City asks judge to declare bookstore with homeless encampment a ‘public nuisance’ - Gillian Barkhurst, Albuquerque Journal
After a yearlong conflict, the city of Albuquerque has asked a judge to declare a local bookstore a “public nuisance” due to health concerns and alleged illicit drug use by homeless people staying in the property’s parking lot.
If granted, city Code Enforcement would be allowed to enter the private property on Jefferson NE, just north of Central, and evict the people living there. The city also asked Judge Daniel Ramczyk for a second, more permanent consequence.
If the property becomes a public nuisance again, the city asked permission to petition a judge to sell the property to a new owner with no relation to the former, according to the civil complaint. The complaint also requests that the owner pay the city’s legal fees in the matter.
Nearby businesses allege that the people staying in the encampment have set fires, publicly urinated and defecated on their properties, as well as vandalized their storefronts, according to a civil complaint filed in 2nd Judicial District Court on Wednesday.
The bookstore’s owner, Gillam Kerley, refuted those claims and said he’s creating a safe space for people with nowhere else to go.
“The New Mexico Constitution guarantees everyone a right to seek and attain safety and a right to acquire and protect their possessions,” Kerley said. “And so what we are doing, I believe, is assisting them in exercising those rights under our state Constitution.”
The owners of surrounding businesses disagree and have complained about worsening conditions radiating from Quirky Books for years, said Alfredo Barrenechea, who owns Absolute Investment Realty nearby.
“I don’t know why it took the city so long try to do something about it, but thank goodness,” Barrenechea said about the complaint.
In reports made to the city, business owners said the encampments had scared away customers and cut into their profits, according to court documents.
Barrenechea said he and his employees find used hypodermic needles thrown over the fence line they share with Quirky Books daily and sometimes find bottles of urine. Barrenechea estimates that adding security measures, like a steel fence, cleaning up waste and repairing vandalism has cost his business about $30,000.
Barrenechea also believes that drug dealing and prostitution are happening on the neighboring lot, while Kerley turns a blind eye.
“How something illegal can occur in plain sight — it just doesn’t make any sense to me,” Barrenechea said. “But it just needs to go away.”
City code enforcers have also found drug paraphernalia and human excrement on or around the property, said city spokesperson Dan Mayfield.
When asked about the complaint’s allegations, Kerley denied them and said that the people staying on his lot are not the problem. The blame lies instead with local leadership’s failure to address issues like affordability and housing, Kerley said.
“These issues exist wherever there are unhoused people,” Kerley said.
In an attempt to address homelessness, the city implemented the Safe Outdoors Spaces program, which allows businesses, nonprofits and churches to host people, if they meet certain criteria. Some business owners, including Kerley, have criticized the program saying there are too many requirements and too much red tape for it to be feasible.
In the three years since the program’s inception, New Creation Church on Zuni is the only approved safe space in the city. Five applications have been denied and four locations have withdrawn their application, according to a city map.
Some of the requirements include having 24-hour security and access to showers, restrooms and social services, like job training.
In the unsanctioned Quirky Books encampment, residents bundled up in layers of long sleeves as the sun set Monday evening. There are approximately 15 people who stay there, though others drift through, residents said.
Long-term resident Jeremy Ryan said he and his neighbors are not to blame for the mess, though he sees why people think that.
“I’d like to curb the crap on the sidewalk — it makes us look bad,” Ryan said as his dog Sombra stood by his side. “The people who stay here, they know the rules.”
Ryan said that every day residents kick out troublemakers who wander in from Central.
Staying at the encampment has “been pretty much a godsend,” Ryan said.
Nearby, Rylee Drumm drew flowers with paint markers on the outside of her gray van to “make it less scary,” she said. She hopes that with a little extra decoration, passersby won’t be as wary of it.
Drumm has parked her van, where she lives with her dogs, at Quirky Books off and on for five months. With a court fight on the horizon, Drumm sees another solution.
Putting in a portable toilet and some trash cans would go a long way toward solving the neighbors’ complaints, she said.
“They don’t need to kick everyone out,” Drumm said.
With the encampment’s future uncertain, Drumm said she doesn’t know where she’d go next, but wherever it is, she worries she won’t be wanted.
“If they end this place, it’s just gonna put people in front of other businesses or people’s houses or in jail,” Drumm said. “There’s not really an alternative.”
National health equity organizations call for Medicaid coverage of anti-obesity medication in NM - Leah Romero, Source New Mexico
Leaders of several national health equity organizations this week called for the New Mexico Legislature to consider expanding Medicaid coverage to include anti-obesity medications during the upcoming regular 30-day session.
Organizations such as the National Hispanic Health Foundation, National Hispanic Council on Aging, League of United Latin American Citizens, MANA and the American Diabetes Association sent letters to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and several state lawmakers this week asking that they take action during the session, which begins in January 2026. The letters encourage lawmakers to help expand access to chronic disease treatments, particularly for people who belong to historically disadvantaged communities.
“Over the past decade, the state has seen the steepest rise in obesity rates in the nation — a ten-point surge that has pushed adult obesity to 36.3%,” a statement from the organizations reads. “This growing crisis falls hardest on those already confronting health inequities: Hispanics, African Americans, and Native Americans, as well as women, particularly those in low-income households.”
According to a 2023 report by the Health Equity Coalition for Chronic Diseases, managing the underlying causes of obesity and the conditions the disease causes create significant out-of-pocket costs that “rose by 37% over the last decade—and that’s just for those with private insurance,” the report reads.
The report notes that 45.6% of Hispanic adults in the country live with obesity — the second-highest rate among minority groups following non-Hispanic Black adults. The report adds that particularly among Hispanic residents in the U.S., higher rates of obesity are linked to a lack of access to healthy, affordable food; safe spaces to exercise; and stable, affordable housing.
According to a report by the Childhood Obesity Intervention Cost-Effectiveness Study (CHOICES), the overall prevalence of obesity among New Mexico adults was 42.8% in 2020. The highest rates were recorded among Hispanic and Black adults, low-income residents and women. The report projects the overall rate among adults in the state will increase to 51.8% by 2030.
“New Mexicans on Medicaid deserve access to breakthrough obesity therapies that will not only save lives, reduce costs, and help dismantle long-standing inequities in care, but also improve outcomes across the state,” the organizations’ letter states.
The American Diabetes Association notes that addressing the disease of obesity requires “person-centered” treatment that includes various screenings, intensive behavioral therapy, access to Federal Drug Administration-approved medications and access to bariatric or metabolic surgeries when recommended by a health professional.
New Mexico congressional delegation opposed to shutdown deal - Cathy Cook, Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico’s U.S. senators voted Sunday against moving forward a deal to end the federal government shutdown, because it does not address expiring health insurance subsidies.
Eight Democrat and independent senators voted with Republicans in a procedural vote on a package of bills that would keep the government funded at the same levels into January, taking a first step to end the more than 40-day long government shutdown. The Senate began a series of votes Monday evening to pass the legislation.
“Let’s end this entirely unnecessary, shameful shutdown,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said on the Senate floor.
The House is expected to come back in session Wednesday to take up the temporary funding bill.
While the bills do not address subsidies for Affordable Care Act health insurance plans that Democrats have based much of their holdout on, the package does differ from the temporary funding bill the House passed in September. It would extend funding through January and includes a reversal of all federal employee layoffs conducted during the shutdown. The package also includes full-year funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children.
“This ‘deal’ is one that many New Mexicans literally cannot afford — and we will keep working to rein in the affordability crisis that is hurting families in New Mexico and across the country,” Democratic Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico said in a joint statement.
New Mexico’s House representatives have indicated they also oppose the temporary funding bill, but Republicans have enough seats in the House to pass it along party lines. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., said she is relieved the shutdown is coming to an end.
“But I think, like many Americans, I feel betrayed by the handful of Senate Democrats who proceeded with taking a vote to end the shutdown without consultation with the rest of the Democratic caucus and that essentially allowed for a vote to happen without addressing the heart of what we have been fighting for,” she said.