Alamosa Police Chief George Dingfelder and his office encouraged the Alamosa City Council to close St. Benedict camp during Wednesday’s public work session. He said the Alamosa Police Department would enforce whatever the council decided, but he made it clear that his officers are frustrated and at “the forefront” of what occurs at “Tent City” on a daily basis.
“Come spend a day with us,” he said.
During his short time as Alamosa’s top cop – just over three months – he said he has found St. Benedict to be a place of concentrated crime and disorder.
Wednesday’s public hearing lasted more than three hours and held court to a room full of Alamosa residents, nearly 50 of whom expressed their opinion on whether the camp established for Alamosa’s unhoused population should remain open. The city council had differences of opinion and approach, but after hearing from the public, they said that the city’s Homeless Coalition needs to be involved and “more teeth” need to be added not only to the way St. Benedict’s is run, but how rules are enforced and how the unhoused are taken care of by the community.
There was not a total consensus among the councilors, but they absorbed a lot of information, leaving them with a difficult decision to make. Councilors said that part of the decision and discussion needs to be had with the Alamosa Homeless Coalition.
Until the next meeting on the future of St. Benedict, council gave city staff some direction to come up with a list of rules to begin enforcing and get the Homeless Coalition fully on board.
With that, Dingfelder speculated that within a year there would be very few people living there because they “won’t follow the rules.”
Despite a deeply human issue at hand, an orderly and welcoming discourse overshadowed clear frustrations that residents had about St. Benedict camp or by the way others had spoken about the camp and those who stayed there.
Most who spoke publicly generally showed support for keeping the encampment where it is, raising the question “where will everybody go?” if it’s closed.
One resident recently told Alamosa Citizen that closure would force residents of Tent City back to the streets or leave them to bounce “in and out of wildlife.”
Even most of those who wanted the camp gone didn’t want people to just be left with nothing and nowhere to stay. A large portion of speakers brought up moving the camp farther from neighborhoods and the rec center. They argued the location is problematic.
The current location was chosen in 2020 due to its relative geographical access to town and nearby mental health care services. It was originally to be placed in a field across from the cemetery, but after public disagreement the council voted to have the camp placed where it is now. In the event of relocation, the city would have to look at property it already owns.
St. Benedict, right now, sits in a grove of trees, discreetly tucked away from public view. It’s on the south side of town near the Alamosa Recreation Center, across the street from a neighborhood, half a block away from Community Corrections, and almost a straight shot up Ross Avenue to town.
A creek filled with trash runs the length of the road into the camp. The outfield fence of two softball fields separates two worlds. On any given day, people come and go, cars drop people off while some pickup others. Taxis frequent here. Some of the camp’s residents stand in the sun, enjoying the last days of summer before the nights get colder and longer and warmth and survival become the priority.
According to Lance Cheslock, La Puente’s executive director, 38 people are staying at the camp right now. As of Wednesday night, Alamosa’s homeless population was 108, which marks a 10-year low, Cheslock said.
A wealth of anecdotes alleging people are being bused into Alamosa from far away places was presented during public comment. Those who conduct street outreach say that while the vast majority of Alamosa’s homeless population is from Alamosa and the Valley, it’s not uncommon for some homeless people to be from out of town or out of state.
City Councilor Mike Carson, frustrated at something he’s heard countless times, said that it would only be natural for some to find their way to Alamosa due to it being at the crossroad of two highways.
Cheslock, who has stood his ground against these allegations for most of his time at La Puente, pushed back on the stubborn rumors about an influx of unhoused and homeless people, saying there is virtually no evidence of a call to travel to Alamosa or La Puente to use its benefits.
The Cost
According to City Manager Heather Sanchez, the annual cost to maintain the camp is $16,200, with additional in-kind expenses between $2,800 and $3,300. This includes $14,400 for maintenance of the portable toilets and an $1,800 electricity bill. Sanchez said that someone was recently electrocuted at the camp so the power has been turned off.
This leaves St. Benedict residents forced to find somewhere else to charge their phones and have access to basic wifi and electricity. It would cost the city $5,000 to turn the power back on and have it fixed. The city also has to install an ADA-accessible portable toilet, which Sanchez said would increase St. Benedict’s annual operating cost by $2,500 to $3,000.
The cost to the environment was a point of discussion and agreement. Even Dingfleder said that was his “biggest” concern. There was an agreement that whatever the future held for St. Benedict, it needs to be better taken care of – starting first by enforcing more rules for those who stay at the camp.
Next to a financial cost, there is also a human cost at stake. Removing St. Benedict could save the city an annual headache, but it would displace at least 38 people. It would make it more difficult for health care providers to get in touch with all of these people. It would make it more difficult to find criminals who are said to use St. Benedicts for alleged prostitution, drug dealing and smuggling.
The neighbors of St. Benedict say they are growing scared and worried due to an increase in trespassing and activity. Some neighbors noted people in their yards at night, sleeping in their front yards, car alarms constantly going off. One resident said they’ve had people knock on their back door in the middle of the night.
Harry Reynolds, the city’s public works director said, “we deal with the consequences of the camp.” That entails fence repair, road repair, and maintenance of the portable toilets.
From Feb. 2022 to July 2024, there have been 22 fire calls to St. Benedict. Fire Chief Bill Stone said that comes out to about 9 fires a year. Of those fire calls, 17 were for suppression of warmth and cooking fires; the others were for pressurized propane and diesel tanks explosions.
Stone agreed that more teeth in regulating the camp would likely decrease the number of fire calls, but regardless of what city council decides the department will “naturally continue to respond.”
Dingfelder said his officers are there frequently. Since St. Benedict opened in 2020, APD has responded to 830 calls of service there. There have been 52 assaults, 12 violent and sexual assaults, and four unattended deaths (meaning someone had died at the camp and weren’t found for a matter of days or weeks).
Five people have been trespassed from the camp this year alone.
If the city decides to close the camp, it raises a community concern, but Sanchez said it also raises an internal concern. The consequence of closing St. Benedict could be an increased need for police officers, an avenue the city didn’t seem too keen on pursuing, but they admitted that the current police force is overwhelmed as it is.
Dingfelder said St. Benedict should never have been a police issue, yet his officers, code enforcement, and co-responders are at the forefront of what occurs there, saying many at the camp refuse help.
At the end of the meeting, Dingfelder said St. Benedict is a “concentrated hotbed” of criminal activity, disorderly violations, and “it’s a complete environmental disaster, plain and simple.”
In his three months as chief, he said those within St. Benedict’s have destroyed a fence and the electrical box, established a “hierarchy,” bullied the most vulnerable there, and created a “community of disorder, trash, and chaos.”
Dingfelder said that increasing accountability and responsibility in the camp is a way to begin to fix things. Tightening up the rules and cleaning the place up are good paths to go, but again he reinforced his position.
“We are placing people in an environment they do not want to be and [saying] follow the rules,” he said. “They refuse to follow the rules. A majority of them fail to follow the rules. But at the end of the day, we will do whatever you guys tell us to do. Because that’s professionalism and that’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna follow policy that you decide but I’ll tell you, as a group, we encourage you to close it.”