Are you experiencing homelessness in Albuquerque?

[studioofhope]

Are you experiencing homelessness for the first time or are you sleeping outdoors and need a break from camping, but heard nothing but bad news about "The West Side Shelter" Now known as Gateway West?

Don't be scared of the place, it has been remodeled with new floors and new beds, this is a very clean, and safe environment (no black mold or decaying dorms)

News channels like to portray homeless and low-income facilities as dreadful places full of gloom, doom and disease, that is simply not true!
 
Every congregate living facility is going to have isolated incidents and with up to 800 residents each day, plumbing is bound to break, and floors will be dirty, but an hour later the floors are cleaned, and the plumbing emergency is solved, sometimes the city is a little slow with maintenance, but we always have a work around, e.g., I live in "G" dorm and the showers have been down for 2 weeks, not perfect, but the work around is to use the showers in dorm "L" no big deal and if you don't want to put up with a little inconvenience, you always have the option to move to a different dorm.

You may have heard about a "jail house mentality" some people do act that way, those people don't last very long, first outburst and they are sent to the front of the building to cool off, for four hours the staff watches them carefully and if they can't behave they are suspended for 1 to 30 days.

Fighting? I have never seen an actual fight in here!
A lot of fluff and bluster, then security shows up and they either learn to get along real fast or they get suspended for 30 days!

Theft is another thing that people believe is rampant (it's not) we have video surveillance in every dorm, hallway and outdoors, just ask security to check the cameras and they will kick the thief out for 30 days min., usually the item was just misplaced, but just last week one of the residents was kicked out of our dorm for stealing an iPhone from another resident, the video was checked and the thief gave the phone back to it's owner; the thief was suspended for 30 days!

The bottom line, this place is safe, your property is secure, you can stay as long as you want and you get hot showers, warm beds and 3 square meal a day!

If you have pets, they're welcome too!

Your pets must stay with you at all times, if you have snakes, hamsters, horses, or animals other than dogs and cats, you will need special permission from one of the facility supervisor's prior to coming out here!

We are located over 12 miles from a city bus route; it's a very long walk!

Bedbug's! I hate to say it, but yes, bedbugs are an issue.
The management has hot boxes to kill bedbugs if you have infestation, heat kills them and the eggs quickly, but you will need to put your items in a hot box for at least 3 hours just to be sure every last egg is dead!

The City of ABQ sprays each dorm every 3 months to mitigate most of the bedbugs, but they can't stop new or existing clients from bringing them in and people collecting questionable (dumpster finds) items...

We also have a new laundry room with 8 new washers and dryers (no more West Side washing machine, A.K.A., 5 gal bucket) the machines are Whirlpool with a retrofitted big button control panel that makes them easy for anyone to use!