Evan Chandler
In efforts to increase community engagement, Consuelo’s Place will host an open house from 2 to 4 pm on Nov. 23.
A local homeless shelter on the former Santa Fe University of Art and Design campus is beefing up community outreach and engagement ahead of an unclear future.
Consuelo’s Place staff and residents will host an open house from 2 to 4 pm Nov. 23. Attendees can tour Santa Fe’s largest non-congregate homeless shelter, with snacks and drinks available. The event is just ahead of National Giving Tuesday on Dec. 3. The shelter is also asking for financial contributions or in-kind donations such as bus passes, personal hygiene items and cleaning supplies.
The shelter currently hosts unhoused individuals and families in 61 rooms within a dorm building for the previous campus.
Shelter Manager Michele Williams tells SFR the shelter has had events in the past as “people have periodically been interested” in what services the team provides, but now plans to do more.
“We need to get serious about fundraising and open our doors to the community and just let people see what we are and what we're about,” Williams says. “It's going to start being an annual thing I hope. We'll see how successful it is or not.”
The plan, she says, is to have in-house clients do the tours and share what their living space is like and what kind of services they get from the shelter and case managers, as well as answer questions about how donations received would go toward supporting them and the facility.
The increased efforts come as city officials work through the next steps for the defunct college campus’ redevelopment—now coined Midtown. The master plan calls for affordable housing units, film studios, arts and more. A March presentation from former Midtown MRA Director Karen Iverson schedules a Consuelo’s Place relocation before the first quarter of 2026. Iverson stepped down from the role in September after less than a year on the job. Daniel Hernandez, a former project manager for the Midtown redevelopment, took over shortly after.
Williams says she and others have been working with the city to identify a wish list for that future location, though she believes Midtown “meets the criteria.”
“It's just trying to get all the pieces and parts together about what's an ideal location, what would really work, what would not work for us and the services that are actually needed in the community,” she says, adding while city officials “haven’t made any promises, they agreed to at least have a discussion with us about whether Midtown would even be feasible or not.”
She notes the campus is close to a hospital, schools, transportation services and behavioral health services, all of which residents use regularly, she says. Williams hopes the upcoming event will help to “overcome barriers of community resistance” and educate people about who the shelter serves and what those people need.
“For example, if an empty building were to come up next door to a school, I think there’s a negative perception in Santa Fe right now that we would never want a homeless shelter there,” Williams says, “and yet half of the clients that we serve have school-aged children.”
Children, she emphasized, who could simply walk next door to attend school.
District 1 City Councilor Alma Castro held a community discussion about mental health service access points at Consuelo’s Place on Oct. 25. Though her district does not cover the 64-acre campus, she tells SFR the Midtown redevelopment “has been a focus for everybody in the city” long before she sat on the council.
“I think that the Santa Fe University of Art and Design and the iterations of institutions there have really helped build a community for artists and resources for different folks in the community, so losing that institution was, in and of itself, sort of a shift in our town,” Castro says. “And as COVID hit and we started using it for transitional housing, it sort of became re-imagined as the center town for a different reason.”
To Castro, “the potential of that space should be of concern to every single councilor on the dais.”
Castro held a community meeting there last month because Consuelo’s Place and its residents “don’t feel they’re part of the conversation” despite the amount of services they facilitate within the community. She believes the open house, allowing residents to give tours, is also geared toward changing that.
“Based on my community meeting, they don’t feel they’ve been given a fair shake in terms of that process,” Castro says, noting the 50 to 60 individuals who attended were “deeply invested…they understand that having that place, that security, when you build a community, you’re actually helping folks create a space where they can maybe get housed, where they can have case-management, everything that folks have been asking for.”
While the future location for Consuelo’s Place remains unclear, Williams jokes that all they need for the upcoming event is “a rich aunt or uncle.”
Shelter Open House: 2-4 pm Saturday, Nov. 23. Consuelo’s Place Midtown Shelter, 1600 St. Michael’s Drive, Building 7
