One year ago, the parking lot of the Christ Lutheran Church transformed into Santa Fe’s first Micro Community—a pilot program that set up 10 small, temporary pallet homes designed for homeless individuals to eventually transition into permanent housing, with support services and property management conducted by The Life Link.
The City of Santa Fe’s community health and safety director, Henri Hammond Paul, described the ongoing pallet housing site as having seen “some pretty wonderful successes so far” during a presentation at the city’s March 12 Governing Body meeting. Since the micro community first went live, nine of the 29 formerly unhoused residents helped through the pallet housing have found permanent homes, and seven have completed detox or medically -assisted treatment therapy.
“While Santa Fe has one site, there are 125 similar sites across the country, and the key benefits of these are that they're private and secure,” Hammond Paul said. “These are managed sites with onsite services, trained professionals. They are 24/7 providing care and case management and security, and really importantly, they're a bridge to long- term stability in housing.”
Now, the city is planning to move into the next phase of mMicro cCommunity development, and Hammond Paul says he and the “Micro Community Advisory Board” his department works with (composed of service providers, members of faith-based communities and other community organizations) hope to establish two or three more sites with pallet housing, utilizing $2 million the city approved in January to purchase additional pallet homes.
Hammond Paul also revealed five locations his department has narrowed down to that could potentially host a new pallet home site, and that each site the city is looking into can be tailored for specific subpopulations of homeless individuals in the city, rather than serving the general homeless population.
The first location, at 1300 Agua Fria in District 1, would serve veterans. The second would serve veterans and seniors at Plaza del Sur in District 2, and the third would serve families at 3184 Jemez Road in District 3. In District 4, two site possibilities are proposed: one serving families and sober residents at 2395 Richards Ave, and one serving “youth or general or families and sober residents” at 1085 Richards Ave.
Hammond Paul said his department will be narrowing down locations based on a technical review with project management and construction firms for construction feasibility, and the “Micro Community Advisory Board” has been ranking sites based on access to sewer and water, proximity to services and resources, site layout and proximity to transit.
City of Santa Fe Youth and Family Services Director Julie Sanchez said after the final recommendations for site selection, from there the team would meet with all city councilors and begin the community engagement process—looking at stakeholders, HOAs in the areas and other community partners as the development process begins.
“And then from there, of course, engaging in our good neighbor agreement and coming up with how the city can support those neighborhoods and also the micro community,” Sanchez added.
Hammond Paul added there would also be citywide and district-level conversations with communities to educate residents to “broadly” educate them on evidence-based practices with which to address homelessness with and to hear concerns from community members, especially those in proximate communities to potential sites.
District 4 City Councilor Jamie Cassutt said she is “thrilled” to have community discussions around pallet site locations.
“If we are able to hear from, not the service providers or the advocates, but from neighbors in other communities and other residential areas—whether it's Denver or Portland—if we're able to speak with any of them to understand what their experience looked like—I think that would be extremely helpful when speaking with some of my constituents about this issue,” Cassutt added.
Cassutt also criticized the city’s use of financial resources spent on responses to homelessness—an estimate of $14 million gathered by City Finance Director Emily Oster in 2022—which Sanchez noted encompassed encampment cleanups, security and vandalism.
“The status quo is not something we can sustain,” Cassutt said. “It's not something our constituents, whether they are housed or currently experiencing homelessness, can sustain. We have heard very loud and clear that this, we have to address this.”
When District 2 Councilor Michael Garcia asked who would make the final decision on pallet housing site locations, Hammond Paul said his team will return to the Governing Body to present recommendations for them to vote on.
“One piece that I want to take the opportunity to kind of emphasize here is that these are temporary, and we're not building these as permanent fixtures in communities, but instead, ways to improve a plot of land get some utility out of having a stopgap solution,” Hammond Paul said. “I will also say that nothing is off the table for us [locationwise].”
District 3 Councilor Lee Garcia voiced concerns of the micro communities that several Santa Feans had brought up at the previous January meeting—ensuring public safety for nearby residents.
“I think it's really important that when we do identify whatever community these might be placed in, when there are issues, we address them quickly and immediately, because the community does want that,” Garcia said. “The community agreement process—I think that's really high on many people's radar in regards to these, and they want transparency.”
Hammond Paul noted the Christ Lutheran Church micro community is “such a non-issue from a public safety standpoint” that in conversations with the police and fire departments, both were unfamiliar with the location of the micro community.
“That, to me, reflected really positively on the site,” Hammond Paul said. “If it's not on the radar as a hotspot or an active area that police and fire are constantly going to, that means that [The Life Link] are doing their job well and that it's being well-managed, and it's not a thorn in the side of the community.”
Hammond Paul also presented public safety data from other cities that have implemented pallet homes as temporary transitional housing, such as Los Angeles, Denver and Vancouver. In Los Angeles County, where the crime rate increased by 19.4% between 2020 and 2021, the crime rate actually decreased by nearly 25% in the six areas where pilot pallet housing programs were located.
“The choice in front of us, in a lot of ways, is between unsheltered homelessness—people on the streets—or people housed,” Hammond Paul said. “When you go back to this data, I think it makes a lot of sense that when you start housing people and creating stability, neighborhoods that were experiencing crime or unsheltered homelessness will start to see reductions in those areas.”
