Albuquerque Homeless Citations Have Surged Regardless of Mayor’s Rhetoric — ProPublica

Throughout his reelection marketing campaign final fall, the mayor of Albuquerque, New Mexico, criticized his challenger for suggesting town ought to get more durable on the homeless inhabitants. Such an strategy can be merciless, Tim Keller mentioned throughout a televised debate with former County Sheriff Darren White.

The town clears encampments and provides folks citations “on a regular basis,” mentioned Keller, who defeated White to win a 3rd time period. However “this drawback is complicated and you can’t dumb it right down to arresting folks,” he mentioned. “You merely can’t arrest your means out of this drawback whether or not you wish to or not.”

Regardless of his rhetoric, a ProPublica evaluation discovered that below Keller’s management, Albuquerque has more and more criminalized conduct related to homelessness, inflicting a rising variety of folks on the streets to be arrested and jailed.

In 2025, folks have been charged 1,256 occasions for obstructing sidewalks, almost six occasions the variety of circumstances within the earlier eight years mixed. Greater than 3,000 trespassing expenses have been handed out final 12 months, the best for any 12 months since 2017. And circumstances of illegal tenting elevated to 704 from 113 the 12 months earlier than, in response to beforehand unreported county information offered to ProPublica by the New Mexico Administrative Workplace of the Courts.

In recent times, a majority of those circumstances, as soon as they have been adjudicated, have been dismissed. However not with out penalties: Every quotation lists a court docket date, which, if missed, can result in a bench warrant and arrest.

And that’s usually what has occurred.

Over the previous 4 years, the variety of bookings in Bernalillo County’s jail categorised as homeless or “transient” has skyrocketed — to almost 12,000 in 2025, from 3,670 in 2022. In current months, the share of individuals booked who’re transient made up about 49% of the jail’s inhabitants, in response to a ProPublica evaluation.

This has occurred as the typical each day inhabitants on the jail from July 2024 via June 2025 reached its highest level in a decade. On some days final 12 months, the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Middle held extra homeless folks than the largest native shelter.

The town’s homeless inhabitants has greater than doubled from 2022 to 2025, whereas the rise in homeless folks jailed by the county has greater than tripled throughout the identical time interval. Police and court docket data and interviews with homeless folks present the rise of their incarceration is primarily pushed by the cascading results of repeatedly citing people who find themselves experiencing homelessness.

In an interview with ProPublica, Keller echoed his rivalry from the controversy that citations and arrests should not an answer to homelessness. Nonetheless, he defended the actions police have taken. “What we’re doing is following the letter of the regulation. There are way more punitive issues that I’m positive lots of people would need, that we don’t do as a result of they’re inappropriate,” he mentioned. 

In an announcement, a spokesperson for Keller famous that different cities “depend on rapid arrests, blanket sweeps with out service connection or legal penalties with out providing options.” The town points three citations earlier than an arrest is made, the spokesperson mentioned. (Individuals residing exterior instructed ProPublica they’ve been taken to jail with out first receiving three citations.) 

When ProPublica identified that citations can result in arrests and jail time, Keller acknowledged that jail “just isn’t the answer.” However, he mentioned, folks name town and ask that legal guidelines be enforced.

In recent times, U.S. cities, going through file numbers of individuals on the road, have adopted extra legal guidelines concentrating on them. In 2024, after the U.S. Supreme Courtroom dominated that cities might implement bans towards sleeping exterior, greater than 150 municipalities nationwide, together with Albuquerque, both handed new legal guidelines prohibiting public tenting or ramped up enforcement of current legal guidelines.

President Donald Trump has endorsed this strategy, calling for federal grants to be prioritized for cities that implement bans on “city tenting and loitering.”

The emphasis on enforcement has come regardless of proof that such citations and arrests are expensive. For instance, Bernalillo County spends about $169 per evening to jail inmates with out vital medical or psychological well being wants, in response to a county spokesperson. The price will increase for folks with extreme medical ($250 a day) and psychological well being (about $450 a day) wants, a spokesperson mentioned. 

By comparability, housing a person within the metropolis’s year-round emergency shelter prices $44 an evening.

Tony Robinson, a political science professor on the College of Colorado who has studied tenting bans, mentioned the share of homeless inmates in Bernalillo County’s jail is “unusually excessive” — even at a time when cities are ramping up enforcement. ProPublica discovered that jails in equally sized counties, together with San Francisco and Pasco County, Florida, have decrease charges of incarceration for people who find themselves marked homeless.

Citing people who find themselves homeless can land them in jail as a result of some lack cellphones or an handle the place they will obtain notices by mail. This can be a barrier to showing in court docket, resulting in a warrant for his or her arrest, he mentioned. “Easy citations result in jail time and arrest by a predictable path.” 

ProPublica reviewed greater than 100 circumstances and interviewed two dozen folks experiencing homelessness in Albuquerque about their encounters with police. Practically everybody ProPublica spoke to had been charged for a criminal offense related to homelessness. They mentioned they really feel singled out by the police: Officers contact them regularly and difficulty citations, which may result in warrants. When officers see they’ve warrants, they will take them to jail.

Natalie Rankin, a 45-year-old homeless lady in Albuquerque, was charged 12 occasions during the last 12 months for quite a lot of crimes, together with blocking the sidewalk, public tenting and legal trespassing. She spent an evening in jail in August after an officer seen that she had a warrant for her arrest.

“I don’t do something greater than get little warrants for not displaying up in court docket,” she mentioned in August. 

Rankin has already been charged not less than seven occasions in 2026 and spent not less than in the future in jail.

Since Keller took workplace 9 years in the past, Albuquerque has spent not less than $100 million to increase town’s Gateway system, which incorporates shelter for households and adults, a 50-person therapy program, and a spot the place persons are supervised by medical professionals as they withdraw from medication or alcohol.

“We’re one of many few cities who actually has been proactive about constructing a brand new system,” Keller mentioned. “It wants tons of labor and tons of assist, however we’ve not less than constructed one thing that has gotten 1,000 folks off the road.”

In the meantime, town’s homeless inhabitants, which was not less than 2,960 final 12 months, exceeds the shelters’ capability even with the expansions. Keller has additionally grow to be much less tolerant of encampments in public areas like parks and sidewalks, vowing to not permit “tent cities.”

In textual content messages reported in 2024 by the information group Metropolis Desk ABQ, Keller requested then-police Chief Harold Medina to develop a plan to handle the “rising disaster.” Medina texted again a plan to “hammer the unhoused.” (After the texts have been printed, a spokesperson for Keller mentioned, “We proceed to stability imposing legal guidelines towards criminal activity to maintain our communities protected, and offering sources for folks experiencing homelessness to each get them linked to companies.”) 

The town has been accused of breaking the regulation because it carries out the crackdown.

In 2022, present and former homeless folks sued Albuquerque in state district court docket over its concentrating on of encampments, alleging town “criminalizes their standing as homeless,” in response to court docket paperwork. The category-action lawsuit is pending.

A 2024 ProPublica investigation discovered metropolis staff routinely discarded the belongings of homeless folks as they cleared encampments, violating a court docket order and metropolis coverage. Some folks instructed ProPublica in current interviews that metropolis staff proceed to throw away their belongings, and police are issuing citations extra regularly.

Officers haven’t focused people who find themselves homeless, Medina mentioned in an interview in December. The rise in citations and arrests for crimes related to homelessness are the results of a broader crime-fighting surge, he mentioned.

Final April, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham deployed the Nationwide Guard to help Albuquerque police, citing the “fentanyl epidemic and rising violent juvenile crime.” The Nationwide Guard was additionally to supply humanitarian and medical help in elements of town frequented by people who find themselves homeless.

“It’s vital that we don’t categorize this as, ‘We’re doing an initiative on the unhoused,’” mentioned Medina, who retired on the finish of final 12 months. “We’re doing an initiative throughout the board.” 

Metropolis statistics present, nevertheless, that the largest leap in arrests from 2024 to 2025 was for misdemeanor warrants, the varieties described by most of the folks ProPublica interviewed. Arrests related to misdemeanor warrants have been up 72%.

Priscilla Montano, 67, typically stays below a bridge close to downtown Albuquerque. She mentioned metropolis staff, who’re sometimes accompanied by police, go to the spot not less than 5 days per week to inform folks to maneuver their belongings. In July, Montano was charged thrice for illegal tenting and obstructing sidewalks. In September, she was incarcerated for a day on the identical expenses. There’s a warrant for her arrest associated to a separate violation from September.

Montano mentioned every time she goes to jail her belongings are thrown away. She’s misplaced her wedding ceremony ring and property she must survive.

Lisandra Tonkin, who leads a workforce on the New Mexico Coalition to Finish Homelessness that helps folks discover housing, mentioned the crackdown has made it harder to remain in contact with the folks they’re attempting to assist as a result of they’re “consistently moved” by sweeps and jail stays.

Metropolis officers say they first provide sources, together with a spot in a shelter. Tonkin mentioned some persons are reluctant to simply accept as a result of they’ve been traumatized by their experiences in shelters, like being assaulted or having their belongings stolen. The provide typically comes with necessities they received’t settle for, like giving up a pet or separating from a companion. 

“So what’s the answer of the place to maneuver them? I believe plenty of occasions the selection is shelter or jail,” she mentioned.

The consequence, in response to Medina, the previous chief, is that the Metropolitan Detention Middle has grow to be the state’s largest “psychological well being facility.”

“I don’t assume it’s best for these people to at all times find yourself in jail, 100%, however there’s restricted sources and skill to get folks to these sources below our present system,” he mentioned.

Individuals who have acquired citations or who’ve been arrested instructed ProPublica that town’s provide is both a mattress in a shelter that was the county jail or nothing in any respect.

One night in December, Tiffany Leger sat on a sidewalk in northwest Albuquerque listening to a digital assembly via headphones. Leger, who spent two years on the streets however now has a house, nonetheless visits mates who dwell exterior and shares cellphone numbers for native organizations the place they will search assist. As she listened to the digital assembly, police approached and instructed her she was being detained for tenting, noting there was a tent close by. The officers issued a quotation.

Over time, Leger has heard from mates that if police provide sources, it’s often a card with outdated data on shelters within the metropolis or a mattress within the shelter on the outskirts of city, she mentioned.

Leger mentioned that often police strategy individuals who look homeless and examine for warrants, typically resulting in an arrest. 

For many years, Peter Cubra has monitored town’s therapy of homeless folks. Cubra was concerned in a 1995 lawsuit during which Jimmy McClendon, an inmate on the Bernalillo County Detention Middle, sued Albuquerque and the county over situations there, together with overcrowding. The lawsuit additionally alleged that police have been jailing folks, together with those that have been homeless, for nonviolent misdemeanors. 

A metropolis settlement within the lawsuit directed police to difficulty citations for nonviolent misdemeanors, when attainable, as an alternative of constructing arrests on the spot. 

Cubra mentioned that in 2020, he began noticing “slow-motion arrests,” the place police difficulty citations understanding that an individual experiencing homelessness received’t get the notices from court docket. Police, he mentioned, would revisit the identical location, demand identification and run warrant checks, finally choosing folks up on warrants from the earlier citations or expenses.

Janus Herrera, a neighborhood advocate and volunteer, mentioned folks have instructed her they miss court docket dates as a result of they misplaced paperwork stating the place and when to seem in court docket that they acquired throughout an encampment sweep.

“Individuals are already strained to a breaking level,” she mentioned. “You retain including increasingly on prime of that.”

ProPublica’s assessment of 100 randomly chosen circumstances for legal trespassing from 2025 confirmed 67% of individuals had missed their court docket dates, resulting in an arrest warrant. 

Most people ProPublica interviewed who had gone to jail mentioned they have been held in a single day and launched again to the streets with a pending case. A current examine helps their claims: From 2024 to 2025, the variety of folks jailed for lower than a day elevated by 131%, in accordance to a knowledge evaluation by the Middle for Utilized Analysis and Evaluation on the College of New Mexico.

If an individual doesn’t attend subsequent court docket dates, their case may end up in further warrants. The following time they encounter police, they are often arrested once more.

Cubra mentioned as an alternative of repeatedly citing and arresting folks, some communities designate locations for folks to “informally however intentionally” sleep outdoor with out harassment. (A church opened such an area in Albuquerque final 12 months with capability for 10 tents.) However in Albuquerque, Cubra mentioned, the arrests “have persevered and accelerated” over the previous 12 months, which he known as “shameful.”

“Our metropolis is knowingly saying, ‘We received’t allow you to sleep outdoor,” Cubra mentioned. “We all know there is no such thing as a place so that you can sleep indoors, and we’re going to maintain arresting you and harassing you for one thing that’s unavoidable and intrinsic to simply current.’”

Methodology

ProPublica obtained court docket information on three expenses regularly related to homelessness: legal trespassing, illegal obstruction of sidewalks and illegal tenting. In some circumstances, a single cost appeared a number of occasions within the information. In these circumstances, we included solely the newest end result related to the costs. We additionally excluded circumstances marked as transferred inside the court docket system, to keep away from double-counting. As a lot as attainable, we excluded circumstances the place it was clear the costs weren’t instantly related to homelessness — for instance, home violence and driving below the affect.

The court docket information didn’t embrace housing standing. The county jail tracks whether or not an individual has everlasting housing throughout reserving and marks an individual “transient.” The court docket information didn’t listing the regulation enforcement company that issued the cost. However jail information reveals the Albuquerque Police Division was accountable for 75% of the homeless bookings from 2020 to 2025. 

ProPublica interviewed 24 people who find themselves homeless about being charged with crimes related to their housing standing. We independently verified their circumstances via court docket data.