Are more tax dollars needed to provide housing for those experiencing homelessness in Albuquerque? There were no simple solutions during a Saturday debate at the International District Library — and no shouting matches either — which was the point.

The debate was the first for the North-Central New Mexico Alliance of the national nonprofit Braver Angels — done in a format to make about 40 attendees comfortable enough to speak without worrying about being an expert or presenting an argument “the best.”

“The housing shortage in New Mexico impacts people of all incomes and demographics; it’s crushing,” Todd Clarke, one of four predesignated debate speakers, said. “But its weight is most felt by those who are unhoused.”

Clarke has been a commercial real estate broker in Albuquerque for 35 years and is a former commissioner of the Albuquerque Housing Authority. He supports more tax dollars to house those experiencing homelessness, but thinks the nonprofit and for-profit sectors need to be involved.

Clarke estimates the state is short about 91,000 housing units, but with average costs of $300,000 per unit, it’s “a $27 billion problem.”

“We can make a dramatic improvement of the lives of the unhoused for as little as $26,100 per person,” he said, which would include basic shelter, storage, a cellphone and a post office box. “Add another $3,900 for utility connections, and put this on any publicly zoned land, and you have the making of a small village and an idea that we can scale.”

Clarke said to properly address the estimated 5,000 people living on the streets in Albuquerque, about $126 million a year would be required —  or 9% of the city’s current $1.4 billion budget.

‘We’ve only seen it get worse’

Government regulation and red tape were on the mind of Roger Valdez, the director of the Center for Housing Economics, who said he was opposed to a tax increase.

“If a Good Samaritan was here today and wanted to help the person on the side of the road, they would have to respond to an RFP (request for proposals) that would be 54 pages long and put in a response that was 20 pages long,” he said. “It would take two years to get the money, and they wouldn’t have enough time to spend it.”

Valdez said the government has already increased spending on homelessness programs, but without the payoff.

“We’ve only seen it get worse. There’s too many rules, too many regulations that are inhibiting the market rate production of housing,” he said. “We have people that are in need of critical services, that need a place to sleep tonight, that need to get out of their car and get off of the sidewalk.”

There was common ground between Valdez and Zoe Robb, who said she was in favor of more taxes, but with a caveat.

“We need to demand that it’s used effectively and efficiently, and that involves reducing regulations that can get in the way of housing and providing the services that people actually need,” Robb, a planning analyst for the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness, said. “I think there is money that is wasted on things like encampment sweeps and programs that don’t actually work.”

Robb said the debate topic was an urgent one, because almost 50% of Americans don’t have $1,000 in savings for an emergency, placing a large swath of the population one bad situation away from becoming unhoused.

“We are going to see more and more people falling into homelessness,” Robb said. “Wages have increased only 15% in the last five years and housing costs have increased 70%. This is something that we need to plan for.”

Paul Gessing, the president of the Rio Grande Foundation, said that while he often disagrees with Mayor Tim Keller’s policies, the city’s efforts to repurpose hotels and provide tax incentives for affordable housing projects were worth expanding on and supporting.

“This is a very complicated thing that is caused by many different factors — mental illness, drug use, family breakdown, the disconnectedness of society,” he said. “I’m skeptical that the government can truly solve this problem, but it can get barriers out of the way and mitigate against its worst aspects.”

Organizers said future debate topics could include crime, trust in elections, immigration, and free speech versus hate speech.

Source: “Debate on More Tax Dollars for the Unhoused Draws Concerned Citizens“