It seems to persistently plague cities far and wide: a lack of affordable housing and an abundance of homelessness. Albuquerque City Councilors are geared up to present measures related to both — which are not always mutually exclusive — during a Monday night meeting with a stacked agenda.
Some of the proposed measures seek to hold the Mayor Tim Keller administration more accountable, while the city will ask the City Council to approve more funds.
Councilor Renée Grout wants more efficiency in the city’s housing voucher program, overseen by the Health, Housing & Homelessness Department (HHH). Vouchers of all kinds have been on her mind since at least the beginning of last year, when she and Councilor Nichole Rogers launched a working group to help solve problems they saw in the city’s emergency voucher system.
Emergency, or motel vouchers, are meant to assist those in critical need of a room for an overnight or short stay. But locating the vouchers and the quality and safety of the motels where they are used has been an ongoing concern. Permanent supportive housing (PSH) vouchers are also on Grout’s radar — considered a key step toward stability for those who are precariously housed or experiencing homelessness.
Grout wants the city to do a better job on the tracking and reporting of how millions of dollars in vouchers are spent each year (about $12.4 million was budgeted in fiscal year 2025) and what the outcomes are. PSH vouchers came under the spotlight last month after one of the city’s main voucher providers — the Supportive Housing Coalition of New Mexico — admitted to the misuse of more than $200,000 in city funds. The situation put scores of clients at risk of being evicted and back on the street. The city was also on the hook to pay landlords back rent.
For more: Housing, emergency voucher programs draw attention in 2024
HHH officials said Monday morning that Albuquerque Heading Home and the Good Shepherd Center are lined up to administer most of the PSH vouchers previously held by the Supportive Housing Coalition, if they can get approval of social service agreements and funding from the City Council tonight.
“It is vital that these items are not deferred,” HHH spokesperson Connor Woods said in an email to City Desk ABQ. “Both … will ensure long-term rent payments and voucher recipients’ continued access to supportive services like case management.”
Woods said the city had been in “consistent communication” with the Supportive Housing Coaltion about recouping the hundreds of thousands in lost funds, but didn’t disclose further details.
Another measure on the table tonight, which will likely spark a significant amount of discussion, is a bill that would amend the city’s integrated development ordinance to ease restrictions on building more housing — particularly in and around Downtown. That measure is also germane to the voucher conversation.
“We have vouchers that don’t get spent because there’s literally no place to spend those vouchers at. This would make that a whole lot easier to do,” Councilor Joaquín Baca told City Desk ABQ late last week.
Baca and Council President Dan Lewis are cosponsors of the bill, which has picked up significant support, including from Strong Towns ABQ, who said the measure offers a “forward-thinking solution by enabling gentle density in key areas, streamlining development processes and fostering inclusive, transit-oriented growth.”
The legislation would also make it harder for small groups to block the developments through the land-use appeal process.