A local community outreach group and state housing authorities have asked the legislature for $1.5 million for an affordable housing project in the International District.
The project aims to provide $500 a month cottage-style studio apartments to people in poverty, including those recovering from addiction, homelessness or returning from the criminal legal system, officials with the project said.
The project site, 161 Chama NE, is one of an estimated 350 vacant lots in the International District, said John Bulten, director and founder of East Central Ministries. It sits empty with weeds and scrub brush poking up under its chain-link fencing, just a block from Central.
Project stakeholders — including Housing New Mexico, Improve Group and students from the University of New Mexico’s Planning Department — said the goal is to build the cottage units for $150,000 each with a total project cost of between $2.5 million and $3 million. Local donors and community members would raise additional funds.
By getting money from the state, the process can avoid snags that come with federal funding — an undertaking that has become more volatile under President Donald Trump, said Director of the Center for Housing Economics Roger Valdez.
“I always say that efficiency is compassionate,” said Valdez, whose organization is also part of the group trying to bring the project to life. “If we’re efficient in the way we use our resources, we can deliver those savings to the community in the form of reduced housing prices.”
Bulten has lived in the neighborhood for decades and watched lots become abandoned, vandalized and bulldozed — leaving pockets of unused land — while the neighborhood has become increasingly starved of necessities like grocery stores and safe, affordable housing.
“It’s depressing when we wait around and we see things get worse,” Bulten said.
Rather than waiting for the local government to step in, East Central Ministries bought the land with their funding to turn it into affordable housing for the International District’s struggling neighbors.
“This vacant lot project (is for) those that are precariously housed, are vulnerable to becoming homeless or they’re in maybe a recovery program, but they don’t have a next step into housing that they can afford,” Bulten said.
Bulten founded East Central Ministries in 1999 to provide for the “felt needs” of the neighborhood, including caring for people experiencing homelessness, building a community garden and now with a planned investment in affordable housing.
This project is a rung on a ladder to a better future, Bulten said, although it isn’t intended as a first step for people currently living on the street.
Valdez has spent his time lobbying for the project at the Roundhouse, where he said the proposal has received “strong commitments.”
Some of that support has come from Rep. Janelle Anyanonu, D-Albuquerque, whose district covers a large swathe of the International District.
“In order to successfully combat the housing crisis in our city and state, we have to be creative in finding solutions,” Anyanonu wrote in a Monday statement to the Journal. “The cottages … will provide an affordable housing solution to community members working their way out of poverty. It is not enough to only build new housing if we aren’t also ensuring that our neighbors can afford to live there.”
Stakeholders are relying on the Legislature for the bulk of their funding because we’re “in an era when federal money is uncertain,” Valdez said.
How much money the project will ultimately receive is yet to be seen, as many capital outlay requests, just like this one, are typically bundled together in a large bill finalized in the latter half of the session. The Legislature is nearly halfway through its 60 days.
While Valdez appeals to legislators, Bulten will keep focusing on his community.
“It’s a harsh environment here, but this is a strong neighborhood,” Bulten said. “We need to keep organizing together and finding our common ground, and setting the agenda on our vision for what we want.”
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This story was published in the Albuquerque Journal as part of a collaboration between the Albuquerque Journal and UNM’s Statehouse Reporting Project.
Gillian Barkhurst is a student at the University of New Mexico pursuing a Bachelor of the Arts in Multimedia Journalism and Mass Communication, with a minor in Spanish. Her work has been published in the Albuquerque Journal, Limina: UNM Non-Fiction Review, the Daily Lobo and New Mexico News Port. Gillian is currently a staff writer at the Albuquerque Journal.
