Handling Homelessness

Black mail, extortion, racketeering, drug and human trafficking. Those are just a handful of the issues Rio Communities Police Chief Felix Nunez says he and his department are encountering in the city of Rio Communities due to the homeless population, which is growing.

“We don’t have the population like Albuquerque but we are seeing the trickle down. People are getting passes for the Rail Runner going down to Valencia County and come to where the rail ends,” Nunez said.

Other communities such as Santa Fe and Taos are seeing an influx of unhoused people as well, the chief said, noting “this in no longer a major city issue. Rural communities across the state of New Mexico are experiencing this.”

Belen Mayor Robert Noblin said the number of unhoused individuals has increased since he moved to the Hub City in 2005. The mayor, who is also a local business owner, said that increase has happened for several reasons, including an affordable housing shortage.

“Also, the widening economic gap places many living paycheck to paycheck, one medical emergency or job loss away from eviction and homelessness,” Noblin said. “Insufficient mental health services, addiction treatment and other support services leave many without the needed help to maintain stable housing.”

While Chief Nunez has encountered an uptick in people squatting in empty houses in Rio Communities, Valencia County Sheriff Denise Vigil said that wasn’t something her deputies have seen in unincorporated areas recently.

“But what people need to remember is we don’t have authority to go check vacant properties. We have had incidents where someone living out of state had someone checking on the property or came back themselves and found evidence of squatters,” Vigil said. “Of course people should call us if there’s a problem, but we’re not private security for private homes.”

A more common occurrence is people sleeping in their cars, usually in business parking lots, the sheriff said. If deputies are called out they will advise individuals they have to leave private property.

“Most of the time they do. We had one incident where the person’s car wasn’t in running order and the business gave them three or four days to make arrangements,” she said. “We offered options to get assistance from folks in Albuquerque, but they refused every avenue we had available. Eventually, the vehicle was removed and I couldn’t say where that person ended up.”

Vigil continued, saying she thought the state “has really failed folks in that area — addiction and mental health. We don’t have the facilities to get these people the help they need. I also think we’ve gone a little too far so as to allow people to think it’s OK to live this way and nobody can tell them what to do.

“Unfortunately, here we are with a situation where most times it’s a social problem, not a police problem. Law enforcement is supposed to work miracles. We’ve been tasked with a problem that is not necessarily a police problem.”

At the beginning of July, the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District began a concerted effort to remove illegal camps within the bosque south of the river bridge in the village of Los Lunas. The plan is to continue south towards Belen, telling people they have to vacate areas and removing illegal dumping.

Vigil said in speaking with MRGCD staff, while some unsheltered people have left the bosque, others have simply moved further south. As they move into the jurisdiction of VCSO, officers will help “keep the peace” if needed as district personnel clean up areas.

“We have always said we would assist them, just like any other resident,” the sheriff said. “For residents and business owners, they have the right to call us and say they don’t want people on their private property. But people also have the right to walk down the sidewalk. We have to have some empathy for their situation, but at the same time we have to remember there are resources to help.”

As the number of unhoused individuals grows in any community, Nunez said often within camps of those experiencing homelessness, there’s a criminal element “willing to victimize other homeless people. There are certain levels of drug and human trafficking, extortion.”

During a recent roundtable discussion hosted by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on crime and homelessness that Nunez was invited to attend, one participant relayed an incident where a couple were forced to panhandle because they could earn more money than cleaning yards or working fast food.

“They also had to pay a portion to the person in charge, the ‘mayor.’ That’s the racketeering. There’s a lot of exploitative behavior happening in these camps. We’re seeing a population coming to Albuquerque and out of major cites who don’t want to be victimized and they try to get to rural areas. They find they can’t run from it.”

When victims flee, perpetrators follow, Nunez said, often with drugs.

“It’s not just in Albuquerque; we have that down here, too. Before the dealers would drive around and sell. Now they go to an encampment to distribute things like fentanyl,” he said.

The chief said often people struggling with mental health issues will use drugs like fentanyl to self medicate, but then get caught in the cycle of needing the substance to stay stable and fall into committing criminal acts to feed their habit.

“They (dealers) will get groups to do shoplifting and then trade what they get for small doses of fentanyl,” he said. “The people running these organizations know they are using (fentanyl) for mental health and are abusing these individuals ... which leads to residential, commercial and vehicle burglaries.”

These criminal enterprises lead to more than burglaries and property crimes, the chief said, sometimes becoming violent crimes such as a recent incident in which a homeless individual was holding the dog of an unhoused couple hostage in an attempt to extort cash and drugs. The confrontation resulted in one of the dog owners being shot in the leg.

“We had a homeless addict with mental health issues who broke into a home in the middle of the night and laid down in a child’s bedroom,” the chief said. “We have incidents every day. We definitely know people need help and we don’t have the help for them.

“There are people who are going to victimize people, homeless or not. I know there are homeless people who are being victimized but it has to be recognized there is a dark side of homelessness.

“The stance of the city of Rio Communities is we definitely want to try and find help, but we also have to focus on the criminal element among this population.

“We will deal with them properly and push for prosecution. There is a soup bowl of nastiness every department is trying to sift through to try to help people.”

(Editor’s Note: Part IV of this series will be published next week.)