Daily Lobo 9/21/2020

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Over a third of UNM students food insecure, even more lack stable housing By Annya Loya @annyaloyadl

In April — just one month into the COVID-19 stay-at-home order — 32% of UNM students reported experiencing food insecurity and almost 42% were unsure about their housing, according to a recent study conducted by the University of New Mexico’s Basic Needs Team. The team — comprised of researchers from a variety of departments and offices on campus — examined the rates of food and housing insecurity and how they are patterned across different demographic groups at UNM. New Mexico households have the highest rate (16.8%) of food insecurity across the country, according to the study. This means that as of 2017, one in six individuals and one in four children in New Mexico were living in homes “without consistent access to adequate food for everyone to live healthy, active lives,” according to the New Mexico Department of Health’s Indicator-Based Informa-

tion System (NM-IBIS). Poverty and income are the primary factors in food and housing insecurity, according to the study’s co-principal investigator Dr. Marygold Walsh-Dilley, and New Mexico has higher rates of poverty and lower incomes on average compared to the rest of the country. The researchers wanted to know “to what extent there is food and housing insecurity among UNM’s students and who is affected most by the insecurity,” Walsh-Dilley said. Noah Dowling-Lujan, a UNM student who has experienced homelessness, said that the UNM administration’s lack of action is the reason why many students aren’t aware of this issue. “It’s very normal to not be aware about what’s going on. I think that’s intentional. They don’t want to advertise these issues — UNM especially,” Dowling-Lujan said. “They always try to minimize every issue the school has ever had because they’re all about marketing and not about flourishing or social wellbeing.” The study also looked at the stigma and shame that often accompany

food and housing insecurity. According to Walsh-Dilley, if students were to be asked if they’d been homeless in the past 12 months, they’d likely be unwilling to answer “yes” because of the prevailing stigma surrounding homelessness. “A lot of students have a lot of notions about homeless people that are very wrong, and they are just fundamentally misunderstanding the issue,” Dowling-Lujan said. Dr. Sarita Cargas, the principal investigator for the study, said that it’s important for students to know that food and housing insecurity are systemic issues, not personal failings. “There’s harder things to fix like systemic inequality,” Cargas said. “We need students to know this is not their fault. These are system society problems. All of us should have a hand in addressing it. We need to treat it like a systemic issue and not something to be embarrassed about.” The housing insecurity survey included questions like: Did you have a rent increase? Was there an occasion where you didn’t pay the full amount of your housing utilities? Did you live with others beyond the

UNM professor, students celebrate women’s suffrage centennial with art exhibit By Megan Gleason @fabflutist2716 The centennial anniversary of women’s suffrage is upon us in 2020, and “A Yellow Rose Project” celebrates the victories and acknowledges the losses of the historic passage of the 19th

Amendment through an online photography exhibit. University of New Mexico Honors College associate professor Megan Jacobs was one artist chosen among over a hundred other women to contribute to the project, collaborating with UNM students Hyunju Blemel, Sydney Nesbit, Sierra Venegas and Tilcara Webb. A portion

of the exhibit is available to view in person at the Spectra Gallery at the Honors College. Meg Griffiths, co-founder of the project, said it was created “in response to a project that women started 100 years ago, which was working on getting the right to

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Yellow Rose page 2

John Scott / Daily Lobo / @DailyLobo

These photographs, on display in the Spectra Gallery at the UNM Honors College, celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the signing of the 19th amendment.

Matthew Dungo / Daily Lobo / @DailyLobo

Boxes of food, including pasta and canned goods, for the Roadrunner Food Bank Mobile Food Pantry.

expected capacity of the house? Did you leave your household because you felt unsafe? According to the study, LGBTQ students (mostly transgender and genderfluid students) are especially vulnerable to the insecurities outlined in those questions, and those insecurities can detrimentally affect their education. “We know that certain demographic groups are less likely to be academically successful and are more likely to drop out, and we think basic needs food and housing insecurity is part of the story,” Walsh-Dilley said. “If we could address food and housing insecurity,

then maybe we can contribute to making educational access more equitable across these different groups.” The researchers found that food insecure students had a lower GPA with an average of 3.46 compared to food secure students who had an average GPA of 3.65. This data suggests that basic needs insecurity negatively impacts students’ educational outcomes and may affect their ability to get through college successfully. “It’s not really fair for students to be contending with housing or food insecurity when they’re also trying to

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Food page 2

Contact tracers work to slow the spread of COVID-19 By Nikita Jaiswal @DailyLobo A University of New Mexico student received a phone call from the New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) late one Wednesday evening. The department was calling to tell her she had tested positive for COVID-19. “I was so shocked when I found out,” she said, “but talking to the contact tracer eased my worries.” Contact tracers play an important role in combating the coronavirus. When a person tests positive for the virus, contact tracers call and inform them of their test result, which begins the case investigation. They ask whether the person is presenting COVID-19 symptoms, how severe they are and how long they’ve been present. Contact tracers also find out where that person has been and who they’ve recently been in contact with, and inform those contacts that they may have been exposed to the virus. They then inquire about the contacts’

health and provide the opportunity for them to be tested. By informing people of their potential exposure and encouraging them to quarantine, contact tracers help slow COVID-19 transmission. From the beginning of the pandemic, New Mexico has displayed one of the highest testing rates per capita in the country. Since Sept. 1, the state has reported nearly 100,000 test results, including just over 2,000 new confirmed cases. Contact tracers in the state aim to reach out to individuals who test positive within 36 hours of receiving their test result. This large operation requires hundreds of contact tracers who make calls around the clock. NMDOH spokesperson David Morgan said that there are approximately 270 full-time contact tracers, which doesn’t meet the estimated need for the population of New Mexico, according to an NPR report. When the state’s COVID-19 case growth peaked in late July, understaffed workers were constantly

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COVID-19 page 2


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