Sidewalk filled with homeless camps outside Albuquerque senior apartments

By JOHN CARDINALE

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    ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (KOAT) — As Robert Hilgendorn looks out of a window at Ed Romero Terrace, he said, “Hopefully they can get something done.”

The senior apartments sit in the heart of the city’s International District. Hilgendorn said he’s never seen the area as bad as it is now.

“You see homeless encampments. They burn fires. They distribute drugs out there, prostitution. There’s shootings and stabbings. It’s just an ongoing thing,” he said.

The homeless camping has grown so much that the sidewalks are now unusable.

“There was a man that lived here and he had to move out because he liked walking around the neighborhood and he had a walker. He had to walk out into the street because he couldn’t get down the sidewalk,” Hilgendorn said.

Just last week, Mayor Tim Keller said the city was focusing on sidewalk encampment enforcement.

“Another thing that may have been overlooked in some of my statements over the last month is that the city has changed its policies with respect to certain areas, we are going to have a much more quick response time with respect to encampments. Those areas are sidewalks,” Keller said. “It’s an ADA issue. It is too dangerous to camp on a sidewalk for people trying to use the sidewalk.”

But Hilgendorn said rarely anything is done when he or other residents call about the camps.

“It takes 10 to 15 minutes to get a response. And then they ask you a thousand questions. By that time, you know, it’s nothing, you know, just it’s just idiotic,” Hilgendorn said.

Target 7 found at least 50 calls were made in the area of Ed Romero Terrace in the last 18 months. But Hilgendorn said when crews show up to clean, not much happens.

“They clean it up the best they can do. Then two or three hours later, the shopping carts are full and they’re down the street and then they come back,” he said.

So for now, Hilgendorn will have to look out his window and see the homeless camp on a sidewalk that should be useable.

“You know, I don’t know what to say other than that, there’s a lack of enforcement,” Hilgendorn said.

In the last 18 months, there have been at least 11,500 calls to 311 about homeless camps in Albuquerque.

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