Las Cruces councilors to vote on ordinances affecting homeless residents

Las Cruces Bulletin

The fate of two high-profile proposed ordinances seems headed for a close vote at the Las Cruces City Council on Aug. 5.

Queries from the Las Cruces Bulletin, combined with previous public statements, show the council apparently split, with at least one member still making their decision.

If passed, the measures would reshape Las Cruces Police Department’s approach to policing homelessness even as unhoused residents and community advocates call the suggested changes inhumane and ineffective.

The topic has become a flash point for Las Cruces politics as conservative and pro-business groups such as Coalition of Conservatives in Action and Businesses for a Safer Las Cruces have backed LCPD in pushing for the changes.

When he spoke to the Bulletin on July 30, Mayor Eric Enriquez said he’d decided to vote for both proposals and lamented that the public debate had reached a boiling point.  

“What I see and say as a mayor is we've got to start somewhere, and we move towards the direction that's going to benefit us all, including those on the street,” Enriquez said. “It's not just ‘enforce a law’ or that we just penalize and incarcerate everybody, it's a law that we try to make our city safer.”

Yet that is precisely the criticism the bills have received from civil rights groups and community advocates. They decry the bills as criminalizing homelessness.

“The proposed ordinance is both cruel and impractical,” Nicole Martinez, the executive director of Community of Hope, wrote in an op-ed. “The alternative interventions proposed in the ordinance for individuals who are charged do not currently exist in Las Cruces, leaving the police with no option but to jail people.”

What the bills and officials say

No advocate for the legislation has been more determined than LCPD Chief Jeremy Story.

Since presenting these two proposals to the council on Apr. 29, Story has consistently pushed for their passage, whether at a council meeting or before the state Legislature.

To see the full story at the Las Cruces Bulletin, click here.