Elites want $ 50 million for stadium while 100,000 households face eviction – Liberation News

The Albuquerque Party for Socialism and Liberation joins a new grassroots campaign against a proposed publicly funded soccer stadium in downtown Albuquerque.

In May, New Mexico United, a professional men’s soccer team belonging to the Division II USL Championship, launched a marketing initiative to use public funds to build a $ 85 million soccer stadium. The owner of NM United, a multi-million dollar investment banker, initiated the marketing ploy, saying, “This could be a lot more than a football stadium, this could be a community center … a place where we have art installations … development.”

The stadium proposal was quickly endorsed by Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, who is due to be re-elected in November 2021. Mayor Keller put support for the stadium at the center of his campaign and defended the economic benefits of the proposal on record. For the construction of the stadium, Mayor Keller’s administration proposed issuing $ 50 million in tax bonds – loans from banks that are repaid by the public with interest – and hired a consultancy to conduct a feasibility study of potential locations. The published feasibility report recommended building the stadium in historic downtown Albuquerque, including the Barelas and South Broadway neighborhoods.

The stadium proposal was immediately met with strong public rejection. Albuquerque residents spoke out against the stadium, calling it “ruthless” and “egregious”. Despite this strong and overwhelming opposition, Albuquerque City Council voted 7-2 to include the $ 50 million tax bond on the November 2nd general election ballot.

As Keller and the city council focus on squeezing $ 50 million out of Albuquerque residents for a stadium, overlapping social and economic crises only get worse. New Mexico ranks 49th in the United States for poverty, with the “official” poverty rate in New Mexico at 18.2%, including 24.7% of all children. In 2019, New Mexico homelessness was the highest in the country, rising 27% overall, including a staggering 57.6% increase in chronic homelessness. This rise in homelessness has been accompanied by skyrocketing rental costs for New Mexicans.

Last year, the working class has seen rents rise 13.57%, with 100,000 households at risk of eviction if the nationwide COVID-related eviction hiatus is lifted. This out-of-control rent hike is compounded by the construction of a stadium. In cities that have built publicly funded stadiums, rents have risen by an average of 8 percent, displacing working class majorities and causing permanent demolition of communities.

The stadium loan is essentially about one thing – accelerating the gentrification process in Albuquerque with the aim of clearing Albuquerque’s historic working-class neighborhoods and making room for higher-income residents.

Using public money to build stadiums for private sports clubs is part of a tried and tested pattern of capitalist development projects aimed at increasing the wealth and prosperity of a few while further marginalizing the working class. The planned stadium in Albuquerque is another attempt to shape Albuquerque’s future around the profits of the minority of the ruling class rather than the needs or desires of the majority of the working class.

The proposed soccer stadium is just the latest offensive by local politicians and developers to promote gentrification of the Albuquerque area. The stadium plan authors made this explicit, realizing that the goal of their development program is to drive the homeless away and act as a catalyst for high-end development with expensive restaurants, exclusive condos and office buildings. The pro-stadium elites do not care that working-class residents are pushed into permanent housing insecurity and homelessness.

The Stop the Stadium campaign is a fight against gentrification and the planned displacement of the historic working-class neighborhoods of Albuquerque. Instead of using public money to develop a stadium, the Stop the Stadium campaign is calling for all available resources to be used to cancel all rental debts, end all mortgages, make housing affordable and shelter the homeless.

To take part in this fight, visit here.

Photo credit: Liberation News Screenshot of the feasibility of the multi-purpose stadium by CAA ICON Architects, published by CABQ on July 23