Loving your neighbor is easier when the homeless shelter is not next door. Just ask the residents along Harrison Road by the Interfaith Community Shelter at Pete’s Place, or the people living close to nearby Franklin E. Miles Park, or the long-suffering folks near St. Elizabeth Shelters & Supportive Housing on Alarid Street.

This reaction is not a simple case of not-in-my-backyard, a cruel refusal to help the stranger or those who struggle. It is an understandable frustration of homeowners, renters, businessmen and women — all concerned about their safety, their children’s safety, their surrounding environments and, yes, their property values.

Everyone wants to help people without shelter — or at least most people, except perhaps for the very cruel. But most people who help the shelter, whether with good wishes, cash, donations or in-person volunteering, aren’t living next door.

It is the neighbors who must deal with petty thefts, people defecating on their sidewalks, needles left after addicts shoot up and the never-ending supply of empty alcohol bottles or beer cans. There are fights, drug deals and other altercations that interrupt otherwise quiet residential neighborhoods.

Much of the commotion is not caused by people who live on the streets; other, darker forces prey on them, whether selling drugs or robbing those who can’t defend themselves.

To fail to succor people who need assistance is cruel, unworthy of Santa Fe.

The Interfaith Community Shelter at Pete’s Place came into being for the best of reasons — to protect people who were dying because of the cold. St. Elizabeth Shelter, with its long history of helping the vulnerable, was established only after a lawsuit and much controversy back in the late 1980s.

A few weeks ago, residents near the interfaith shelter once again went to the city for relief. They want Pete’s moved. They want to be able to walk down the sidewalk without having to step over a tent or avoid human waste. They want their children to be able to play in safety, and their businesses to operate without customers being harassed.

They want the same quiet that nearly every other Santa Fe neighborhood enjoys. That is not so much to ask. During the pandemic, the city began putting up shelter guests in motels or in the dorms at the abandoned Santa Fe University of Art and Design campus. Santa Fe can and should be proud that COVID19 did not spread rapidly among people without homes.

Further, the city used $2 million in CARES Act money — the federal aid to relieve effects of the pandemic — to assist a nonprofit in the purchase of a hotel with suites, establishing a place where more people who need homes can get a fresh start.

But the problem of people living on the streets is not going away, not with the price of rentals skyrocketing and a shortage not just of affordable housing, but all housing. Supply and demand is off-kilter, not just in Santa Fe, but the country.

Just this month, workers from Santa Fe Public Schools cleared a homeless camp in open space by the La Farge Branch Library. Close to Nava Elementary, Milagro Middle School and Santa Fe High, the camp also was located in a waterway. It was both unsightly and unsanitary, but home to the people who slept there. It needed to be removed, but where will its residents, as well as the many people sleeping in arroyos, parks or benches, go?

City of Santa Fe officials, now that the pandemic has eased, say they will begin breaking up more such settlements. Camping on public property is restricted by city ordinance, although that prohibition was eased during the pandemic because of limits on shelter capacities.

Cleaning up camps fixes one problem. But people still need shelter. What we are doing is not working. That doesn’t mean private foundations, city and county officials, experts on homelessness and others are not developing better ways to meet the needs of our community. A document written during the pandemic — Santa Fe Homeless and Housing Needs — succinctly outlined problems and solutions, including what such groups as The Life Link or Esperanza Shelter are doing. Many smart people are working on this issue.

As they work, keep in mind both the people who need help and neighbors who need relief. Kids should be able to play in the park without seeing grown men urinate or two strangers having sex on the grass. And no human should fear being swept away in a flash flood because the only safe place to sleep is in an arroyo. Santa Fe needs to address both challenges.

Neighbors of Pete’s Place have asked the city to consider relocating the shelter — and city leaders should listen, not because “those people” should be hidden away but because individuals who need shelter deserve better. Shelter staff and volunteers do incredible work, but the building is a former pet store, hardly an optimal location for sheltering humans.

A more expansive shelter, close to bus routes but with room on the grounds for showers, restrooms, camping sites and services — counseling, job advice, health care, substance abuse treatment — is a more humane approach. Pete’s has a four-year lease, approved by the City Council late last year. Use those years to plan a better solution for helping transients or providing emergency care, and at the same time, keep focusing on housing for families, young people and working adults.

Our hearts are in the right place — now, to get people in homes, support them in their search back to self-sufficiency and ensure dignity and safety to all residents as they go about their lives.