Albuquerque program pays homeless workers, boosts housing and jobs

Albuquerque is betting that paid work can do more than clear sidewalks for a day. The city’s Better Way model, first launched in September 2015, has been presented as an alternative to the familiar cycle of encampment sweeps, panhandling enforcement and emergency response, with the city saying more than 70% of participants secure housing or jobs.

The program’s early numbers were substantial. By June 29, 2018, the city said Better Way had provided 6,666 jobs, cleaned 894 city blocks and collected 256,741 pounds of waste. The city also said 1,575 unduplicated people had worked in the program, 422 had pursued permanent employment information and 76 had landed permanent jobs. At the time, Albuquerque tied the effort directly to its response to homelessness and panhandling, offering day labor as a substitute for enforcement while a pedestrian-safety ordinance was tied up in a legal challenge.

The program’s oversight came under scrutiny in 2019, when the city’s Inspector General said the contractor system was not operating as intended and raised concerns about pickup procedures and administration. The review did not find evidence that workers’ pay was being pocketed, but it did show the city’s challenge was not just finding people work, it was managing the system well enough to keep it credible.

City Hall returned to the model in 2024. On June 3, the City Council of Albuquerque passed Resolution R-24-41, creating a fiscal 2025 pilot day-labor program for unsheltered residents and describing it as a path toward financial stability. Two months later, on Aug. 9, Mayor Tim Keller announced A Better Way Forward for people staying at Gateway Center and Gateway West, expanding the concept beyond street cleanup to include paid work, transportation, financial literacy, banking and case management.

The city’s Oct. 23, 2025 update offered the clearest snapshot of whether the newer approach was translating into exits from homelessness. More than 50 people had participated, the city said. Ten had moved into temporary or permanent housing, 11 were still working in the program, three were in pre-hire status and five graduates had moved into full-time jobs outside the city. Against the backdrop of Albuquerque’s worsening homelessness count, 2,960 people in the 2025 point-in-time count compared with 2,740 in 2024, the question for Bernalillo County is no longer whether the city can mobilize short-term labor, but whether that labor can be turned into lasting housing and employment.