It's not what it seems. Not even close. For context the mayor that implemented it also gave his construction industry buddies a multi billion dollar deal for a dedicated busline that no one asked for which shut down business on the city's main strip for YEARS and which doesn't work any better than the regular buses and which killed several people because it was not designed well at all and is basically an accident waiting to happen. But back to the topic…
The city of Albuquerque HEAVILY policies unsheltered people. And the unsheltered population is increasing. Even though they allow some tent cities to exist in certain parks they regularly bulldoze them at random and have the cops sweeping to harass unsheltered people all the time. They even created a lower level “safety” division that can go around and find unsheltered people just existing for the police to come harass. They forced the downtown shelters (the place where public transit actually goes to) to move and Republican, Democrat, conservative, progressive, all have been sent in surges of state police (who's abuse record is abysmall even compared to the top 10 worse of all time Albuquerque city police). The minimum wage sounds nice to people who don't live here but because the economy is so split between haves and ain't-have-nothings rent and realestate is totally out of range unless you live in the far flung corners of the city (where u have to have a car) and even then you have to get lucky. And would you guess this program does not people enough for rent any where in town? Did I say that already? Cause I can't say it enough. Thank god me and my bff got out of there (I was unemployed despite having a degree because the job market is abysmall and she was living on the street despite having a trade because same reasons). We know a lot of people there including a lot of people who are unsheltered and even folks who are trying desperately to get housing and a job wouldn't dare touch that program because it's designed so poorly and doesn't pay well. Some people of course do try it but they are the examples that the rest of the unhosued population learns from to avoid it. Unfortunately some people have to get dupped as a lesson to the rest of us. Also, in Albuquerque the police, the drug pushers, the business owners, the landlords, and the pimps are the same small subset of people. They push drugs and keep certain neighborhoods impossible to live in through targeted violence by the gangs which get's reported in the news as random but it's not and it's political. They do police raids where the point is to saddle Black and Native and immigrant's (including Black immigrants and Native immigrants) with b.s. charges that they have to pay a lot of fees to ever get thrown out which keeps them from moving and keeps the effective minimum wage well below the actual minimum wage.
So yeah, it's a hell hole and this program is bullshit meant to make it look more appealing to folks from the coast who want “cheap” rent of 1000/month for one person which most people from there can't afford. They've done a great job of turning the city into a futuristic class dystopia where ppl make 6 figures and feel rich because it's cheaper than SF or NYC but for even city workers 40k is a dream and now it's not because 40k means you can barely afford rent. Anyway I hope y'all stop dick riding Albuquerque's b.s. program because it's actually hell on earth <3