On Pins and Needles

Residents decry shelter management amid Harrison Road criminal activity

by

Down Harrison Road, needles and foil with burn holes appear often—in the street, on the sidewalks and behind fencing. Just up the street at the Pete’s Place shelter, people stand and sit outside the entrance gates as cars pull up and leave shortly after. Carts filled with items are placed near the sidewalk off Cerrillos Road.

Though established more than a decade ago as an emergency overnight shelter, tensions around the shelter have been mounting for the last few years. Now, as the lease agreement between the City of Santa Fe and the Interfaith Community Shelter for the city-owned building approaches its October expiration date, officials from both entities have been holding Zoom meetings with nearby residents about their ongoing concerns and priorities, as required biannually in the agreement.

Steve Albert, who attended the most recent Aug. 8 biannual community meeting, lives less than a block from the shelter on Harrison Road. He tells SFR the situation has gotten “exponentially worse” in the neighborhood in recent months, noting he’s seen open drug use, encampments and feces just outside his residence.

“Everyone feels like we’re fighting a forest fire constantly around here. It’s embedded in this entire neighborhood,” Albert says, adding that in his opinion, “everything we see is the direct result of policies and practices at Pete’s… Anyone who is newly homeless wouldn’t step foot in there because it’s such a bad situation.”

That bad situation, he adds, includes the use and sale of narcotics at the entrance gate and needles and foils inside the property, both of which Albert says violate lease terms.

Other nearby residents echoed Albert’s sentiments during the meeting. Joanna Kennedy noted she has experienced homelessness before and said she appreciates what Pete’s Place “would like to do in a perfect world,” but the way the shelter is managed “presents a danger” to the surrounding area.

“[Pete’s Place] needs to be in a less residential area, and it needs to have the management questioned,” Kennedy said. “It’s a huge, dangerous mess.”

Santa Fe Police Chief Paul Joye tells SFR police regularly conduct proactive patrol and enforcement operations in response to crime data and community complaints. Operation Split Decision, which began in July and will last until the end of August, targets Harrison Road and the Plaza.

Interfaith Community Shelter Deputy Director Beverly Kellam said it was “troubling” to hear the mismanagement allegations and encouraged neighboring residents to come to the shelter and “visit with those people who may not be quite as visible” during the biannual meeting.

“What specifically are we doing wrong other than our very existence? I’d love to find out so we can do that differently but not feeding someone who is hungry is not an option. Not providing shelter is not an option,” she said. “We really do want to meet with the community more to hear and to talk.”

The lease agreement bars people who act “in a way that is a danger to others” and bans alcohol and non-prescription drugs. In the instance these are violated, the lease states the individual “shall be physically escorted” off the property by staff or the Santa Fe Police Department and not allowed to return until staff can determine the individual has been through a detox program and/or that they will follow the rules.

Joye says SFPD data from Jan. 1 to Aug. 11 indicates that approximately 3.6% of 50,826 calls for service made in 2024, or 1,876 calls, can be traced back to a 2,000 square foot radius around the Pete’s Place shelter. However, he adds, in his opinion, Pete’s Place management is “not the problem,” and the work they do is “incredibly important.”

“We do the enforcement, we make the arrests, these folks are getting right back out, and the arrest itself is not seen as a deterrent. It’s seen as an inconvenience. It has no teeth to it on the back end, and this is how we get to where we are today,” Joye says. “The people around the shelter have what I’ve called compassion fatigue. I don’t know that there’s another city in New Mexico that has more people who want to help than Santa Fe, but also, at the same time, people get so frustrated because I think some people are taking advantage of that system and taking advantage of those people and if they weren’t committing crime in facilitation of their lifestyle, we wouldn’t care.”

The data shows the number of calls for service is roughly a half percent higher than the portion the Plaza makes up. Joye says Cerrillos and Harrison roads are “certainly a hot spot,” but he wouldn’t consider the Plaza one despite the similar number of calls and special operation focus.”By the nature of its location and the fact that it’s a tourist destination, we have a high call volume there,” Joye says, “but the Plaza is not necessarily the same.”

The area around the shelter has been the arena for multiple shootings in recent months, including in June when the Santa Fe Police Department responded to a 37-year-old Santa Fe resident who was shot in a parking lot near the intersection of Cerrillos and Harrison roads. Prior to this, police shot a knife-wielding man at Pete’s Place in April. Albert says he questions why the City of Santa Fe would allow the activity to happen outside of a building it owns.

“It is such a chronic and horrible safety situation here I would’ve thought in the past maybe private security would be OK. They are all over town, and this is a city-owned shelter where they can’t even put one,” Albert says. “At this point we need the National Guard. It’s that bad.”

Despite pushes from the community for relocation, Mayor Alan Webber says “if the idea is to address immediate and really urgent concerns, we don’t have the luxury of discussing relocation at the moment.” He adds the issues around Pete’s Place are “not all [management’s] making.”

“Look, these people are really committed, and they work very, very hard, and we shouldn’t just dismiss how challenging the work is,” Webber says. “That said, I think we owe it to everybody, including the homeless people, to do a better job of controlling the environment around Pete’s Place.”

The mayor adds city officials are working on several other initiatives to ensure safety in the area, including using cameras and working with Pete’s Place to establish an expanded day services center.

Interfaith Community Shelter Executive Director Korina Lopez says staff has followed the lease terms and the shelter has always had security. She adds that a large chunk of the calls from the area are staff requesting close patrols, but at the end of the day, they’re responsible for “the people in the gate,” and they “don’t just try to run people off.” SFPD data from 2024 shows 347 close patrol calls—an increase from 175 in 2023.

“The people saying our policies cause this probably don’t know what our policies are. I get they are frustrated, but the reality is if somebody is on Harrison Road or down Cerrillos, that’s not our responsibility,” Lopez says. “When it comes to public safety, we want to work with the city and SFPD to ensure we have public safety in and around Pete’s.”

Lopez says staff is eyeing a location for the expanded day services center, which she hopes will include laundry and computer labs for job searching and telehealth visits.

POLICE ACTIVITY AROUND PETE’S PLACE

Jan. 1, 2024 to Aug. 11, 2024

  • 1,876 total calls (3.6% of the SFPD’s total call volume so far in 2024)
  • 347 close Patrols

Jan. 1, 2023 to Aug. 11, 2023

  • 1,440 total calls (2.7% of the SFPD’s total call volume for 2023 during this time)
  • 175 close patrols

Jan. 1, 2022 to Aug. 11, 2022

  • 1,191 total calls (2.6% of the SFPD’s total call volume for 2022 during this time)
  • 93 close patrols (Joye notes SFPD had its highest number of vacancies this year

Jan. 1, 2021 to Aug. 11, 2021

  • 1,524 total calls (3% of the SFPD’s total call volume for 2021 during this time)
  • 301 close patrols