Santa Fe County Health Plan IDs LGBTQ Health Care Disparities, Affordable Housing as New Issues

Santa Fe County adopts five-year health plan

A new study indicates the inability to find affordable housing, along with health care disparities for LGBTQ youth, are two new health care challenges in Santa Fe County, along with ongoing struggles related to poverty, racial inequities and an aging population. Earlier this week, the Santa Fe County Board of Commissioners passed a five-year health action plan that acknowledges these issues and sets out strategies for addressing them. Some of the new initiatives outlined in the plan include developing a case management program and youth crisis services “to address youth mental health issues, with an emphasis specifically on services to young girls and LGBTQ youth.” The county also plans to increase services to seniors; expand public awareness information on climate change, with efforts to mitigate its impact on vulnerable residents; and work on policy and programs to decrease alcohol-related deaths. Santa Fe County Community Services Department developed the plan with members of the Health Policy and Planning Committee, according to a news release. The plan also prioritizes diversifying funding for the county’s La Sala and CONNECT programs. “From someone who has a lifetime spent accessing and navigating public health resources, I am proud to say this is an excellent comprehensive plan,” Commissioner Camilla Bustamante says in a statement. “It is a dynamic and leading plan for youth who are judicially involved at all points of our community. A neighbor of mine was having behavioral health issues emphasized that I must continue to support La Sala because the program works and continues to get people on their feet and be productive.”

Mexican wolf family returned to the wild

Two Mexican gray wolves who spent the winter in captivity in New Mexico’s Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge near Albuquerque have been returned to the wild in Arizona, prompting praise from conservation groups. The US Forest Service removed both wolves, named Llave (female) and her mate Wonder, from the wild last fall, intending them to pair in captivity, a news release from WildEarth Guardians recounts. Both were originally born in the Mexican Wolf Experimental Population Area; Llave ventured north of Interstate 10 several times last summer, but did not find her own mate. Both wolves were returned to Arizona earlier this week. “Restoring these wolves to the wild is definitely worth celebrating,” WildEarth Guardians Southwest Wildlife Advocate Chris Smith says in a statement. “The US Fish and Wildlife Service would do well to release more bonded family packs of endangered lobos into the Southwest to help ease the genetic crisis this species is facing.” WildEarth Guardians and other conservation groups have been highly critical of the agency’s actions as they related to Asha, another Mexican gray wolf, repeatedly captured and relocated in New Mexico last year by the federal agency. Regan Downey, director of education at the Wolf Conservation Center, called Llave and Wonder’s return to the wild this week “exhilarating” for the wolves and their supporters. “Llave was named by an impassioned youth advocate who hopes that one day all lobos will roam wild landscapes,” Downey says.”Let’s make her dreams come true.”

Mandela students push back at book censors

Fans of Haruki Murakami’s 1987 novel Norwegian Wood will appreciate Mandela International Magnet School’s students’ loyalty to the book and their right to read it. The students defended the novel to SFR following criticisms of it brought to a recent Santa Fe Public School Board of Education meeting earlier this month. “I thought it was really well-written, and the character development throughout the book was pretty significant,” Senior Gigi Grogan tells SFR. “I just thought the themes Murakami writes about were just so rich and important to literature.” The story, told from the perspective of 37-year-old Toru Watanabe, delves into his earlier years at college, including his best friend’s death by suicide. A group of residents, led by failed school board candidate Patricia Vigil-Stockton, cited the suicide in the novel among their concerns. “Maybe this book would be acceptable in a college philosophical study, but for a 16-year-old…think about it. Their minds are forming, their hormones are raging. What are we presenting to our children?” Vigil-Stockton asked the board. The students at Mandela who read Norwegian Wood, however, object to characterizing the book as harmful, and all five students SFR interviewed say their teacher gave content warnings for explicit scenes and did not require anyone to read them. “Honestly, if a kid was just so uncomfortable with reading it, all the teachers here, I can guarantee you, would give you an alternate book or assignment, because there is no intention with any of the teachers to make a kid so uncomfortable,” Grogan says.

SNAP recipients struggle with program

Close to a quarter of New Mexico residents are enrolled in the state’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides access to food benefits for low-income and otherwise qualifying people. In recent months, several program recipients tell SFR they are encountering delays and other bureaucratic problems when they try to access those benefits. One mother and SNAP recipient, who asked to remain anonymous, says her last call to the state’s Human Services Department to try to straighten out her benefits lasted nearly four hours. “I was in tears,” she says. “It took me a really long time to just swallow my pride and do the [Electronic Benefits Transfer system used for SNAP benefits]. It’s mortifying as it is and you feel kind of like a lowlife,” she says. “You feel like you’re not worth having someone call you back because you’re such a degenerate. It’s like, ‘Why are you even asking for help?’” HSD spokeswoman Marina Piña tells SFR the increase in individuals experiencing issues and delays with SNAP benefit renewals can be explained by the April 2023 end of COVID-related federal policies that allowed for automatic renewals and led to “a higher volume of applications and renewals than usual.” According to data provided by HSD, New Mexicans have waited roughly two hours and 15 minutes on average to speak to a case manager to do just that since October 2023. “We are definitely working to close that gap,” Piña says of the numbers.

Listen up

Travel magazine AFAR’s Unpacked podcast delves into the issue of engaging respectfully with Indigenous tourism in a segment that includes Monique Fragua, COO of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque. Fragua first describes her jewelry, noting that she vowed in 2003 to only wear Native American art. She also discusses New Mexico’s pueblos, as well as the cultural center itself, which she characterizes as “kind of the gateway to the pueblos. You can buy really cool Native-made art and jewelry in the gift shop and eat blue corn and gelatos and bison cabbage stew in the Indian Pueblo Kitchen. Plus it’s the best place to prep for a trip to one of the pueblos.”

Fashionable recs

Condé Nast magazine’s “Ask a Local” series returns to Santa Fe, where Indigenous designer Orlando Dugi (Diné) shares his tips for art, culture and cocktails. Dugi, an Arizona native, has lived here since 2010. “All the tribal, colonial, and Spanish history—it’s all here,” he tells Condé Nast. “It’s very small, but it’s also pretty international.” Dugi will be presenting some of his men’s and women’s wear at Santa Fe Native Fashion Week (May 2-5), and offers some tips from his adopted city. They include a visit to the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, both for its collection and to shop at the Case Trading Post, which Dugi says offers a range of options from affordable to high-end. He also endorses The Owings Gallery, where Diné designer Yazzie Johnson collaborates with Pueblo designer Gail Bird. “I’m drawn to work like theirs: based on traditional and Indigenous forms but not what most people expect,” he says. Dugi provides other cultural recommendations, but also shares his favorite spot for lunch and a margarita: Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi, at least in the summer, where one can sit on the patio and watch the world go by, with a seasonal menu and a Silver Coin margarita. Speaking of Native Fashion Week, SFR sits down for a talk with organizer Amber-Dawn Bear Robe (Siksika Nation) about what to expect and Bear Robe’s vision of Santa Fe becoming a “place where the fashion industry comes globally, where the global fashion industry comes to work and see Indigenous fashion from brands and models; fashion arts; accessory makers; couture designers; ready-to-wear, whatever it may be.”

Human stories

“I met Aaron Garcia one day outside an Allsup’s gas station and convenience store near my home in Santa Fe. I would hang out at this particular Allsup’s for hours at a time, multiple days a week, and introduce myself to all the people that came by.” So begins Andrés Mario de Varona’s photo essay for NPR: “Photos of a 3-year friendship that ended with an unsolved murder in New Mexico.” De Varona, a Cuban-American from Miami, had moved to Santa Fe during the COVID-19 pandemic, he writes, and begun hanging out at the Allsup’s near his home, for hours a day, multiple days a week, introducing himself to people: “With no friends, no community and no job, I saw it as a way for me to meet people that lived around me, while also being an exercise in being vulnerable,” he explains. “Little by little, I became known as the gas station photographer, but it was Aaron who really invited me to become part of this community. There was an instant connection between us, and before I knew it, we were talking about rocks and feathers, jewelry, ashes, and how intense New Mexico can be.” The two men embark on a friendship, despite their differences: de Varona, a 23-year-old Cuban American and Garcia, a 48-year-old Native American from Santo Domingo Pueblo who chose to live outside in a campsite. De Varona’s photographs and words capture that friendship, and the loss De Varona experienced over Garcia’s unsolved death in that campsite. He never thought of his friend as someone who was homeless, but noted how often Garcia was dismissed by others. “Now, even in his death, I still found him being disregarded, or looked upon as an afterthought, as someone who wasn’t important. But the truth of the matter is that Aaron was a special beacon of support.”

Hot and windy

The National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning today in Eastern New Mexico and the Upper Rio Grande Valley, starting in the late morning, due to high winds, low humidity and unstable atmospheric conditions. Santa Fe, specifically, will have a high temperature in the mid-70s, with southwest winds 15 to 20 mph.

Thanks for reading! The Word supports pastry hybrids.