Health

Extra Fees Drive Assisted Living Profits

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New Mexico In Depth occasionally publishes stories produced by other news organizations that we feel would benefit New Mexicans. This is part one of “Dying Broke” – a look by Kaiser Family Foundation Health News and the New York Times at the economic devastation families often face caring for their elderly members. Given New Mexico’s aging population, it is particularly timely. Assisted living centers have become an appealing retirement option for hundreds of thousands of boomers who can no longer live independently, promising a cheerful alternative to the institutional feel of a nursing home. But their cost is so crushingly high that most Americans can’t afford them.

Health

What to Know About Assisted Living

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New Mexico In Depth occasionally publishes stories produced by other news organizations that we feel would benefit New Mexicans. This is part one of “Dying Broke” – a look by Kaiser Family Foundation Health News and the New York Times at the economic devastation families often face caring for their elderly members. Given New Mexico’s aging population, it is particularly timely. Are you confused about what an assisted living facility is, and how it differs from a nursing home? And what you can expect to pay?

Health

Facing Financial Ruin as Costs Soar for Elder Care

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New Mexico In Depth occasionally publishes stories produced by other news organizations that we feel would benefit New Mexicans. This is part one of “Dying Broke” – a look by Kaiser Family Foundation Health News and the New York Times at the economic devastation families often face caring for their elderly members. Given New Mexico’s aging population, it is particularly timely. Margaret Newcomb, 69, a retired French teacher, is desperately trying to protect her retirement savings by caring for her 82-year-old husband, who has severe dementia, at home in Seattle. She used to fear his disease-induced paranoia, but now he’s so frail and confused that he wanders away with no idea of how to find his way home.

Health

Adult Children Discuss the Trials of Caring for Their Aging Parents

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New Mexico In Depth occasionally publishes stories produced by other news organizations that we feel would benefit New Mexicans. This is part one of “Dying Broke” – a look by Kaiser Family Foundation Health News and the New York Times at the economic devastation families often face caring for their elderly members. Given New Mexico’s aging population, it is particularly timely. “It is emotionally and physically draining.”

Natasha Lazartes with her mother, Carmen Torres, and husband, Jonathan Youngman, at her home in Brooklyn, New York. (Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times)

Natasha Lazartes

39, Brooklyn, New York Therapist

I am 39 years old.

Health

What Long-Term Care Looks Like Around the World

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New Mexico In Depth occasionally publishes stories produced by other news organizations that we feel would benefit New Mexicans. This is part one of “Dying Broke” – a look by Kaiser Family Foundation Health News and the New York Times at the economic devastation families often face caring for their elderly members. Given New Mexico’s aging population, it is particularly timely. Around the world, wealthy countries are struggling to afford long-term care for rapidly aging populations. Most spend more than the United States through government funding or insurance that individuals are legally required to obtain.

Environment

State loses millions in federal dollars meant for outdoor recreation projects

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New Mexico has forfeited more than $5 million in federal funding for outdoor recreation projects over the last three years because employees at New Mexico’s State Parks Division missed deadlines to distribute the money to projects around the state. 

The money is the state’s share of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a five decade-old federal program that funnels revenue largely from offshore oil and gas leases to outdoor recreation and land conservation efforts. The fund supports several programs, including one in which communities and tribes around the nation can apply for up to $250,000 each. Roadblocks to distributing the funds, state staff say, included lack of staffing, a maze of bureaucratic requirements, and simple missteps, like neglecting to update an email address online. Grant applications for those funds filed by New Mexico communities two years ago still await submission for federal approval. “Money is just flying out of our hands,” Rep. Kristina Ortez, D-Taos, said at a Water and Natural Resources Committee in November when state lawmakers were briefed on the lost funds.

Ethics

Talking ethics with New Mexico Ethics Commission director, Jeremy Farris

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State ethics officials grapple with a paradox in their daily work, said Jeremy Farris, executive director of the New Mexico State Ethics Commission. On the one hand, the heart of their work is designed to ensure the public knows that elected officials and government workers are held accountable in how they use the powers and resources entrusted to them.  Why? Because those powers and resources belong to the people, not individuals holding public positions. This is one of two “big ideas” that motivate the commission, Farris said. The commission does that work by enforcing state ethics laws through investigations and in some cases, suing people.

Indigenous Affairs

Controversial Indian Affairs secretary leaving agency

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This reporting was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Fund for Indigenous Journalists: Reporting on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two Spirit and Transgender People (MMIWG2T). After a tumultuous tenure as Indian Affairs Secretary-designate, James Mountain is departing the agency to join Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office as her senior policy advisor for tribal affairs, her spokeswoman announced Friday. Deputy Secretary Josett Monette will replace Mountain as Indian Affairs cabinet secretary. 

Mountain’s departure comes about 10 months after several members of a state task force on missing and murdered Indigenous people — housed in the Indian Affairs Department — denounced his appointment. Since then, the governor has steadfastly rebuffed demands from task force members and some state lawmakers to replace Mountain.It was unclear why Mountain departed and whose decision it was: Mountain’s or the governor’s. Cabinet secretaries serve at the pleasure of the governor.

Health

‘Everywhere you go is short staffed’: New Mexico nursing homes in crisis

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Falling Short: Rebuilding elderly care in rural America Rural nursing homes across the country, already understaffed, face significant new federal staffing requirements. With on-the-ground reporting from INN’s Rural News Network and data analysis assistance from USA TODAY and Big Local News at Stanford University, eight newsrooms, including New Mexico In Depth, explore what the rule change would look like for residents in communities across America. Support from The National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) Foundation made the project possible. New federal staffing standards meant to improve the care of millions of Americans in nursing homes could go into effect in as soon as two years. New Mexico’s nursing homes aren’t ready.

Indigenous Affairs

Searching for answers at Missing in New Mexico Day

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Darian Nevayaktewa went missing 15 years ago from northeastern Arizona. He was 19 and living in New Mexico with his mother, Lynette Pino. But it was during a summer visit to the Hopi reservation where his father lived that he disappeared after going to a gathering and never coming home. 

Pino hasn’t stopped looking for answers about what happened to her son. 

“We take it one day at a time and just pray that one of these days something will come out,” Pino said. 

Her search brought her from Tesuque Pueblo to Albuquerque on Sunday for the second annual Missing in New Mexico Day. Nearly 200 Native Americans are missing from the state and the Navajo Nation, according to an FBI list last updated in November. While geared toward people missing from New Mexico, Pino, who also attended last year, said the event provides face-to-face conversations with law enforcement and information about resources like search and rescue teams. After winter, she hopes to be able to organize another search for her son. 

Over the past decade and a half, she’s struggled to get the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which still lists her son’s case as open on its website, to communicate with her. 

From unanswered calls to dismissed concerns and victim blaming, dealing with law enforcement is one of the main obstacles in getting justice for missing or murdered relatives, Indigenous families say.