Albuquerque schedules – Albuquerque and Bernalillo County judges are reshaping how nine homelessness-related city offenses are handled in court, starting July 1. By scheduling those cases on Fridays and bringing public defense and treatment providers into the courtroom, officials aim
On the streets of Albuquerque, a missed court date can turn into a warrant almost overnight. And if the person runs into police again—sometimes days or weeks later—that warrant can land them in the county jail.
Judges in Bernalillo County. which includes Albuquerque. say they’ve seen that cycle tighten as charges tied to homelessness have risen. Eighteen months ago. they noticed more cases involving living outside. including allegations of obstructing a sidewalk. unlawful camping. and unlawful storage of personal property. They also said some people who received citations didn’t have an address and were missing court dates. a problem officials say is intensified by the basic reality of street life—many people lack cellphones and stable housing.
Now, Albuquerque officials and the local court system are trying a single, practical fix: a consistent day on the calendar.
Starting July 1. when Albuquerque police issue citations for nine offenses associated with homelessness. related court appearances will be scheduled for Fridays. according to a memo issued by Presiding Criminal Division Judge Michelle Castillo Dowler. The judges anticipate that giving people a specific weekly day for these city ordinance cases will reduce missed court dates. which in turn should reduce warrants for failing to appear.
The Friday hearings are also designed as more than paperwork. At each Friday court session. a caseworker and an attorney from the New Mexico Law Offices of the Public Defender will attend. Dennica Torres. the district defender for the public defender’s office. said the public defender is also working to ensure local treatment and service providers are available outside the courtroom.
“It’s like a one-stop shop on Fridays,” Torres said.
Torres added that her office, the district attorney’s office, and the courts have been working since last year to address the homelessness-related caseload. The city of Albuquerque has also set aside $200,000 for a city attorney or paralegal to assist with the Friday effort.
Mayor Tim Keller. who has faced intense scrutiny over Albuquerque’s approach to homelessness. framed the change as a break from a jail-centered pattern. Speaking at a recent news conference. Keller said. “We can’t simply just cycle vulnerable individuals through jail and back out on the street. Both of those are not the right answer.”.
The new scheduling plan comes after ProPublica reported in March that. under Keller’s tenure. charges have surged for ordinances tied to living on the street. In 2025 alone. ProPublica reported that people were charged 1. 256 times for obstructing sidewalks—nearly six times the number of cases in the previous eight years combined. The reporting also said more than 3. 000 trespassing charges were handed out. the highest for any year since 2017. and that cases of unlawful camping increased to 704 from 113 the year before. using previously unreported county data.
The numbers being used to drive the court change are moving in the same direction. Court data shows that charges for the nine offenses that will be part of the court’s Friday hearings continued to rise—from 579 between January and April of 2025 to 2. 072 during the same period this year. Judges did not include trespassing in the charges scheduled for Fridays.
Inside the jail, the stakes are visible in headcounts. ProPublica found that the number of people at Bernalillo County’s Metropolitan Detention Center designated as “transient” or homeless has climbed in recent years—from 3. 670 in 2022 to nearly 12. 000 in 2025. Last week, nearly 53% of people booked at the jail were recorded as homeless.
Keller did not respond to ProPublica’s questions or requests for comment. But he has previously told the news organization that arrests and citations are not a solution to homelessness. even as the city’s homeless population more than doubled from 2022 to 2025 while the increase in homeless people jailed by the county more than tripled.
In response to the growing problem. Keller—mayor since 2017—has deployed city crews to clear encampments and has ramped up enforcement of crimes related to being homeless. He previously defended the Albuquerque Police Department’s actions. saying. “What we’re doing is following the letter of the law. There are much more punitive things that I’m sure a lot of people would want. that we don’t do because they’re inappropriate.”.
Under the new arrangement. the Friday schedule is meant to disrupt the most unforgiving part of the system: people missing court dates because they can’t reliably keep track of them. Whether it changes outcomes in time will depend on whether defendants can show up consistently—and on whether the promised “one-stop shop” of legal help and services is enough to keep citations from turning into jail stays.
Albuquerque Bernalillo County Michelle Castillo Dowler Tim Keller homelessness missed court dates arrest warrants Friday hearings public defender Metropolitan Detention Center transient homeless