ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – A non-profit focused on helping people recover from drug addiction has a new location. It’s looking to open in the heart of the city and it’s making a group of Albuquerque neighbors worried about who might be passing by their homes.
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“It’s an amazingly wonderful neighborhood and I would hate to see it teeter into something that is tainted,” said Fair West Neighborhood Association VP, Katherine Turner.
People in the Fair West Neighborhood, near Lomas and San Pedro, say they’re worried after hearing about one of their new neighbors moving into the old, empty Barber College. “Just to have more traffic of people like that right over here and especially neighbors whose backyards literally face the Barber College, they are really concerned,” said board member, Hillary Malu.
The non-profit called “State of the Heart Recovery” just bought the building across from the fairgrounds where it will launch new services for recovering drug addicts. “It’s a methadone support clinic so it doesn’t fall under the same property zoning laws as a methadone clinic,” said Turner.
Turner says they’re told the support clinic will not serve methadone. Instead there will be a rage room, escape room, and therapy options. Those resources are not the issue. “The problem is they do have friends that come that aren’t part of the program. They are still in process of living an addicted life,” said Turner.
That fear comes after what neighbors say they’ve seen at other State of the Heart locations, like a methadone clinic at nearby California and Linn. “There are a lot of problems with loitering, drug sales, there was a death, an overdose death outside one of the business owners back doors,” said Turner.
Turner asked the non-profit previously to tell clients to be respectful of their neighbors like the historic Microsoft headquarters.
“He said he could not control his clients in that way and that the only thing the client understood in the beginning is drugs and being arrested,” said Turner. “If he can’t have them be respectful of a historic monument, how is he going to make them be respectful of our neighborhood?”
State of the Heart Recovery has not responded to KRQE News 13’s email or call. The clinic is expected to open July 1.
