Shelter director tells lawmakers 'there's a homeless crisis in Española'
Sep. 13—ESPAÑOLA — The closure of a homeless encampment on city-owned land along the Rio Grande last month only exacerbated the problem of homelessness, leaving members of Española's unhoused population scrambling to find a place to sleep and delaying the acquisition of Pallet shelters, advocates say.
"It's had a huge impact with the people [who were staying] there," said Dena Moscola, executive director of Española Pathways Shelter.
"When they were there every day, everybody knew where they were, meaning everybody that provides resources," she said. "We were able to check in on people. With the closure happening, now people are scattered around, and we don't know how they are."
But Michelle Fraire, the city of Española's social services director, offered a completely different stance on the encampment's closure, calling it a healthy move.
"When the encampment was closed, not only did it stop that public threat that we had," she said. "It was just violence and drugs. I mean, it was bad. It was really, really bad towards the end. But since it's been closed, I'm now not only working with the individuals from the encampment but also their family, their children."
Fraire also said an "ID enrollment fair" the city hosted to help homeless people obtain identification cards has helped people obtain medical insurance.
"They're getting assistance, as well as the family," she said.
Moscola said most people who had been staying at the encampment moved to another already-existing encampment in the parking lot of the seasonal shelter in the center of the city, which provides beds a few nights a week in cold winter months but offers meals and services throughout the year. The number of tents in the shelter's parking lot more than doubled from about 20 to nearly 50, she said.
"A lot of them came without tents," Moscola said, because they lost a lot of their belongings when the city of Española cleared the encampment along the river "and it got bulldozed away. We had a lot more people than tents."
The influx of homeless people at the encampment outside the shelter sidelined plans to install small Pallet housing units there.
"In order to apply for them, we have to show that we're ready for that, and we can't have any other tents on the property," she said.
The shelter had a plan to move the people staying in tents outside its facility into Pallet homes. But those plans fell apart when the encampment more than doubled in size.
"I was getting ready to go to the city for permission," she said, adding the plan was shelved overnight.
Fraire said she was unfamiliar with the shelter's plans, but the city is moving forward with plans of its own to acquire 20 to 25 of such housing units, though the location has not yet been determined. The city is also working to address the root causes of homelessness, she said.
"We're bringing a detox inpatient center with at least 30 to 60 days minimum," she said. "I am currently now working on a transition home, as well as sober homes."
Fraire said she's also working with Ohkay Owingeh Social Services to help unhoused Pueblo people and developing a plan to provide mental health and substance abuse disorder services to the homeless.
Both Fraire and Moscola appeared before members of the Legislature's Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee earlier this week.
Moscola told lawmakers the city is in a state of emergency — a point Fraire agreed with.
"I don't think people realize how bad the situation is because we have so many people that are in dire need of emergency services that can't get those resources because there's no place for them to stay," Moscola said in an interview. "When there's a place for them to stay, now there's a place for them to talk to people, and when they talk to us, we can refer them to the right places."
Moscola told lawmakers Pathways has limited capacity with overnight space for only 10 women and 10 men.
"We run a seasonal shelter, and we have opened throughout the cold winter months as much as we possibly can," she said. "The state of emergency comes in because as we all know, there's a homeless crisis in Española, and the Pathways shelter is the only homeless shelter within the area, and we, right now, are beyond capacity."
Fraire, who became the city's social services director in June, said "there definitely is a crisis" with homelessness in Española but stressed the need for collaboration.
"Everyone can have ideas, but if they continue to say, 'This is a problem, and you're making it worse,' you're not going to get anywhere with that," she said. "You have to have an actual plan, and the plan is what I'm working on right now."
A lack of affordable housing, the closure of two apartment buildings and a "huge increase" in fentanyl use has contributed to the problem, Moscola said.
The 30 to 50 tents in the shelter's parking lot equates to 60 to 75 people, she said.
"We do not have the safety that we need in our parking lot in order to manage that," she told lawmakers. "We have two full-time people in our parking lot right now, and that's it. Only Monday through Friday, 8 to 4."
Despite its challenges, Moscola said Pathways wants to "drastically change" the services it is providing, including opening the shelter year-round and offering what she called a "warming center" with heaters.
"We believe that a warming center will give people that are not eligible to come into our overnight shelter because of this fentanyl increase, to give them an opportunity to have some safety, to have a break from the elements and stay for maybe a couple of hours," she said. "That gives us an opportunity to build rapport with people during that time and then hopefully lead them to make decisions to make changes in their lives."
As it is now, the shelter has funding to stay open three nights a week starting in mid-October through the end of March.
"Mid-October was chosen because that's when the temperatures get cold," she said. "Three nights a week is better than nothing."
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