Task Force to Improve Quality of Life for ABQ’s Native Homeless
A new 17-member task force has been charged with identifying resources and improving the quality of life for Native Americans in Albuquerque. The task force is the result of city officials and the Navajo Nation coming together to aid the area’s Native American homeless population.
“Resources are stretched between the city, the state and the tribes. Our whole hope is to collaborate and find ways to connect Native Americans within Albuquerque to have access to resources,” said Sherrick Roanhorse, Albuquerque Native American Homeless Task Force chairman and the Navajo Nation’s committee appointee.
The task force, made up of representatives from the mayor’s office, the city’s Family and Community, Human Rights and Police departments, and the Navajo Nation’s Division of Health, Workforce Development, Human Rights Commission and the leadership offices, also plans to assess the need for additional resources. The group also plans to develop a funding request to state and possibly congressional lawmakers for additional support services by November. Roanhorse said the task force is also looking for representation from the two Apache tribes in New Mexico, as well as the nearby Pueblos of Isleta, Laguna and Sandia.
Mayor Richard Berry and Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly created the task force after the fatal beating of two Navajo homeless men in July. A grand jury has indicted the three teens involved in the incident on first-degree murder charges.
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The brutal attack has gotten the attention of the Navajo Human Rights Commission, which is conducting its own investigation. The commission discovered large concentrations of Navajo on the streets, some initially coming to the city to find jobs or obtain training opportunities. When they became homeless, they weren’t going to shelters or accessing aid programs.
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“When you come into the shelters, you see there are Bible studies and other things that they aren’t accustomed to. They are not going to embrace that,” said Lauren Benally, commission policy analyst. “We are also going to try to determine what kinds of services they like.”
Benally said many Navajos would prefer to go to the Albuquerque Indian Center, which has lost its funding in the city’s competitive grant process and had to make program cuts. Indian Center employees go without pay sometimes until state funding kicks in on its grant cycle.
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The urban Indian health nonprofit, First Nations Community HealthSource, was awarded the city grant and provides substance abuse counseling, as well as other support services, including case management for the city’s answer to homeless, Albuquerque Heading Home. The program was created in 2011 to address chronic homelessness, providing housing to those who have been on the streets for more than a year or had four episodes of homelessness in a year, and were likely to end up in jail or the emergency room.
From 2011 to 2014 of those serviced by Heading Home, 33 out of 328 housed were Native American, according to a city report.
Jodie Jepson, deputy program director, said cultural preferences and addictions have been barriers in getting Native Americans housed. Some Native people would prefer to go back to the reservation, although some who return home end up back on the streets. The program also doesn’t require detoxification or substance abuse counseling for those who have an alcohol addiction.
“We had one lady who was in her late 60s or 70s, had been on the streets for about 15 years and had chronic alcoholism. I finally got her off the streets after six months of trying,” Jepson said. “Another Native American who we just housed unfortunately is a severe alcoholic and has cancer—that is how she copes. She got beat up, we got her in housing and she’s been homeless for four and half years. I told her it’s a good time to go to the Turquoise Lodge (treatment). She said she’s not there yet. It’s small steps—it’s kind of like re-wiring her brain. We are going to stay at it in hopes that she decreases her use. But we don’t mandate recovery.”
Gabriel Claw, the only Native American city employee on the task force, sees first-hand the problems on the streets. Working with police as a civilian member of the department’s COAST or Crisis Outreach and Support Team trained in non-violent crisis intervention. Claw said the first question he asks a Native homeless person is whether he or she would like to go back home. Doing the job like a social worker, he’s been able to reunite family members by obtaining donations from local churches to buy bus tickets.
Claw, who grew up speaking Navajo on the reservation, says he’s hoping this task force can help identify who the homeless are and get them back to their families. About 14 percent of Albuquerque’s homeless population is Native American. Homeless Native Americans are more likely to be physically attacked, hospitalized more often, are more prone to substance abuse, and are homeless for longer periods of time, according to a city report.
“It’s such a big problem—we need to figure something out,” Claw said, adding that many Native homeless persons don’t go to shelters because of distrust.
On a recent patrol, Claw came across a group of Native homeless people sitting on the railing of an auto repair shop in the city’s International District, formerly known as the “War Zone” because of extensive gang and drug activity. With the Indian Center nearby and many Native Americans living in the area, this spot has become a heaven for homeless Natives.
“I’m going to go back home. I just wanted to see what’s going on out here with everybody,” said Cassie Canuto, 38, of Nageezi located in Northwest New Mexico on the Navajo Nation. The divorced mother of four children ages 7-13 initially came to the city for her uncle’s funeral but decided to “kick back out here.” With blood-shot eyes and alcohol on her breath, she points to where she sleeps, which is in a line of bushes across the street along the city’s main thoroughfare, Central Avenue.
After hearing about the beating of the two Navajo men, who she met during the summer, Canuto said she and two other women she was sharing a beer with travel together, watching over each other. They also have weapons. When she wants to go back to the reservation, she’ll call her mother to come pick her up. Until then, Canuto said she’ll remain in the city to see her friends because “they are like family.”
