To the editor

Go beyond the headlines

Once again, Shawna Pfeiffer misses the mark by relying on sensationalized headlines rather than the actual contents of the Legislative Finance Committee report she cites.

The report clearly states that homelessness in New Mexico increased by 11 percent between 2009 and 2022 and then by 48 percent between 2022 and 2023. Those increases occurred before most of the state's major housing investments were awarded in 2025 and 2026. Many of the projects funded through those appropriations are still under construction, including developments in Las Cruces.

Declaring these investments a failure before they are even complete is premature and ignores the facts presented in the report.

The report also does not support the simplistic claim that New Mexico could have solved homelessness by building 5,000 tiny homes. Housing development is not a matter of dividing dollars by units and calling it a day. Housing investments fund land acquisition, infrastructure, rehabilitation, supportive services, rental assistance, homeownership programs, weatherization, eviction prevention, behavioral health partnerships, and housing for seniors, families, veterans, youth, and people exiting homelessness. The report specifically highlights these varied investments and outcomes.

Equally misleading is the repeated reference to a $350,000 per-unit housing cost as though it represents all affordable housing. Highlighting the highest-cost example while ignoring the full range of projects creates a distorted picture of how housing investments work. Had Ms. Pfeiffer contacted the city before publishing, she would have learned that Amador Crossing's development cost is approximately $278,454 per unit, not the $350,000 figure she repeatedly references.

Perhaps the most troubling part of the column is the false choice it creates between housing and treatment. No serious housing provider believes that simply handing someone keys will cure addiction, mental illness, or trauma. Housing is not the treatment; it is the platform that makes treatment possible.

Research and decades of experience have shown that people are far more likely to engage in recovery, maintain employment, attend medical appointments, and address behavioral health challenges when they have a safe and stable place to live. It is difficult to focus on sobriety while sleeping in a car, a shelter, or on the street.

The author also suggests that "rock bottom" is a necessary prerequisite for recovery. Yet the reality is that rock bottom too often means overdose, hospitalization, incarceration, victimization, or death. Public policy should focus on creating pathways to stability and recovery, not waiting for people to reach a crisis point.

Housing First is frequently misunderstood. It does not mean housing only. The most successful programs pair housing with case management, behavioral health services, substance use treatment, employment assistance, and accountability measures tailored to individual needs. The goal is not to lower expectations, but to create the conditions where people can realistically meet them.

Compassion and accountability are not opposites. Effective systems require both. But neither is achieved by denying housing to people until they prove they are worthy of it.

Reasonable people can debate housing policy. What we cannot do is ignore the facts contained in the very report being cited. The housing shortage facing both New Mexico and the United States was decades in the making and will not be solved overnight. Declaring recent investments a failure before many of the funded projects are even complete is not accountability; it is political theater.

Michael Chavez

Las Cruces

Not so sweet

I was very disappointed to read the article in the June 5, 2026 edition of The Bulletin. Headline said, "NMSU lab helps sweeten the deal for major ice cream producers." The headline should have read: "NMSU research helps fake ice cream become even more fake."

A quote from the article said, "...the dairy lab has partnered with ice cream company Blue Bunny to research how to improve ice cream quality by exploring formulations that prevent it from melting too quickly."

Fact: ice cream melts

Solution: eat ice cream before it melts

Most ice cream brands in the grocery stores are not even considered ice cream. To be considered ice cream it has to contain 10% milk-fat, which is a very low standard. Blue Bunny's label says it is a "frozen dairy dessert," not ice cream. Blue Bunny's ingredients for soft vanilla reads skim milk, cream, dextrose, whey, sugar, fructose, buttermilk, coconut oil, glycerin, milk, contains 2% or less of natural flavors, mono and diglycerides, cellulose, gum, carob bean gum, tara gum, carrageenan.

Yummy.

I stopped going to Dairy Queen because it is not considered ice cream. Their ingredients for their vanilla soft serve concoction are milkfat and nonfat milk, sugar, corn syrup, whey, mono and diglycerides, artificial flavor, guar gum, Polysorbate 80, carrageenan, vitamin A palmitate. 

One brand that I know of that is real ice cream is Haagen-Dazs. The ingredients for its vanilla ice cream are cream, skim milk, cane sugar, egg yolks, vanilla extract.

I wish the mad scientists at NMSU would just leave ice cream alone and go work on a cure for cancer.

Rita Montes