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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – A New Mexico nonprofit has taken public donations for projects aimed to save homeless pets for years. But what’s happened to those projects? And what exactly is the local nonprofit doing with your money?
KRQE News 13’s asked the organization those questions on Special Assignment.
It’s clear in New Mexico that a lot of abandoned and neglected dogs need help. So when the nonprofit New Mexico Pets Alive wanted to lease a building on Adams Street near Lomas and Washington, landlords Bryan and Sharon Arndt were on board.
“We thought it would work for them,” said Bryan Arndt.
“It sounded like she had great plans, you know for a pet rescue,” Sharon Arndt said. “We’re all for that.”
The Arndts are referring to Melissa Roberts, Executive Director for New Mexico Pets Alive, or NMPA.
“This side of the building is the café side,” Roberts said during her appearance in a story for KRQE News 13’s morning show in 2016, promoting plans for a first of its kind ‘Canine Café’ in Albuquerque.
According to its website, the Canine Café is a concept combining “a dog café, an adoption center, a retail operation and an economic development initiative.”
“They grab their beverage, they go through a catch pen area, and then all throughout this entire space is where all the dogs will be,” Roberts explained in the 2016 interview with KRQE.
But what ever happened to those plans?
KRQE News 13 found the building on Adams Street currently sits empty, and the landlords are now in a court battle with NMPA.
“I mean I’m an animal lover, you know and I thought, ‘OK I’ve never dealt with a nonprofit before.’ I thought she had good intentions, but I never saw anything come to fruit,” Sharon explained.
In 2016 Roberts signed a three-year lease with the Arndts for NMPA to move into the building on Adams.
Landlords claim they even gave the nonprofit a deal: the first month was rent-free, plus a reduced rate for three more months.
NMPA continued an online campaign asking for donations and promoting the Canine Café.
Sharon said the red flags started around the “First of February because that’s when the rent was due and it didn’t come.”
She said an employee named ‘Amy’ told her via email that NMPA was having trouble with a grant, and they’d send a check soon.
“Sometime in March she emailed me back and she said, ‘Well we’ve just decided that we’re not gonna be able to do this,'” Sharon recalled.
In a letter to Arndt’s attorneys, Roberts blamed the city for “not allowing the housing of animals without New Mexico Pets Alive installing a radiant heat floor and sprinkler system,” which it couldn’t afford.
But the city and Fire Marshal’s office couldn’t provide KRQE News 13 any record that was the case.
“Sometime in March or April, that envelope was stuffed into our mailbox out front,” Sharon explained. “It has the keys to the building in it.”
The Arndts filed a breach of contract in court, trying to recoup past due rent, late fees, unpaid water bills, and the balance of the three-year lease; altogether totaling more than $140,000.
“I feel cheated,” Bryan told KRQE News 13. “You know they didn’t do anything they said they were gonna do as far as I’m concerned.”
About a year ago, right around the time the NMPA left the Adams location, the nonprofit received a business permit from the City of Albuquerque to operate at a strip mall on Menaul in northeast Albuquerque.
KRQE News 13 spotted Canine Café and donation signs there in November, and what appeared to be donated items inside. But once again, the building sits empty.
Last July, NMPA signed another lease for a building on Edith near Osuna. Turns out those landlords took the nonprofit to court too, this time for breach of contract, failing to pay utilities and costing the landlords $57,000 in repairs, renovations and lost rent.
The case file includes an angry email chain with Roberts threatening her own lawsuit and calling the landlord a “basket case or scam artist.” That case was dismissed and NMPA moved out of Edith without ever opening a Canine Café there.
In an emailed response from an NMPA volunteer named ‘Amy,’ KRQE News 13 received the following message regarding the Edith location:
Many of us wanted to fight the awsuit [sic] due to the damage it caused our organization, including lives lost, the negative impact of delayed and lost programming, the negative impact on donors and volunteers as well as many months of time and some money lost. In the end, donors decided they wanted to find a safe location with a cooperative landlord no matter what we had been put through so we pursued a settlement instead.
KRQE News 13 called Melissa Roberts last month, and again this month, but no one ever answered phone calls. Instead, News 13 only received emailed responses from a volunteer named ‘Amy,’ denying NMPA is doing anything wrong, and accusing News 13 of “trying to create some sort of conflict for ratings.”
The nonprofit claims the Canine Café was open from time to time at the Adams and Menaul location, but never posted hours since it relied on volunteer availability.
NMPA’s Executive Director, Melissa Roberts only agreed to meet with KRQE News 13 off camera, and declined our repeated requests for an interview. She claims their resources are limited and NMPA still plans to move forward with yet another Canine Café location.
Currently, NMPA is still active on social media, collecting donations for its latest Canine Café renovation project. But the non-profit refused to disclose to News 13 where the new location is. Try to find it online and you get a wordy explanation and no address.
New Mexico Pets Alive is advertising plans for cafés in New York City, San Diego and San Francisco as well; plans they claim are in still the works.
“She’s not done anything that I can see to help one single animal,” Sharon said.
In a now-defunct local newspaper, NMPA asked for donations to help save 50 homeless dogs from Hurricane Harvey back in September. In a later post online, the nonprofit blamed problems with a property owner foiling plans to do so.
Instead, it advertised an “expanded Canine Café with a rescue brew restaurant and yard bar project,” described online as a “Nonprofit project of New Mexico Pets Alive, bringing New Orleans cuisine and the best craft brews from across New Mexico.”
The public could purchase gift cards to the non-existing facility, and according to the website, “pre-sale purchases would fund construction.”
But today, that website doesn’t exist.
In News 13’s off-camera meeting with Roberts, KRQE News 13 asked her about the Rescue Brew Project. She claimed NMPA was only a named beneficiary and that a partner was running that operation.
Roberts refused to tell KRQE who the partner is, only saying the project is still in the works and the website is being upgraded.
KRQE News 13 checked, and rescuebrew.org is registered to Melissa Roberts.
In an email to KRQE News 13 from ‘Amy,’ she stated, “The Rescue Brew project is in process as far as I know but it is not an NMPA project and has not accepted donations. NMPA is named a beneficiary [sic] of the project so we have been promoting it. Other non-profit organizations will also be beneficiaries from what I understand.”
So where are the donations for NMPA going?
Roberts claims to be saving pets through home fostering and adoptions, but the only posted financial records for the nonprofit on its website are from 2014.
Meanwhile, News 13 has learned the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office is now investigating a complaint against New Mexico Pets Alive.
Read the full complaint to the Attorney General’s Office >>
While the Arndts case is still pending in court, the couple is still attempting to lease or sell the building on Adams that NMPA vacated.
“It makes me feel pretty crappy,” Sharon said of the whole situation. The couple feels differently about blindly trusting nonprofits.
“It seemed very legit,” Sharon recalled. “At the time,” Bryan added. “But we don’t feel that way now.”
“I think she’s a ripoff,” said Sharon. “Sorry, I wouldn’t give her a penny.”
KRQE News 13 asked New Mexico Pets Alive for current financial records. They refused to bring them to our meeting over the weekend and instead said they’d be mailed to News 13. KRQE News 13 has yet to receive that mail.
As a charitable nonprofit, New Mexico Pets Alive is required by law to register with the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office and provide its fundraising and expense reports. According to the AG’s website, it hasn’t done so since 2015.
The Attorney General has sued nonprofits for similar infractions, and is currently conducting a sweep of delinquent charities.
The public can check the status of a New Mexico charity on the AG’s website. Before deciding who to donate to, people can also lookup a nonprofit’s information, including financial records at Guidestar.org.
James Hallinan, Communications Director for the Office of the Attorney General, sent KRQE News 13 the following statement regarding the complaint against New Mexico Pets Alive:
“The Office of the Attorney General Consumer and Environmental Protection Division has received a complaint which is currently under review. The delinquency will be addressed as part of our statewide delinquency sweep or at the conclusion of our review of this complaint. The Office of the Attorney General reminds consumers to check the registration status of a charity prior to donating to them. If a charity is delinquent, non-compliant, or not registered, donors should take a closer look before giving and contact our office.”
*Disclaimer: In the original airing of this story there was a poster on a wall for the K-9 Rehab Institute in Rio Rancho. They have no affiliation with New Mexico Pets Alive.
