Scott Yelton lost his home in September 2019 after losing his job and separating from his wife. 

The Albuquerque resident struggled with the many, sometimes life-threatening challenges of being unhoused in New Mexico, but by mid-2022, he had found a way to create some stability and security. He’d begun living in Coronado Park, creating a space where he could stay warm at night, keep his belongings safe and cook himself a hot meal. 

“[The city] suddenly closed Coronado Park and threw my stuff in a garbage truck. I begged them to give it back, but they acted like I wasn’t even there,” Scott said. “They took my stove, my tent, sleeping bag, clothes, and my birth certificate. But worse, they took family photos I can never replace.”     

On August 17, 2022, the City of Albuquerque fenced off Coronado Park, forcing unsheltered New Mexicans to leave, often without even the basic items they needed to stay warm at night.  

Scott said when the city closed Coronado Park, he and others lost irreplaceable and sentimental personal belongings. But just as painfully they lost a sense of safety and community. This act displaced dozens of unsheltered Burqueños, many of whom still do not have a safe place to stay. 

Photo Left: Scott Yelton

Many people displaced by the closure of Coronado Park have been forced to disperse into other areas across the city and continue to be met with shutdowns by the city. Recently, people who had built a small community in the I-40 underpass near 1st Street and Indian School Road were forced to leave by police officers, leaving them again without community or a safe place to sleep. 

In Albuquerque, and across the country, rising rents, historically low rental vacancy rates, and the decline of federally subsidized housing have led to a critical shortage of affordable housing units. Rents in Albuquerque increased as much as 20% in the first quarter of 2022. According to data provided by the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness, there are more than 1,300 unsheltered people in Albuquerque, many of them children. 

"I begged them to give it back, but they acted like I wasn’t even there."

While the city has acknowledged that there are not sufficient beds in existing city-run shelters, there has been little done to help get people housing. Several people, including Scott, said that living on the street was safer than staying at the Westside Shelter, where they faced theft and unsanitary conditions. 

“I stayed at the Westside Shelter very briefly, but it was a toxic environment for me,” Scott said. “Believe it or not I felt safer at Coronado Park. Folks looked after one another.” 

The housing crisis impacts everyone but disproportionately hurts people with mental health concerns or disabilities that make it hard to find steady work. Being forced to move and having belongings confiscated increases instability, making it even harder to find work, get medications, see a social worker, or find permanent housing. Scott said that without a vehicle, replacing the documents the city threw away took months. 

“It was a punch in the gut that the city had thrown my things away,” he said. “Pushing a shopping cart is not a criminal act, but we were treated that way.” 

Criminalizing homelessness does not bridge the services gap or create affordable housing units. It only serves to displace and endanger people experiencing homelessness. Constantly forcing people to move and breaking up informal communities creates chaos and instability that undermines the city’s efforts to reduce homelessness.  

“I thought, they must be getting paid by the pound. They really were diligent about doing their job. They had no remorse,” Scott said about the city employees who threw away peoples’ belongings during the Coronado Park closure. “They even seemed jovial.”  

After losing his home and community at Coronado Park, life got harder for Scott.  

“It was devastating. I went into a pretty deep depression. Only because I had a few close friends who looked after me, was I able to get by,” he said. 

"It was the lowest point in my life.” 

"They had no remorse. They even seemed jovial.”  

In December, the law firm of Ives and Flores, along with the ACLU-NM, the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, and attorney Nick Davis, filed a lawsuit on behalf of unhoused Albuquerqueans including Scott, to stop the city from unlawfully destroying encampments and property, as well as jailing, and fining people simply for not being able to afford a house.   

“Criminalizing homelessness and displacing people does nothing to address its root causes,” said Maria Martinez Sanchez, legal director at ACLU-NM. “In fact, it exacerbates the problem. We know the solution – affordable housing. The city just needs to find the will and the courage to make it happen.”   

By McKenzie Johnson, former Cibola High School student

Editor’s note: On Halloween of 2018, a Cibola High School teacher, in front of the entire class, cut one Native American student’s braid without consent and called another student, McKenzie Johnson, a “bloody Indian.” The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico, along with the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty and Parnall & Adams Law, sued Albuquerque Public Schools on McKenzie’s behalf. A district court dismissed the case, but in late May, an appeals court ruled that New Mexico’s public schools must adhere to state anti-discrimination laws, reviving the lawsuit. In this blog, McKenzie describes how she felt about the ruling.   

It was such a shocking thing to happen. When the teacher cut the other student’s thick braid off, you could hear her sawing through the hair with the blades. The class was stunned. No one said a word. Later in the class, she asked what costumes we wore, and the teacher shined her flashlight on me and asked, "What are you supposed to be, ‘a bloody Indian?" The whole class gasped. They all looked at me, waiting for my reaction. I’m normally very outspoken, but I was in shock and didn’t say anything. I could feel my face turning red.   

Teachers should know better than to single out Native students like this in such a demeaning and humiliating way. We are surrounded by diverse communities so you would expect her to know at least a little bit about us and our culture and that actions like that create an unsafe environment for us as Indigenous youth. 

Teachers should know better than to single out Native students like this in such a demeaning and humiliating way.

Once I got over the shock, I decided I wanted to fight back. I got a lot of support from my family and community, but I also got an overwhelming amount of pushback from other students and even teachers. 

When I heard about this ruling, I was so overcome with emotion, I had to hold back tears. The ruling is a huge breakthrough for Indigenous students, and all students included.  

Teachers have a responsibility to make their classrooms a safe and welcoming space for everyone in there. As Native people, we respect our elders, but with that is the expectation that they respect us too. 

Teachers have a responsibility to make their classrooms a safe and welcoming space for everyone in there.

School staff at all levels need to understand our culture and our history so that what happened in my classroom never happens to anyone again.  

Bottom line, a teacher should not discriminate against any student nor cut their student's hair off.  

*The writer uses pseudonyms for the women mentioned to protect their and their families’ safety and privacy.

I’m a one-on-one companion observer for incarcerated women at the Western New Mexico Correctional Facility (WNMCF). My job is to monitor people in crisis, including on suicide watch. I’m speaking up about the horrible things I have witnessed here to try and save women’s lives. The women in this facility desperately need adequate mental healthcare and treatment and to be treated with dignity by correctional officers (COs). Things must change or women will continue to die. No one should have to live in conditions like these. 

Their deaths weigh on our hearts. I can’t sleep at night and have trouble eating.

In 2022, three women who were my patients died by suicide at the women’s prison.  Several others attempted suicide. Not only did the prison staff fail to save these women’s lives, but the abuse, neglect, disregard, and maliciousness of prison staff pushed them to the point of desperation that made them feel death was the only option.  

I and the other incarcerated observers did everything we could to get these women help. Despite all our efforts, we couldn’t get them what they needed. Their deaths weigh on our hearts. After a long day, it’s hard to fall asleep. I lose my appetite a lot. When I leave my shift, I can still hear the screaming of women in distress in my head. When I close my eyes, I still see the cells I am responsible for watching.  

In our unit, women who are mentally ill are in solitary confinement. One woman who died by suicide was Nadia*. She had three children who will never get their mom back. She was sent to WNMCF specifically because she had attempted suicide at the local county jail, and WNMCF was supposed to keep her safe until her trial. She spent 24 hours a day in a solitary confinement cell for two weeks. She begged constantly for help, but she never got it. The day she passed away, she called for help from mental health staff all day long, until she finally gave up.  

The prison staff never told us that Nadia was suicidal and needed an observer or companion. It was so hard for all of us to find out that she should have had one of us looking after her.  

Not only are women denied the mental healthcare we need, but the mistreatment and bullying of the women here aggravates and causes serious mental health issues. Some of the corrections officers pick on the women stuck in their cells. For example, this one CO would always tell Alexandria* that that she stinks and is fat. She would refuse to let her out for recreation time and ignore her when she asked for something she needed. The CO’s behavior affected Alexandria so badly, she used to start rocking herself back and forth in her cell whenever the CO’s shift began.  

These tragedies shouldn’t be our responsibility as incarcerated people, but if we do not fight for the women suffering, no one will.

Another one of the women this same CO picked on, Jamie*, was also a pretrial county detainee. She was quiet, hardly talked to anyone, she was scared and lost and crying a lot. The CO didn’t let her out of her cell for yard time very much, and she spent almost nine months in solitary confinement. The CO used to mock Jamie, saying “go cry to your mommy.” Well, Jamie took a sheet and hung herself. The CO let her hang long enough to have scars on her neck and permanent injuries, instead of following policy – and basic human decency – and immediately opening the door to lift her up and save her.  

When I reported the CO for her abuse, she retaliated against me and removed me from my job as a companion observer. I was sad because I wondered who is going to stand up for those girls? I did not get my job back until the COs rotated again and someone else was in charge of the unit.  

There were no consequences for that abusive CO at all. To know that COs have the power to affect someone so profoundly is heartbreaking, cruel, and wrong. The officers are trusted, and they abuse their positions. The Code of Ethics is signed by each officer and broken far too often.  

Right now, things are really bad. NMCD policy says that everyone on suicide watch must have their own observer, so that there is one on one attention for everyone who needs it. Right now, there are seven people in observation cells on two different floors of the building, and only one or two observers per shift. The cameras in the suicide watch cells, which let the CO watch every cell, have been broken for months and no one will fix them. They tell us that it is our responsibility to watch. Some of the observers have been working 12- or 16-hour shifts, but it’s still not enough.   

I fight every day to save the lives of women who are being tortured by the New Mexico Corrections Department. I know they feel forgotten and like no one is listening.

Still, being a companion observer is very meaningful to me. I am there for people mentally and emotionally, and I know I have helped people regain their confidence and get back on their feet. My work can only be effective though if COs were adequately trained and followed policy for people who are on suicide watch, like taking away towels and razors from their cells. This work is so stressful and scary. We’re trying to watch so many people all at once to make sure no one else dies that it’s impossible to do the real moral support and companionship that helps people.  

I fight every day to save the lives of women who are being tortured by the New Mexico Corrections Department. I know they feel forgotten and like no one is listening. I can’t put my real name on this letter because I could get retaliated against again. I could lose my job or even get denied timely healthcare. If I lose my job, I will always wonder who is taking care of the women locked away. But even if the prison guards find out who wrote this, at least I’ll know that I did my part to make these women’s voices heard.  

These tragedies shouldn’t be our responsibility as incarcerated people, but if we do not fight for the women suffering, no one will. Sometimes, after someone dies things get better for a little while, but they always go back to the way they were before. When someone else dies, I want to know I did everything that I could to prevent it.