Advocates say sanctioned Española camp helping, but city mum on long-term plans

Mar. 10—ESPAÑOLA — Sixto Aguirre parked his pickup near the Fairview Lane bridge in Española and walked down a short path to the east bank of the Rio Grande, just as he does every day.

About 20 tents have lined the river on the parcel of city-owned land for several weeks now — a new, city-sanctioned homeless encampment. It was designated to provide a place for some who were recently living in a similar, unsanctioned encampment up the river on Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo land that was cleared by tribal police in early February.

Aguirre, who is 37 and a case manager with Rio Arriba County's Health and Human Services Department, is one of several people from the county and other local organizations who see in the new encampment an opportunity to locate and provide services to the Española Valley's homeless population more easily than they could before.

But the future of the camp on Fairview Lane, or another like it, is uncertain, as city officials remain quiet on long-term plans for a more compassionate — but also contentious — approach to a crisis that has been brewing for decades.

The growing homeless population in the Española area is a source of political friction, with some in the community railing against what they see as the enabling of illegal drug use and pollution. City officials originally said the encampment will be dismantled in "early April," but so far they haven't provided further details about what the next step will be for its several dozen inhabitants.

Aguirre said he doesn't pay attention to the politics of the issue. He wants to "get [expletive] done" and help people.

"This is what I pay attention to," Aguirre said, gesturing toward the small tent city along the river. "These are my people."

Meanwhile, advocates and residents say the number of people living on the streets — and along the river, and in the bosque — seems to grow weekly amid a combination of a shrinking pool of low-income housing options and a generational opioid crisis that continues to rip through the valley. At Pathways Shelter, the only homeless shelter in Española, beds have been full and clients have been spilling out into a camp just outside the facility.

The new city-sanctioned encampment sits close to the bank of the Rio Grande, across a span of several hundred feet, with spots for tents marked by numbered signs. The tents are separated by trees and shrubs that offer some degree of privacy.

As Aguirre walked through last week, he greeted people there by name. Some of them said Aguirre or other case managers like him have offered them more help — food, clothing, medical care and pathways to housing subsidies — than they've received in recent memory.

Ysidro Longoria, 64, was the first man to set up a tent at the encampment several weeks ago. With Aguirre's help, Longoria has secured a housing voucher and begun the process of applying for apartments in Española and Los Alamos.

Longoria is retired from years of work cutting railroad spikes. He is now counting the days until his 65th birthday on May 29, when he said he will be able to begin drawing his full Social Security and retirement benefits.

On Wednesday afternoon, he was preparing a fishing pole to cast out into the river.

"To me, this is a blessing at this point in time," Longoria said. "These are good people. We all work together around here."

Some of the encampment's inhabitants do not use drugs like fentanyl, Aguirre said, but many do. The rise of fentanyl in recent years has exacerbated an already urgent crisis of addiction and overdose deaths in the Española Valley, Aguirre said. He and other case managers from the county, Pathways Shelter and El Centro Family Health have encouraged fentanyl users to use it safely with others — hoping they will limit the amount they take and ultimately check into a detox facility and inpatient treatment center when they are ready.

"We're not going to incarcerate our way out of this addiction crisis," Aguirre said. "That's what we've been doing, and it hasn't been working."

Aguirre said he helped get a 32-year-old man into a detox facility in Santa Fe on the third day he was staying at the encampment. He believes the current team of case managers can prove their success, slowly but surely, by routing the valley's homeless population into treatment and housing programs.

The people who stay at the encampment are required to sign a contract, agreeing to certain rules and waiving the city's liability. They are not allowed to have open fires, start fights, steal or litter. A trash bin sits nearby that the city collects twice a week; a smaller receptacle is provided for hazardous waste like used needles.

Aguirre would like to see a more permanent encampment at another location, potentially with tiny homes for the residents.

For some of the few dozen people living there, the encampment has been the best living situation in recent memory after stints of living in cars and being displaced from one encampment to another.

April Martinez, 50, said she and her son, Ernesto, lived in the former encampment behind Walmart for about six months before tribal officers woke them up early one morning several weeks ago and told them to collect their things and leave. For months before that, they lived out of her car after a good friend they were staying with in El Llano died.

"They've done a lot for us," Martinez said of Aguirre and the other case managers. "We didn't know what we were going to do."

Martinez said she is in the process of trying to secure a housing voucher with her case manager's help and that she would like to find a place in Española. But the lack of options makes that difficult. The city needs more affordable housing, Aguirre said.

Some of the people who were displaced by the shuttering of the federally subsidized Santa Clara Apartments in late 2022 have wound up at the encampment, Aguirre said. Once a case manager is able to help someone get a housing voucher, they often have to apply for units elsewhere — in Albuquerque or Los Alamos — since there are few, if any, available in the valley at any given time.

'The stigma has to stop'

Reactions to the new encampment have been mixed.

Some who drive by it have taken to shouting at the campers ("Get a job" or "die," Aguirre said), or just honking, which he supposed could signal either support or opposition to their presence. The worst have thrown objects at their homeless neighbors, some of the residents said.

At recent meetings of the Española City Council's public safety committee, nearby residents and business owners have spoken out against the encampment, pointing out open drug use and supposed littering at the site.

"The stigma has to stop. We might not agree with the way they're living, but it doesn't give us the right to judge them," Aguirre said, adding he invites anyone who thinks the encampment's occupants are "trashing the place" to "come down here and look for yourself.

"Nothing is to go into that river," he said, "and they know that."

Española City Manager Eric Luján did not respond to repeated interview requests. He also did not provide responses to emailed questions seeking details about the city's plans for the encampment.

On Thursday, Luján's office issued a news release announcing the city's plans to allocate funds from recent national opioid lawsuit settlements to create a "Department of Social Services" in order to address "pressing issues such as homelessness and drug and alcohol addiction."

City public information officer Esperanza Trujillo did not respond to questions seeking more details about the department, what the allocation amount would be or how many employees the city would staff it with.

In a news release in February announcing the creation of the encampment, Trujillo wrote it would be "disbanded" in early April and that a homelessness task force organized by the city would decide the next steps for its inhabitants.

Española Assistant Fire Chief John Wickersham is a member of the task force and also a vocal advocate for the encampment and for expanding services and programs for the city's homeless population.

The encampment's residents have been following the city's rules, Wickersham said, and the project shows, so far, that such a model can work to help get people off the street.

Homelessness has been an issue in the Española area for years, he said, but recently it's "grown out of control." He said he has watched for years as the city has dealt with it by shutting down encampments and displacing the inhabitants. He hopes the city is finally turning a new page.

"That's what we've been doing for years, is chasing them around the city, and obviously that's not working," he said.

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