Hopes Raised for Homeless Shelter When Arena Plans Buried
by Allie Martin and Jody Brown
October 20, 2004
(AgapePress) - The director of a faith-based shelter in Albuquerque says a decision by city officials to scrub plans for the new downtown arena is a major victory for the homeless.Last week, city officials in the Duke City opted to abandon plans for a $50 million, 10,000-seat arena. According to New Mexico Business Weekly, Mayor Martin Chavez pulled the plug because finances for the project were not meeting the city's original expectations. Factors such as rising steel prices and climbing interest rates, the report says, had combined to increase the projected costs by an additional 40 percent, to $70 million.
While the demise of the arena may disappoint some of the residents of New Mexico's largest city, the city's decision was good news for Jeremy Reynalds, director of the Joy Junction homeless shelter, located in southwest Albuquerque. Joy Junction, the only shelter in the city for homeless families, operates a parking lot that was in the area being planned for the arena. Reynalds says the arena could have caused the shelter to close because Joy Junction receives about 12 percent of its budget from parking lot revenues -- a hit he described in August as "one more nail in our financial coffin."
The Joy Junction director says he was dismayed when he heard that the parking lot would be overtaken by the arena project. "One intent is we would employ homeless and formerly homeless people to help us run the lot," he explains, "and the other was that we could keep all the profits we make and return those to a general fund to operate Joy Junction."
And while he is pleased that the homeless ministry will now be able to continue operating, he says he does not want people to think he was against the arena.
"Several people [asked me] 'Were you against the arena?' And again, I stressed, no," Reynalds says. "We were in no way, shape, or form against the arena as such; but what we were very concerned about was the arena's impact upon our ability to operate a shelter. The arena was a good idea, but one that was a good idea in the wrong place and at the wrong time."
In August, Reynalds stated in a press release that they "support an arena and believe strongly that it is good for our community and the economy, but we also need to let the community know what could happen."
In 18 years, Reynalds says, Joy Junction has sheltered at least 70,000 people and fed hundreds of thousands of warm meals. On an average night, the shelter takes in about 175 homeless people.
