{"id":45781,"date":"2024-09-27T15:27:09","date_gmt":"2024-09-27T22:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/?p=45781"},"modified":"2024-09-27T15:27:13","modified_gmt":"2024-09-27T22:27:13","slug":"food-and-housing-insecurity-at-nm-colleges-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/food-and-housing-insecurity-at-nm-colleges-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Food and Housing Insecurity at NM Colleges"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Subscribe to NMiF Enews<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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This week on New Mexico in Focus, we get some context on a recent study with some pretty staggering statistics. According to the University of New Mexico\u2019s Basic Needs Project<\/a>, more than half of college students in our state struggle to find enough food to eat or a consistent place to sleep every night. To put that into perspective, the national average for food insecurity among college students is less than one in four. Less\u00a0than 10% of students nationwide have experienced homelessness. That number jumps to 14% in New Mexico.\u00a0

Why are we so far behind the rest of the country? I asked that question to Patricia Trujillo, deputy secretary of the state\u2019s Higher Education Department. She told me we shouldn\u2019t look at it quite like that.
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\u201cI guess I would reframe the concept of being behind,\u201d Trujillo said. \u201cWhat I would say is we have different social contexts. Students in New Mexico are coming from communities where there are different social determinants of health. So, they might be coming from a high-poverty context to a university or a campus and may not have all of the scaffolds and supports…for instance, some of our rural students coming to our urban areas might not have the same supports.\u201d\u00a0

During the rest of our conversation, Trujillo and UNM Basic Needs Project Founder Sarita Cargas further explained the barriers facing college students in New Mexico in particular, while discussing some of the many efforts to keep students afloat.\u00a0

Below, you can watch and read more about that interview and the two others from this week\u2019s show. I\u2019d especially encourage you to watch Our Land Senior Producer Laura Paskus\u2019 discussion with two people who\u2019ve lived in the Navajo Nation\u2019s Red Water Pond Road Community for generations. It\u2019s a follow-up to a conversation Laura had in June<\/a>\u00a0with a group of students upset over federal plans to move toxic uranium waste from Red Water Pond Road to their town, Thoreau, which is 80% Navajo itself. (Though it does not sit on tribal land.) As Laura\u2019s guests this week explained, they want Navajo Nation to find a solution that doesn\u2019t pit Din\u00e9 communities against one another.\u00a0 \u00a0

We hope you enjoy this week\u2019s episode.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Lou DiVizio, Senior Producer\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n