ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — It’s time to take your ideas for addressing housing and homelessness off of social media, away from the dinner table and directly to city leaders.

The City of Albuquerque is hosting a series of “Constructive Conversations” this week on those topics.

“We meet with and talk to residents all the time, but wanted to have a different format to bring people together to talk about important issues in their community,” said Staci Drangmeister, the director of communications and marketing for the City of Albuquerque.

The first round of conversations was focused on capital projects earlier this year with a meeting in each city council district.

“We are hearing directly from people [about their] ideas that they have for parks, community centers, vacant buildings. And that informed our legislative priorities and our capital program. Same thing with this, we’d love to hear the ideas you have, whether you’ve seen something work well in another city or just a novel idea,” Drangmeister said.

Drangmeister added leaders understand housing and homelessness encompasses every district and a lot of neighbors have input.

“We hear the spectrum and hear from folks all of the time, but I do think those two issues are really top of mind for folks,” she said.

These conversations start with a short overview of what the city is doing, like progress in the Gateway System, hotel conversions and tax incentives. That effort has created a couple hundred units but leaders estimate Albuquerque still is short 20,000 housing units. Neighbors will have leaders’ ears for most of the scheduled meetings.

“Folks can talk directly to department leaders, everybody from Health, Housing and Homelessness; Community Safety; Redevelopment, Planning and the Mayor’s Office. So folks have issues and complaints. We want to hear those too,” Drangmeister said.

The first conversation on housing and homelessness is scheduled for Saturday from 1-3 p.m. at the Albuquerque Convention Center. The other two meetings are scheduled for next Wednesday and Thursday.

More information, including locations, times and a link to register, is available here on the city’s website.