Poverty
A label that hurts
If you live in one of three ZIP codes in Rio Rancho, expect for it to be harder to sell your house. The three ZIP codes have been hit with an unwanted designation: declining market, which means higher interest rates and loan fees for buyers. And if it's happening in Rio Rancho, Albuquerque may be next, one realtor said.
A simple click for hunger
I've come to take it for granted, because I visit every time I get on the Internet. But today, I paused a second, struck by the fact that an Internet phenomena called The Hunger Site is celebrating nine years of existence.
Hunger is literally all around us -- especially in New Mexico, which, as Roadrunner Food Bank reports, has the second-highest percentage of hungry people in the nation (16.7 percent). It can be overwhelming and make one feel inadequate as far as being able to help.
ABQ helps Unser Crossing with money for roads and other improvements
The Albuquerque City Council voted unanimously last night in favor of a compromise plan to incentivize the Unser Crossing shopping center at the intersection of West Central and Unser. Councilor Ken Sanchez had previously proposed extending the West Central Metropolitan Redevelopment Area (MRA) to the intersection. This would have allowed the developer the benefits of an MRA designation, including the elimination of impact fees on new development as well as access to other public subsidies.
As previously described by the Independent, there is extensive support by area residents for the project, which was voiced at a City Council meeting in April. But a number of councilors objected to the extension, saying that MRA’s are intended for blighted areas and that extending this particular MRA would set a poor precedent since the area in question is not blighted. Instead, it’s located in an undeveloped area on the edge of the current West Central MRA. The compromise plan provides $1.8 million in public funds for infrastructure improvements at the site and on surrounding roads.
Affordable housing in NM hard to find
The average wage of New Mexico’s renters is increasingly lagging behind the “housing wage,” according to a new report. At the same time, other reports give the state poor marks on housing affordability.
Citing two recent reports, the New Mexico Business Weekly reported last Friday that:
According to “Out of Reach 2007-2008,” a report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the “housing wage” for New Mexico is $12.66—the hourly rate a family must earn, working 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year, to afford a two-bedroom home. That is a 23 percent increase since 2000. The average renter in the state earns $10.86 an hour, a gap of $1.80.
The other report, the “2008 Colorado College State of the Rockies Report Card,” gave a grade of “D” to two-thirds of New Mexico counties for the affordability of their housing. Housing that demands more than 30 percent of a family’s income is considered unaffordable.
The article also cites a 2007 state housing report that “identified a deficit of 30,000 affordable units in New Mexico” and noted that about a third of Albuquerque’s residents are renters.
An inconvenient crisis
Quite a buzz is being generated about a new movie Reuters says "may be to the U.S. economy what 'An Inconvenient Truth' was to the environment."
"I.O.U.S.A.: Live with Warren Buffett, Pete Peterson & Dave Walker" can accurately be described as a "movie event" because it's only airing one night across the nation and at only one theater in New Mexico: Aug. 21 at the Cottonwood 16 in Albuquerque.
Anti-poverty group rates Congress
The Shriver National Center on Poverty Law rated members of Congress on how they voted on what it considered the most significant anti-poverty legislation in 2007. Democrats U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman and U.S. Rep. Tom Udall topped the list by taking the most anti-poverty votes. Republican U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson came in third, taking anti-poverty votes in nine of 15 pieces of legislation, the center said.
Behind the Food Crisis: Free Trade?
ALBUQUERQUE – A policy brief recently released by the Oakland Institute, a California-based progressive think tank, claims that increased free trade has contributed to the food crisis. In answer to the question “Who stands to gain from high food prices?”, Institute founder Anuradha Mittal answers: In fact, it is traders and middlemen who stand to gain most. Speculation in world commodities is driving prices upward, from global futures commodity trading to traders and hoarders in West Africa, Thailand, and the Philippines.
Boxing for hunger: What, no fists?
Bare chests and silk boxers are unlikely to make an appearance at this boxing match, as local corporate teams compete Thursday in Roadrunner Food Bank's annual Boxing Olympics.
Chances are, however, the gloves will be on -- to prevent chafing.
This is boxing of a different sort -- a hands-on competition to see who's the fastest at filling food boxes for low-income seniors. The competition lasts 10 minutes. The results help needy seniors all year.
Cradles of hope, with love to Africa
Desert Rock fuels debate over just how clean coal should be
The proposed Desert Rock power plant in New Mexico’s Four Corners region might possibly be the “cleanest” coal-fired power plant built to date in the U.S. But is that good enough?
Domestic violence laws get tougher, with hopes that abuse drops
New Mexico's domestic violence laws just got a little stronger, with several new laws going into effect July 1st that address prevention, protection of victims, and in one case the provision of increased penalties for offenders.
The package would allow public domestic violence treatment funds to pay for the treatment of batterers statewide, as an enhancement of prevention efforts.
Drive to end hunger
A sobering fact to come out of a recent report is that there is one grocery store for every few hundred square miles in New Mexico. In fact, many rural communities in the Land of Enchantment don't have a grocery. That's why the Roadrunner Food Bank is launching the state's first ever Mobile Food Pantry next month. The pantry aims to provide nutritious food to New Mexicans in need. It's modeled after a similar program in Michigan. Organizers say that the souring cost of gas is yet another factor hurting already poor, rural families with long drives to the nearest grocery store.
Fear and hoarding at the supermarket
The rising cost of rice has been in the news a lot lately, and in the U.S. several retail stores have put limits on the amount of rice customers can buy, leading to headlines about food rationing. So what’s really going on? Prices are high for many reasons (scroll down), but shoppers appear to be reacting to a lot of media hype about high prices by buying and hoarding rice before the prices go higher—thereby increasing both demand and hype.
Food bank to receive 15 tons of meat
Tyson Foods, which calls itself the world's largest producer of pork, chicken and beef products, is scheduled to donate 15 tons of food to the Roadrunner Food Bank in Albuquerque today.
In a partnership among Tyson Foods, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and America's Second Harvest, of which Roadrunner is a network member, Tyson will donate more than 15 tons of "much-needed protein" to the food bank as part of its 1-million-pound, three-year commitment to fight hunger together, Roadrunner said in a news release.
Food on the go
A semi-trailer truck labeled "Mobile Food Pantry" rolled out of the Roadrunner Food Bank Wednesday to deliver fresh produce and staples to its first delivery stop: the off-the-grid community of Pajarito Mesa on the city's far West Side -- "opening a world of possibility in reaching hungry people," in the words of the food bank's director.
Food stamps near historic high
Thousands could qualify for food stamps but they don't know it because they think they earn too much money, the state says. While nearly 95,000 New Mexico families receive food stamps, the state Human Service Department estimates that another 90,000 probably could qualify.
Gas prices hit rural areas hardest
The New York Times has some interesting maps this morning illustrating where the price of gasoline is highest, how income is distributed, and how much of that income is spent on gas.
The Times attributes the difference among the states to state gasoline taxes. When it comes to gas prices, New Mexico isn't doing as bad as we think we are, with gasoline still below $4 a gallon around the state. And according to this local map, thats still true in Albuquerque. But gasoline prices aren't the whole story. There's a big difference between urban and rural areas when it comes to the impact of high gasoline.
Regarding income, the Times map doesn't tell us anything we don't already know: New Mexico is poor. That combined with the rural nature of our state is causing a lot of pain at the pump. Remember the campaign that Denise Tessier wrote about a few weeks back, in which she described the problem lower-income rural New Mexicans were having just getting to the grocery store? According to the Times, "The counties where motorists spend the highest percentage of their income on gasoline tend to be in poor, rural areas."
Get off the dime
An editorial in Saturday's New York Times offers a concise explanation of the stranglehold seven senators now have on a bill that, if allowed to go to a vote, would reauthorize funding to fight three of the world's deadliest diseases of poverty -- AIDS, malaria and TB.
The bill, which has already passed the House by a 3-to-1 margin, is expected to similarly sail through the Senate and is supported by President Bush. But the seven are holding it a procedural hostage, saying they won't allow it to go to the floor unless it's rewritten to specify that a certain percentage go to treatment of AIDS vs. how much will go toward prevention.
This has become a classic syndrome in health care funding: the competition between prevention, care and treatment and finding a cure. New Mexico tries to deal with the competition for scarce funding with the Behavioral Health Collaborative.
GOP: Don't register with ACORN
The state Republican Party is cautioning against registering to vote with workers employed by ACORN.
“Voters who would like to register to vote would be better served by contacting their county or state Republican or Democratic parties or their county clerk,” Adam Feldman, the state GOP executive director, said in a news release.
The GOP joins the Doña Ana County Bureau of Elections in expressing concern about the nonprofit group, which has had two problems in the county in recent weeks. Earlier this month, the county warned that it had received complaints about misleading voter-registration activities by ACORN employees, a charge ACORN denied. And about a week ago, 90 completed voter-registration applications were stolen from ACORN’s Las Cruces office.
How we're losing $100 million
Data collected by the University of New Mexico's Bureau of Business and Economic Research suggests that the state is headed for yet another decennial census undercount. Meanwhile, funding decisions for many federal programs, like Medicaid, are determined by Census Bureau population estimates.