On an early Thursday afternoon, Interfaith Community Shelter Showers To Go Program Manager James Butler and Case Manager Jon Singh chat underneath the shade of a canopy structure outside of Salvation Army on Alameda Street. Several tables and chairs—some with items on top—sit alongside the two. A black labrador lies underneath one table next to a water bowl.
“His daddy is showering right now,” Singh says with a smile.
Before long, a man steps out of one of the three shower and restroom trailers. Singh grabs papers from a nearby table to offer additional aid, and reminds the individual about the days and location for the twice-weekly mobile hygiene unit, which Interfaith Community Shelter launched in late March. On Mondays, people can find the unit outside of La Familia Medical Center’s Healthcare for the Homeless off Cerrillos Road. The mobile support unit then spends Thursdays stationed outside the Salvation Army on Alameda Street. The hours are from 8 am to 1 pm, a slight variation from the original 10 am to 2 pm timeframe, Butler tells SFR.
“We just found earlier is more effective for us because people don’t wait around,” Butler says. “We’re here setting up, and we aren’t going to have the trailer set up and make somebody wait.”
Now, Executive Director Korina Lopez tells SFR the organization is looking to expand the program toward Airport Road.
“The Southside is kind of a service desert. Most of them are concentrated in the center of town,” Lopez says. “For us, it’s really important to look at other areas of town where we can provide those services.”
Butler estimates as of Aug. 1, approximately 500 people have used the shower service. Those figures aren’t official yet, but Lopez notes as word got out, the number of users increased, with 344 by the end of June.
“In March, we started out with 19 people, but by April we jumped up to 101,” she says.
Interfaith Community Shelter leased the mobile support unit from the City of Santa Fe in February. That one-year lease, which allows the organization to use and operate the mobile vehicle, portable restroom and shower trailer, does not prohibit additional service locations, meaning bringing the unit to the Southside “doesn’t take a lot,” Lopez says, it’s just “a clear agreement” between the organization and the location’s owner.
But for City of Santa Fe Code Compliance Supervisor Jason Sena, finding that hotspot on the Southside is easier said than done.
“We do have some homeless camps on the Southside, but not as many as we do toward the middle of town and downtown,” Sena says. “It’s really hard to give a location because the places [where] we did have homeless camps…are now being developed.”
Sena cites the old Carmax lot and several other vacant lots as examples of previously encamped areas now under development. Code Enforcement Officer Andres Romero, who is tasked with Airport Road and the surrounding area, concurs that development has definitely made “a big impact” in terms of encampments and unhoused individuals on the Southside.
“Everything with the development is being fenced off, so of course they’re not able to get in there,” Romero tells SFR, “and it’s always being monitored.”
One prime spot Sena suggests for the hygiene-unit location would be near the intersection of Rodeo, Cerrillos and Airport roads, where city officials receive “the majority of calls.”
“It would be nice to have a spot right there by the Santa Fe Place Mall for them. It would be a good area because it’s so big,” Sena adds. “They could park in the parking lot if they could get permission from the mall.”
District 5 County Commissioner and Chairman Hank Hughes, who previously served as the executive director of St. Elizabeth Shelters and Supportive Housing and co-founded the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness, tells SFR he supports the hygiene unit service.
“It’s a short-term emergency type response for people who live outside, and people of course have to live outside because they have no other option,” Hughes says. “It’s not as good as housing—that’s the final result that you want. People in housing won’t need all of these services.”
The Eldorado resident and commissioner recommends the organization conduct a survey of the area to determine an ideal location for the expansion.
“I assume there may be places south of town where unhoused individuals hang out. They tend to sleep in places where people don’t look, so vacant land that is hidden and such,” he adds. “They’ll have to sort of figure out not only where the people hang out but where the service makes sense not interfering with anybody else.”
The efforts from Interfaith Community Shelter have drawn both local and international attention and support since the launch, Lopez adds.
“The support has been really great. We’ve heard a lot from around the state saying this could be a model for other cities to do which is awesome,” she says. “Interestingly—and I’m proud of this—we actually also had an individual out of London who reached out to learn more, so it’s been really great to meet up and discuss what we’re working on and hopefully, if anything, help that individual build something like this over there.”
Santa Fe Recovery Center Communications Director Kourtney Muñoz tells SFR the organization, which is located on Camino Entrada, would be “willing to talk” with the Interfaith Community Shelter if approached about being a host site but couldn’t guarantee from “a logistical standpoint” if it would be able to do it.
“I don’t think it would be something we’d be like ‘Oh no, certainly not.’ We really rely on and believe in our community partners, and we’re of the mindset that we’re all in this together and we need to help each other out,” Muñoz says. “We definitely support the work that they’re doing. What I really like from what I know about the program is it is a way to offer wraparound services, while also obviously filling a very important need of hygiene…It’s a really effective way to help people in need.”
To operate the unit, the Interfaith Community Shelter received a nearly $200,000 grant from the state’s Department of Health in July 2023 as a part of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s mobile homelessness initiative, which allocated money received from the Legislature to several service providers. Lopez says her organization is “looking at funding opportunities” to help add the third day.
“I think the city sees the value of this,” Lopez says. “A lot of these people normally wouldn’t access our services. We just have to find the location to continue doing work like this in another part of town.”