New Mexico
New Mexico cities must abandon their efforts to punish homelessness
Over the years, we’ve seen every manner of anti-panhandling law introduced, passed, revoked, and re-introduced in cities across New Mexico. Many of the laws that have come and gone were repealed because they were unconstitutional. But it hasn’t stopped cities from trying again and again to push unhoused people out of sight through the threat of arrest; city officials invariably tinker with the language and see if it passes muster.
Right now, we’re seeing a new wave of these efforts, all under the auspices of public safety. The Santa Fe City Council is expected to soon vote on a bill that would make it illegal for people to sit or stand on a median that is less than 36 inches. It mirrors similar bans implemented in Albuquerque in 2023 and in Espanola in 2022. Last month, Alamogordo passed a bill that punishes people with up to $500 in fines and 90 days in jail for soliciting or giving donations from a median. At a recent Las Cruces City Council meeting, there were talks of introducing a new bill to curb panhandling, and Governor Lujan Grisham has doubled down on her efforts to pass a statewide ban.
As these bills catch fire in New Mexico, it begs the question: What if our elected leaders used the same dedication and ingenuity to address the root causes of homelessness, instead of concocting new ways to punish people who are unhoused?
When our cities respond to homelessness with police, unpayable fees, and jail time, it only entrenches homelessness. A person who asks for money because they are too poor to afford a meal or a night in a hotel cannot afford to pay hundreds of dollars in fines. Any time spent behind bars for their inability to pay exorbitant fees only compounds their hardships. That’s because the stigma of jail time and criminal records make it all but impossible to obtain employment or housing. It’s clear to see that criminal legal system involvement and homelessness are part of a vicious feedback loop.
The National Prison Policy Alliance found that people who have been to prison one time experience homelessness at a rate nearly seven times higher than the general public. People incarcerated more than once are 13 times more likely than the rest of the population to experience homelessness.
To truly address homelessness, New Mexico’s elected leaders must confront the decades of policy failures that have led to a lack of safe and affordable housing, access to mental and physical healthcare, substance use treatment and other essential wrap-around services. While we’ve made big strides in these areas, we should not undo that progress by coupling real solutions with failed policies.
The difficult reality is that many New Mexicans – and families across the country – are just one bad circumstance away from finding themselves in a similar position to the people they drive past, holding up a sign for help. Housing and food costs in the last few years have skyrocketed, and wages have not kept pace. Our state is also grappling with an enormous housing shortage. These factors contributed to a 48% increase in homelessness from 2022-23.
Addressing a collective failure to adequately invest in our communities is in everyone’s best interest. It will take time, but unlike laws that respond with punishment, doing so will pay off in the long run.
The question is: Will our elected leaders continue with the status quo, or will they show the courage, humanity, and fortitude to forge a different path? New Mexicans deserve elected leaders who will do the latter.
Nayomi Valdez is the public policy director at ACLU-NM and Monet Silva is executive director at New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness
NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – The Larry P. Abraham Agri-Nature Center in Los Ranchos was created to be a space for the community to share agricultural resources and learn. Now, Corrales wants in on the action.
“The Agri-Nature Center provides a lot for the community and provides valuable agricultural education, demonstration of agricultural techniques that work well in our environment in our climate, and helps support local businesses at the same time,” Agri-Nature Center Agricultural Program Director William Carleton said.
The center focuses on home-grown foods, sustainable farming, regenerative agriculture through food preservation, and education through hands-on learning. With programs like animal husbandry, water conservation, research into new agricultural technology, and growers’ markets.
“They have all these workshops, land set aside for certain type of gardens, agricultural activities, cooking, and we don’t currently have something like that here in Corrales,” Dean Sherer said with the Corrales Historical Society.
The goal is to educate people and get them involved in more sustainable practices of agriculture to promote more agricultural activities.
Both the Agri-Nature Center and the people in Corrales believe that if they can expand by adding more of these centers in the state, they can become hubs for more and more New Mexicans to get involved in and learn from. “The Agri-Nature Center serves the residents of Los Ranchos, but also people throughout the metro area and beyond,” Carleton said. “This past year, we served 46 different zip codes in New Mexico at our workshops and events.”
Two of their programs in particular have been so popular, they’re looking to expand them. Such as a community garden started this year. This is one of the programs Corrales is looking to replicate in its own community.
“There’s been so much positive feedback with the community garden, and the idea would be to expand plots,” Carleton said. “Right now we have 30, which filled up this year.”
Another popular program they’re looking to expand is a demonstration kitchen, which up until now has only been used for workshops. Going forward, they want to make the equipment available for people to use. Such as freeze-drying foods.
“I see it as a community resource for learning how important agriculture is for us in New Mexico, and if we can sustain it in a better way, if we can learn new techniques to help our gardens grow better and larger,” Sherer said.
This morning temperatures have fallen into the low 40s in Albuquerque with mostly clear skies. Today, mild to warm high temperatures are expected in New Mexico with sunshine throughout most of the day in the Duke City before bit more cloud coverage comes in from the west. In addition, an approaching upper-level low pressure system will push into western New Mexico and southern Colorado this afternoon bringing the return of rainfall and mountain snow.
Western New Mexico is expected to experience showers and the potential for storms, while higher elevations in southwest Colorado, and parts of the northern mountains, will experience snowfall. The National Weather Service (NWS) will issue a Winter Weather Advisory in La Plata County and a portion of the San Juan Mountains from 3 pm today until 8 am on Monday. This will be primarily for gusty winds and the accumulating snowfall in higher elevations. This storm system will also bring breezy to windy conditions across the state today and primarily to the central mountain chain on Monday.
After tomorrow, another low-pressure system will move through on Thursday of this week. A surge of moisture will accompany that storm system and bring additional rainfall and mountain snow to the Land of Enchantment and southern Colorado. Moisture ahead of that system will also bring more rain chances across the region on Tuesday and Wednesday. High temperatures will also continue to drop through this week. Have a great Sunday!
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