Sounds like you live in a nice little town. Alot of people enjoy small towns because of the relative security and the advantages of living in a smaller community. Unfortunately, that does not describe the town in which my family and I live.

Abject poverty is what rules in this town. Many children here are living in delapidated motels and eating what is estimated one good meal a day during the week (through the schools). The average annual income for most of the area ranges between $16,000-33,000. Unemployment is simply staggering. Recently, an Applebee's was built (the first of its kind of restaurant here) and they received over 2200 applications. There is a government run "backpack" program here that involves sending children home with backpacks filled with food to supplement what meager meals they receive at home. This program is only for the children in danger of malnourishment. The government provided 75 backpacks for one school which had over 225 children in need of this kind of assistance. Imagine telling a child that they can't have any food this week because it's not their turn for the backpack...

Vagrants are a common sight as well here because the town is sliced in half by a railroad. I live several blocks from the railroad tracks and we get the occasional vagrant wandering up our street, which is called one of the nicer, quieter streets in the area. About a year ago, one of the owners of a franchise here was stabbed several times for asking a vagrant to leave the premises. Just last week, we had to phone the police because one of them was urinating on our home. No kidding. Alcoholism is a definite problem as well. Sometimes you can't sit down to have dinner without having a drunk come to your table and ask for money.

Many of the homes in the area are fairly run down. Average home values for the area range between $22,000 to 82,000. It's not uncommon that front yards are used for additional driveway and garage space. The utility services are quite bad. The tap water often comes out brown and drinking it is not really encouraged. This last winter, several gas mains broke within town so it's quite lucky that it didn't blow up. The streets are bad and the sidewalks are deteriorating. In some sections of town, starving wild dogs are an issue. I was charged by one while I was getting my two children into our car in a grocery store parking lot. My leg was nearly bitten.

I wish I could say that we didn't have crime problems but we do. Heck, the disregard for personal property is so bad that people regularly use our backyard as a thoroughfare in the middle of the night. We had a dog once to deter this but she was stolen. Violent crime is a definite problem, both domestic and non.

Even animals have it extraordinarily rough out here. We adopted a kitten just a few months ago and she died within 24 hours from panleukemia. Apparently, it swept through and killed about every kitten at the Humane Society. We've lost 4 pets within the last year, total. That's not that uncommon for the area.

The area is really quite bleak. The mayor is trying to improve it by bringing in new businesses to help provide more jobs but it's a very slow process. I've often thought about taking pictures of the town and some of the "homes" that people actually live in because I think that many would be shocked that such a town would exist in the US. Not all of the towns in New Mexico are like this. Santa Fe, I hear, is really quite lovely. My husband is working out here in order to help improve the area. We previously were living on the Navajo Reservation itself in its capital, Window Rock. That area has definite problems as well but I would say that, overall, it's a rather nice town. Very friendly.

Stephanie








In every man there is something wherein I may learn of him, and in that I am his pupil.--Ralph Waldo Emerson