OPINION

Mail letters to PO Box 4910, Santa Fe, NM 87502; or email them to editor@sfreporter. com. Letters (no more than 200 words) should refer to specific articles in the Reporter. Letters will be edited for space and clarity.

HOLLY WILDER

NEWS, AUG. 24:

“HOUSING IN THE BALANCE”

CONFLATED COMPLAINTS

I applaud SFR for taking seriously the concerns of some residents at Siler Yard. It requires bravery to speak out and our community relies on SFR to shed light upon credible issues. Unfortunately, I feel this reporting has only cast shadows. Not only are several allegations allowed a presumption of truth without substantiation, but the article conflates the complaints of two individuals with the sentiment of “the residents” of 65 units.

I count on SFR for diligent reporting and judicious editing. Even more, I expect greater community context and deeper comprehension than the dailies. Yet coverage of Siler Yard has countenanced continued misperceptions about how nonprofit development and affordable housing actually works and failed to enumerate the significant challenges in its creation. When the nonprofit housing developer explains how lessons from Siler Yard can be carried to Midtown, it’s not taken as an opportunity for context, but to tee up a pointlessly snide and wildly false final comment that serves no journalistic purpose. I look forward to more well-considered and deliberative coverage in the future. And maybe a feature on our cringey local cultural predilection for belittling people who actually put themselves on the line to get stuff done. ZANE FISCHER SANTA FE Editor’s note: Fischer is a former SFR staffer. The referenced story quoted three Siler Yard residents, not two.

PACKING MY BOXES

Earlier this week, the Reporter printed an article about various issues at Siler Yard, the affordable housing complex for artists; the main issue being the extreme noise that first floor tenants experience from the floors above.

I am in awe of my fellow first floor tenants for their articulate advocacy, as this noise is truly outrageous and it is virtually impossible to live with it. Many tenants have disabilities, as well. Unfortunately, tenants and management have not been able to work together to solve this problem.

Tenants feel unheard and management seems to feel blamed. When people feel unheard, they have to get louder; when blamed, people start to scapegoat. It is very sad. Siler Yard’s vision is a wonderful one. When I moved in here, as a poet and a writer, I was so excited and grateful. I was fully behind this. Now, six months later, I am packing boxes because I need to move out.

I have a neurological disability, and in the six months that I have lived here, my recovery has reversed tremendously. I spent the past weekend in the ER with an IV in my arm, trying to reduce the pain and pressure in my head. The weekend before I spent in urgent care. The noise in my apartment from above is like nothing I have ever experienced before. And I have lived in multistory apartments in inner city Philadelphia. There is crashing and running and banging and screaming for hours and hours at a time. I am certain the ceiling is going to fall in. It is like a herd of bison live above me. My head feels like it is going to explode. My 76-pound German shepherd (a service dog) hides under the bed. My doctor has said I must move out, if nothing is going to change.

Management keeps saying the buildings “meet code.” And well they might; and it is not enough. People are suffering here. We need to stop speaking in “code” and speak in solutions. We need to come together as Siler Yard community—management and tenants—and fix this. There are many bright, creative people here. We have to stop blaming and scapegoating and create our home so we can all live here. The vision is a wonderful one. A lot of hard, hard work went into building it. Let’s make it finally happen. MARIE TURCO SANTA FE

ALARM BELL MOMENT

We are currently facing the most acute housing crisis in our community’s modern history. In the last two years, 6% of Santa Fe’s population, mostly lower income families, left or were displaced. This is an alarm bell moment.

Since the ‘90s, our community has deployed some of the most innovative housing interventions anywhere, but we now find ourselves fighting against exponential challenges with outmatched tools.

In the last decade, we also seem to have lost the appetite to do “big things,” and Siler Yard is a product of that bygone era when we dreamed big and backed it up with action. Perhaps last week’s article, “Housing in the Balance,” is on some level a reaction to that unique vestigial status.