{"id":2336,"date":"2026-05-26T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/albuquerque-officials-take-steps-to-curb-surge-in-citations-jail-stays-related-to-homelessness\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T10:00:00","slug":"albuquerque-officials-take-steps-to-curb-surge-in-citations-jail-stays-related-to-homelessness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/albuquerque-officials-take-steps-to-curb-surge-in-citations-jail-stays-related-to-homelessness\/","title":{"rendered":"Albuquerque Officials Take Steps to Curb Surge in Citations, Jail Stays Related to Homelessness"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Judges, state public defenders and city officials in Albuquerque, New Mexico, are taking steps to curb a cycle of missed court dates and arrest warrants for crimes related to living outside that has led to a county jail population that\u2019s about half homeless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eighteen months ago, judges in Bernalillo County, which includes Albuquerque, noticed an increase in charges related to homelessness \u2014 including for obstructing a sidewalk, unlawful camping and unlawful storage of personal property. They said they also saw that some people who received the citations didn\u2019t have an address and were missing court dates. People living on the street often lack cellphones and permanent addresses, making it difficult for them to know when to appear in court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Missed court appearances can lead to warrants that \u2014 if the person encounters officers again \u2014 can land them in jail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starting July 1, when Albuquerque police issue citations for nine offenses associated with homelessness, they will schedule related court appearances for Fridays, according to a memo issued by Presiding Criminal Division Judge Michelle Castillo Dowler. The judges anticipate that having a specific day each week for the city ordinance cases will lead to fewer people missing court dates and fewer warrants for failing to appear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials will also use the set hearings to attempt to address the problem in other ways. A caseworker and an attorney from the New Mexico Law Offices of the Public Defender will attend the Friday hearings. The public defender\u2019s office is also working to have local treatment and service providers available outside the courtroom, said Dennica Torres, the district defender for the public defender\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a one-stop shop on Fridays,\u201d she said. Her office, the district attorney\u2019s office and the courts have been working since last year to address the homelessness-related caseload. The city of Albuquerque has also set aside $200,000 for a city attorney or paralegal to assist with the Friday effort, Torres said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t simply just cycle vulnerable individuals through jail and back out on the street,\u201d Mayor Tim Keller said at a recent news conference<\/a>. \u201cBoth of those are not the right answer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The changes come after ProPublica reported in March<\/a> that under Keller\u2019s tenure, charges have skyrocketed for ordinances related to living on the street. In 2025, people were charged 1,256 times for obstructing sidewalks, nearly six times the number of cases in the previous eight years combined; more than 3,000 trespassing charges were handed out, the highest for any year since 2017; and cases of unlawful camping increased to 704 from 113 the year before, according to previously unreported county data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read More<\/h3>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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\n\t\t\tAlbuquerque\u2019s Mayor Said Arrests Were \u201cNot the Solution\u201d to Homelessness. Yet Jail Bookings Have Skyrocketed.<\/strong>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/a>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Court data shows that charges for the nine offenses that will be part of the court\u2019s Friday hearings continue to rise \u2014 from 579 between January and April of 2025 to 2,072 during the same period this year. (Judges did not include trespassing in the charges scheduled for Fridays.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ProPublica found the number of people at Bernalillo County\u2019s Metropolitan Detention Center who are designated as \u201ctransient\u201d or homeless has soared in recent years, to nearly 12,000 in 2025, from 3,670 in 2022. Last week, nearly 53% of people booked<\/a> at the jail were recorded as homeless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keller did not respond to ProPublica\u2019s questions or requests for comment. But he previously told the news organization that arrests and citations are not a solution to homelessness, which is a contentious issue in Albuquerque. While the city\u2019s homeless population more than doubled from 2022 to 2025, the increase in homeless people jailed by the county more than tripled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keller, who has been mayor since 2017, has responded by increasingly deploying city crews to clear encampments and also by ramping up enforcement of crimes related to being homeless. Keller previously defended the Albuquerque Police Department\u2019s actions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re doing is following the letter of the law,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are much more punitive things that I\u2019m sure a lot of people would want, that we don\u2019t do because they\u2019re inappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Albuquerque Officials Take Steps to Curb Surge in Citations, Jail Stays Related to Homelessness<\/a> appeared first on ProPublica<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n
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 www.propublica.org Source link <\/a>\r\nAlbuquerque officials are addressing rising citations and jail stays linked to homelessness, with nearly half of the county jail population being homeless. Judges have noted increased charges related to homelessness, leading to missed court dates due to the lack of permanent addresses among individuals living on the street. Starting July 1, court appearances for nine homelessness-related offenses will be scheduled for Fridays to reduce missed dates and warrants. The initiative aims to provide supportive resources, with public defenders and local service providers present to offer assistance. Mayor Tim Keller emphasizes that arrests are not a solution to homelessness.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Judges, state public defenders and city officials in Albuquerque, New Mexico, are taking steps to curb a cycle of missed court dates and arrest warrants for crimes related to living outside that has led to a county jail population that\u2019s about half homeless. Eighteen months ago, judges in Bernalillo County, which includes Albuquerque, noticed an increase in charges related to…","protected":false},"author":375,"featured_media":2337,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/375"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}