The city is searching for someone to take on a complex assignment: staff and operate the Westside Emergency Housing Center (WEHC) for hundreds of people experiencing homelessness. 

The facility is located about 20 miles west of Downtown near the Double Eagle II Airport. Its remote location is typically accessed through shuttle services departing from pickup points near Downtown and the International District.

The taxpayer-funded WEHC is critical to addressing the needs of hundreds of men, women and couples over age 18 that it serves. While clients arrive in differing stages of distress, all need a safe place to sleep. Officials say the majority of those who stay would otherwise be on the street. WEHC’s population includes older adults, the medically vulnerable, people living with mental illness or substance use disorders, and those who are chronically homeless or newly homeless. There is no limit to how long people can stay.

However imperfect WEHC’s location or appearance may be, the need for it has increased over time. WEHC was originally intended to be a temporary, emergency shelter and operated as such. Today it is a year round, 24/7 operation.

Daunting task

Homelessness services provider Albuquerque Heading Home has operated WEHC since 2021. Its current $4.1 million contract expires June 30. According to its contract, about $3.1 million is designated to pay the wages of administrators, program directors, facility managers, dorm monitors, case managers, shuttle drivers, custodians and security guards. The remaining amount of about $1 million funds a variety of operation costs.

The city issued a request for proposals (RFP) in March for an agency to take over operations when Heading Home’s contract expires June 30. 

The RFP — which once again offers up to $4.1 million in funding — expires April 12 at 6 p.m.  It’s not clear whether Heading Home, which maintains other homeless services contracts with the city, will resubmit a bid. Calls to executives were not immediately returned this week.

Meanwhile, the city’s Health, Housing & Homelessness (HHH) department, which oversees the contract, said Wednesday that it has been in touch with “multiple agencies” and looks forward to reviewing the submissions.

It will be a short turnaround time for the debut of a new operator; one tasked with providing for an estimated 2,200 unique clients a year — an average of 400 people per night. 

The shelter is able to sleep roughly 640 people in all. The WEHC operator must coordinate medical and supportive services, meals, laundry services, security, sanitation and cleaning and the “orderly use” of common areas. The operator is also charged with providing bus monitors on arriving and departing transport vehicles.

‘Difficult to run and maintain’

Both the city and Heading Home describe WEHC on their respective websites as a place that offers “a safe and welcoming environment,” although the characterization is arguable. Although the facility has seen a share of recent city-funded improvements (upgrades to dorms, bathrooms, floors and lighting) its history as a former Bernalillo County jail can still be felt. WEHC’s high perimeter fences once featured coils of razor wire and some still have barbed wire, even though no one is forced to stay. The interior has also been described as having the look of a detention center.

“The real question about the WEHC is simply stated: If you don’t have it, where are the hundreds of people using it to go?” Daymon Ely, an adviser to Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller on homelessness, told City Desk ABQ. 

Ely said there needs to be short and long term solutions in place for WEHC, a cornerstone of a policy proposal he recently submitted to the city.

“In the short term, improve the WEHC so that it is not just habitable, but a place that will attract the homeless to stay,” he said. “And as we move forward, have real alternatives and housing to eliminate or minimize the need for [it].”

Ely added that his preference would be that a government entity — like the city or Bernalillo County — consider operating the facility.

“With a shelter, a private provider adds a layer of expense that does not make sense,” he said. “No one should be operating a shelter with a view towards being in the ‘black’ [whether a for-profit or nonprofit entity].”

Ely said if WEHC were city or county-run, it would provide more “immediate transparency and accountability.”

“These shelters are difficult to run and maintain. Having direct public oversight is one way of keeping pressure on the facility manager,” he said. “And there is a very limited pool of people both willing and capable to run a shelter the size of WEHC. With less competition, the risk is greater that the private operator will not work out.”