League Of Women Voters Hears From Dena Moscola, Executive Director Of Espanola Pathways Shelter

Dr. Tyler Taylor, left, and Dena Moscola were the guest speakers at the November League of Women Voters Lunch with a Leader. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com

BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com

The League of Women Voters of Los Alamos recently heard in depth accounts of the activities of the Espanola Pathways Shelter from director Dena Moscola, and the Interfaith Coalition on Homelessness by Dr. Tyler Taylor, during the monthly LWV Lunch with a Leader event. Below is coverage of Moscola’s presentation. Dr. Taylor’s presentation is published separately.

ESPANOLA PATHWAYS SHELTER

Speaking first, Moscola said homelessness in Northern New Mexico is not a new thing.

“We’ve heard several rumors that Pathways Shelter brought homelessness to our communiry but homelessness goes back to the colonial days when lands displacement created tremendous cultural trauma. This continued with institutions releasing patients and closing down,” she said.

In Northern New Mexic0, Moscola noted there is limited access to jobs, limited housing and a huge problem with generational poverty, as well as housing structures that are aging and a lack of housing development in the area.

‘A lot of the housing that’s left is falling apart with condemned homes throughout Rio Arriba County. We have a lot of people who live in these condemned homes once they’re condemned because they have nowhere to go so they stay there,” Moscola said.

She discussed an encampment that was in the Shelter parking lot as a result of the closure of a couple of apartment complexes in the area that resulted in people having nowhere to go.

“it wasn’t because we wanted then to camp on our property but we just felt humanitarianism-wise, we had no choice but to help – not just by letting them but one by one to help them move off the property. Since then, the encampment has been disbanded but that’s just an example of when there’s nowhere to go and people go do desperate measures to make sure their needs are met,” Moscola said.

She noted that ine of the advantages of having shelters in a community is that they provide services that take away the need to commit some of the crimes

“We see that on a regular basis. Another challenge is that rents are increasing all over the nation and wages are staying the same. As a result things become less and less affordable so we’re seeing an increase in homelessness,” Moscola said. She added that the poverty rate in New Mexico is third highest in the nation and has been for a while. Rio Arriba has one of the highest rates in the state at 23.5 percent. .

“This is something we would love to see come down but if things continue the way they’re going, it’a not something that’s going to decrease quickly,” she said.

There was an uptick in homelessness number in 2022 and 2024, because of three really powerful reason, she said.

“We had COVID, which displaced a lot of people as they were losing their jobs. We also had the fentanyl explosion that created an entirely new landscape with drug use that we saw on the street and that caused people to lose their jobs, lose their families, lose everything they had and increase the number of homeless,” Moscola said.

Espanola Pathways Shelter was founded in 2019 with a mission to provide pathways and essential services for people that are unhoused.

“We had no idea how much we would grow. We have been through many challenges and we’ve had significant, very rapid growth over the years. Some of that rapid growth has caused us challenges because the organization grew as the need grew… We always say we’re learning to fly the plane and flying it at the same time,” Moscola said.

The shelter opened on January 6, 2020, earlier than planned due to a fire that displaced 10 homeless people during a week of single-digit temperatures, forcing them to open with only part of the facilities ready, without staff and using volunteers. Within three months of opening, COVID hit and the shelter had to close temporarily but began providing food and services in the parking lot.

“We survived COVID. Our mission was to get people off the streets to keep the community safe. We didn’t have once case of COVID that entire year,” Moscola said. COVID funding enabled us to purchase the motel across the street on Riverside Drive. The next year, what we did was renovate it and turn it into the first transitional housing unit in Espanola. Started in 2021, the transitional housing was for a different kind of clientele than we had normally seen in the shelter. This was fro people that were in recovery already and needed extra support to move their recovery along.”

She noted that in Year 3, the board agreed to buy the shelter building and Pathways became landlords, renting out the upper part of the building to other entities including Goodwill.

“That’s been very helpful for our funding. We got money from the state and we were able to purchase the building. The income from the tenants has been instrumental in our operations and we have an agreement with the state that all that income does directly into our operations and maintenance for the building,” Moscola said.

By 2023, Moscola said the shelter had no choice but to provide day services that are still functioning now and those include essential services that people need to get them through the day.

“In 2024, we discovered we needed to do a complete reorganization of everything; our finances, our operations, all of our policies, everything. We revamped the whole operation. The board went through a huge transition as well and we also launched our rental assistance program., which works with people that are not in our shelter. We were working with money from the Opioid Settlement and those folks come referred from other organizations or sometimes from the streets. They have to have opioid use diagnosis in order for us to work with them,” she said. “It’s a very particular program. It limits who we can work with, but it also expands who we can work with.”

In 2025, Pathways was able to close the encampment using money they obtained from the United Way and Rio Arriba County. They started a winter essentials program; they brought in case managers who worked with the folks in the parking lot, sometimes with 60 tents or 100 people. They worked with these people one by one to find places for them to go.

“There were still people who said they didn’t go anywhere, that they wanted to stay in the streets. For other people who said yes to rehab, or yes to be reconnected with their family and friends, who said yes to federal services that were needed, our emergency case management handled all of that. We were able to close the encampment in 2025 and closing it enabled us to out up a fence on our property. The encampment is a hard thing to manage. Managing all those people is expensive. You need more supplies, medical care, we needed outhouses, we needed cleaning – the list goes on. A lot of our budget went to that. And a lot of our focus We had to focus on safety only,” Moscola said.

Now that it’s closed we were able ro focus, to shift our funding and we were abl to start our Partners in Health program, which gives people opportunities to come on site to access necessary healthcare. So that’s been fabulous.

Moscola gave an update on the challenge Pathways has had with its special use permit which had neem granted in 2019 for five years. In September 2024, she said Pathways was told the permit had expired in October 2024. Since then, Pathways has been trying to re-obtain the permit.

“We finally got a date to appear before the Planning Commission in August 2025 and it was rejected. We met all the requirements of the original special use permit, but they were upset because we were not open the full seven nights a week for our shelter. That’s why they turned it down. We operate a seasonal shelter, so in summer in the warm weather we are closed for overnights but all of our other services are functioning. We immediately appealed which allows us to stay open during the process. We did not shut down once…. We have been open the whole time. We went to the City Council in October and we did not get rejected. Instead, they decided to not decide and to bring in an outside hearing officer. We are waiting to hear what is going to happen next. We have full confidence that we are not going to have to close at all,” Moscola said.

Moscola said Pathways is going through the process and staying compliant and that early in 2026, it will be resolved. She said Pathways has four main programs that it focuses on. The first one is an overnight shelter that provides seasonal hours.

“Our mission is to open seven nights a week – right now we’re open four nights a week. Come December (2025) we’re hiring now, we’re looking to open seven nights a week,” she said, adding that those terms will last into March and possibly into April.

Pathways is a low-barrier shelter – the first and only low=barrier shelter in Espanola.

“Low-barrier means we have minimal barriers to getting in our door. So we allow people to come inside in any condition. Once they’re inside, they have to obey our rules. So that means that if someone is using or has been drinking, they can still come in. A medium-barrier shelter means that have a breathalyser at the front door. That’s not realistic for us anymore…. but there are very strict rules once you’re inside. You have to agree to appropriate behavior, no violence, no drug use, no drugs on you, no weapons – we have very strict rules to make sure everybody is safe, so that we can address people’s needs and not spend our time addressing emergencies or worse,” Moscola said.

Pathways has a men’s dorm serving 10 men and a women’s dorm serving 10 women. There’s also a family room that can serve a family of four. These numbers go up when the remperatures are cold but the same rules are observed. There is a security team from Santa Clara Pueblo that works with Pathways and they also have a close relationsip with the police department, Moscola said.

“Those are our last resorts. First we train our staff on viligance and on safety measures and de-escalation and we can pick out and de-escalate a situation before it turns into a problem. We also provide peer support. We have a lot of staff who have been through what our clients have been through. Most of our staff have addiction problems and have been in recovery for a very long time,” she said. “…At our shelter we want people to come in at any condition so we can give them the help they need and let them know we are on their side.”

Moscola said that’s a model that’s working and over time people do say yes – some people right away, some people might take a few years.

“They say some people go into rehab seven times before they are free of the huge challenges that come with addition. … So we don’t like to give up on people. We have rules where we will ban someone because of behaviors but as time goes on, we give them a second chance,” she said.

She explained the day services provided by Pathways – people are allowed to hang around on the property during the day because there’s nowhere else to go. People are invited to enter the shelter for showers and hygiene supplies, use of a bathroom, first aid, to plug in and charge their phone.

“This way they can keep abreast of their legal obligations. Think about it: if you’re on the street, how do you get better, how do you get rid of your past if you can’t keep in touch with your legal obligations. We also provide phone use. We have a navigator on site and what she does is she provides IDs for people. When you’re on the street, you lose a lot…. It’s tough keeping your personal belongings…We’re continually helping people get their IDs – their social security card. Our navigator helps people get food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, different medical services they might need – connecting them to a medical center, a de-tox center, connecting them to family and friends, housing,” she said.

People who begin coming in a night, start to come in during the day. Clients are allowed to store their property with very structured rules in an agreement Pathways has with them.

“If you stay overnight and you’re using the services of our housing navigator, you are allowed to keep your things on the porch. We try to provide incentive to get involved. We also have our Partners in Health that was established this year by our Operations Director Jake Stockwell. What he did was he got to know the organizations in the area, who are coming together to provide services to our clients. What that means is that on any given day there’s a schedule of people who are our partners now so that people can get services they need onsite.,” Moscola said. “We have a hub of services. When your unhoused and moving around, that’s challenging and even if there is transportation, it’s limited. Being able to go to one spot and get care, get tested for illnesses and now you can start getting treated and have access to drug treatment onsite, where we have tele-health and we can get people treatment to be able to start detoxing on their own.”

Moscola discussed the importance of providing incentives. Pathways has people that volunteer for them on a regular basis. She said this gives people a sense of dignity and self esteem and distracts from committing crimes. Pathways also has a transitional housing program where people come out of the justice system or rehab and enter into the program. They already have months or sometimes a few years of recovery, Moscola said, but they need help adjusting into everyday life. They learn job skills, interviews sites, and when they graduate they stay for up to 18 months and when they graduate from our program they have jobs, some people have cars, they have homes they move into. There is a 73 percent success rate in that program, Moscola said. The transitional housing area is currently being renovated.