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The Mayor Tim Keller administration and Albuquerque City Councilors widely agree on the issue if not every detail: Vacant and dilapidated properties across the city are a problem that needs to be dealt with. The City Council approved an updated nuisance abatement ordinance that was requested by the city on a 6-3 vote Monday night.
The updated law places problem properties — residential and commercial — at risk of stiffer civil penalties (up to $500 per day) and allows for properties to be deemed a nuisance if there’s documented criminal activity on three or more occasions within a three-month period. Qualifying criminal activity includes if an owner allows those living on the street to illegally camp on their property.
Councilor Tammy Fiebelkorn successfully had the illegal camping language removed from the proposed ordinance through an amendment a month ago — arguing that it further criminalized homelessness in the city — but it returned for a vote Monday night. She said the flip-flop was “disingenuous and mean-spirited.”
Here’s why: When councilors debated the ordinance Feb. 3, Fiebelkorn’s amendment passed on a 7-2 vote. The vote came after considerable pushback by homeless advocates and community members who gave public comment at the meeting. But a month later, the language returned through another amendment, this time proposed by Councilor Renée Grout. It was approved on a 5-4 vote.
“I find that very troubling,” Fiebelkorn said Wednesday. “When there’s not a room full of people pressuring us to do the right thing, then Council changes their mind — that’s disingenuous. It’s breaking trust with the community and we should be ashamed of ourselves.”
Fiebelkorn’s argument is that there are already city ordinances and Keller administration policies that address illegal camping, and adding it to an updated nuisance abatement law is gratuitous.
“We do not need another tool to punish our unhoused neighbors,” Fiebelkorn said.
Grout, meanwhile, said her motivation for the amendment that reversed Fiebelkorn’s had to do with mitigating problem properties, not unfairly targeting those experiencing homelessness.
“Vacant and dilapidated properties are a problem in our city,” she said. “You see them every day; I know that we all do,” she said.
As an example, Grout cited six houses within a six-mile radius of her business that were significant problems. Two burned down and three had been burned to differing degrees. Grout and her husband own and operate an auto repair business in the International District.
“That dilapidation brings down the neighborhood and we just need to have better rules in place for our officials to be able to enforce,” she said. “I want to get [homeless] people into homes, into shelters, into treatment, into stable housing. This is about property and that’s why I am supporting these changes.”
Fiebelkorn said after Grout’s amendment was approved, she heard someone in the City Council chambers yell: ‘You lied to us!’”
“And I agree,” she said.
To read the ordinance and its amendments, click here.
Those who voted in favor of the illegal camping amendment were Joaquín Baca, Brook Bassan, Dan Champine, Renée Grout and Dan Lewis. Those opposed were Tammy Fiebelkorn, Klarissa Peña, Nichole Rogers and Louis Sanchez.
Those who voted in favor of the updated ordinance as it was amended were Brook Bassan, Dan Champine, Renée Grout, Dan Lewis, Klarissa Peña and Louis Sanchez. Those opposed were Joaquín Baca, Tammy Fiebelkorn and Nichole Rogers.
