack of an adequate alternative; staying in shelters or transitional housing; or sleeping in cars, parks, abandoned buildings, substandard housing or similar settings.

At the resource center itself, which is a heating and cooling center for people who are homeless, Chavez said they see about 80 adults and 10 to 20 youth a year. She emphasized the center does not provide housing of any kind, short or long term.

“We get more people stopping in during the winter. They have a cup of coffee, warm up and leave,” she said.

In a late June opinion, Supreme Court of the United States empowered cities to fine, arrest and/or ticket those experiencing homelessness.

The bosque is an open, public space that is free for people to use for hiking, biking and horseback riding. It may look like unregulated forest land, but the acreage is under the authority of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy with the village of Los Lunas Open Space Division overseeing a portion within the village.

“It is MRGCD’s property and they’re the ones managing all of this,” said Pat Jaramillo, open space supervisor. “... we’re here to support. Some of the issues we’re facing comes back to fire danger and the issues with (people camping in the bosque) using open fires that has in the past created some of these larger bosque fires.”

Jaramillo continued, saying the trash being left around the encampments isn’t good for the bosque.

“Now we’re also finding abandoned vehicles, which poses another issue, especially when it comes to the flooding,” he said. “If they’re left in there, they can end up leaking oil and other chemicals ... into the water.”

Eric Zamora, MRGCD chief operating officer, said the district has begun efforts to remove people who are camping and living in the bosque, as well as cleaning up trash and debris from the open space area in Los Lunas.

“District policy does allow for daytime use of the bosque, and we encourage people to leave after dusk, but there’s no overnight camping allowed. We want people to recreate and spend time there, but we do not allow overnights,” Zamora said.

There are safety concerns associated with overnight camping, he said, including campfires for food preparation.

“There’s also the security of the people using the area, who have had encounters with the homeless,” he said. “I’ve been out there myself and had encounters that were on the verge of being confrontational. I know there are some folks out there who are having some mental health struggles.

“Concern has been expressed to the district about trash, the use of the bosque as a toilet, drug paraphernalia. Last time I was out there, I saw piles and piles of what appeared to be stolen goods.”

Zamora said there is also a biological opinion that mandates the protection of endangered species, noting the bosque is a “sensitive environmental area.”

In late June, district staff began making contact with people camping in the bosque, letting them know the district was going to begin cracking down soon. After serving the people they could locate in the bosque with a legal, three-day notice to vacate the area, district personnel went into the area on July 1 to begin cleaning up, Zamora said.

“Initially, we primarily addressed the trash issues. We’ve made contact with people residing in the encampments several times. We are going to focus on cleaning up abandoned camps and trash,” he said. “We will have resources through the Valencia County Resource Center. We won’t be dragging people out. As we proceed with additional contact, we are going to stress moving along.”

District personnel removing the trash for the last two weeks have been accompanied by Los Lunas police officers and members of the village open space division, since “they are the contract agency charged with monitoring the open space.

“This will focus on the village (of Los Lunas) open space park. Down the road, we will be reaching out to the Valencia County Sheriff’s Office for other areas and down south to Belen,” Zamora said.

Los Lunas Police Chief Frank Lucero said he understands the community’s concern about the bosque encampments.

“The other side of this issue is it’s not a simple solution. It’s not a secret that there’s very few resources here in Valencia County for our homeless population, so essentially what we’d be doing in vacating the homeless population in the bosque is pushing them from one area to another,” Lucero said. “The caveat to vacating them from the bosque is it pushes them out into the city.

“As it is, we receive numerous complaints from the public every day about the homeless population and their presence in the city, so it’s not a simple solution,” the chief said. “Vacating these folks without proper resources I think has the potential to make things more challenging for our community members, so we’ve got to be careful about how we approach this situation.”

In a statement posted on the MRGCD’s Facebook page on Tuesday, July 16, the district stated, “there has been significant progress in the clearing out of the bosque” in Los Lunas.

“People camping unlawfully in the area have received legal notices to vacate the property and while some have agreed to leave the area and remove their belongings, others have remained,” the statement reads.

It continues, noting a second round of legal notices were issued to those still camping in the area on Thursday, July 11.

Zamora said he understands the human aspect of the situation and was sympathetic, but the district “has an obligation to serve the public.”

In order to literally “meet people where they are,” Chavez and resource center staff members have gone out to areas where encampments have been established in an effort to connect people with resources they need.

Staff at the resource center can help people fill out housing applications, apply for Social Security Disability Insurance, connect and transport them to medical services and transport to court hearings. Chavez said staff doesn’t give legal advice to clients, but can help them get to mandated court appearances.

The center also has funding to help pay for replacing vital documents such as IDs, drivers’ licenses and birth certificates. It also provides food and clothing, and employment navigation by helping people develop resumes, practice interview skills and secure appropriate clothes.

“There’s a lot we can do, so clients just need to ask and we will try to help,” Chavez said.

The Valencia County Resource Center is at 129 South Third St. in Belen, and can be contacted at 505-305-9720 or 505-595-9279.

(Editor’s Note: News-Bulletin staff writer Felina Martinez contributed to this article. Part II of this series will be published next week.)