Albuquerque expands trauma recovery services for youth and families

Albuquerque has awarded Youth Development Inc. a contract worth up to $600,000 to expand trauma recovery services at the city’s Trauma Recovery Center at Gateway Center on Gibson Boulevard SE. The program will provide Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, trauma recovery support and case management for youth and adults affected by violence, trauma and addiction, with the stated goal of reaching residents least likely to get help.

The Trauma Recovery Center opened in September 2025 as New Mexico’s first and one of only 55 in the country, and city officials said more than 250 community members attended the grand opening. The center now serves as headquarters for Albuquerque Community Safety’s Violence Intervention Program, with outreach, advocacy, mental health support, care coordination and educational workshops for people and families living with the effects of violence. City materials also say the center is built to reach victims who are least likely to receive services, a detail that matters in neighborhoods where trauma often overlaps with poverty, housing instability and addiction.

The June 26 announcement did not stop with therapy and case management. Albuquerque and YDI also launched a second initiative tied to the city’s Guaranteed Basic Income program for vulnerable youth ages 16 to 24. City materials say the basic-income effort was created to support eligible residents in the International District and Southwest Albuquerque, two parts of the city where families often face the hardest mix of safety and stability challenges. In March 2025, the city said $4.02 million had been appropriated for the broader Guaranteed Income Initiative, including just over $2 million from city cannabis tax revenue.

The new contract fits into a larger expansion of Albuquerque Community Safety, which the city said had responded to more than 120,000 calls for service since launching in 2021. More than 85% of those calls were diverted away from APD and AFR, underscoring how much the city now leans on non-police response and recovery services to handle crisis situations before they escalate.

YDI’s Albuquerque main office is at 3411 Candelaria Rd. NE, Suite J, and the organization says it already provides youth programs, early childhood education and family services across New Mexico. The city has also used YDI to run Gateway Young Adult, a housing and treatment navigation center for people ages 18 to 25, and Gateway Family, where families typically stay about 90 days while working with case managers on housing and employment. The real test for the new trauma-recovery expansion will be whether Albuquerque and YDI can show that the added capacity reaches the neighborhoods most affected by violence and shortens the wait for families trying to get in.