Good on paper

Los Alamos is one of “the healthiest counties,” but is everyone thriving?

Aug 14, 2024

Story by Stephanie Nakhleh

Photograph by Minesh Bacrania

Los Alamos County has been knocked off the top of the podium but can still bask in its silver medal this week as the “second-healthiest county in the nation” ranking, per the US News & World Report. For many in the county, this designation rings true. With a rich history, highly-educated workforce, wealth, and many miles of beautiful trails on which fit residents run and bike, it looks the part. However, as we explore factors that pop us to the top of the rankings, it’s important to consider the broader context of the region and what “health” really means.

Figure 1. US News & World Report ranking details.

Housing and affordability: A closer look

Of all the metrics Los Alamos did well on, housing was at the top of the list with a perfect 100% score. With less than 12% of its households considered “cost burdened” compared to the national average of 23%, it’s clear that many residents are thriving.

These data merit a closer look. The final draft of the 2024 Affordable Housing Plan presented to the Los Alamos County Council on June 25 shows that while homeowners may be doing well, 24% of renters are cost-burdened, which means they spend more than a third of their income on housing. Moreover, because many people who work in Los Alamos can’t afford to live here, the housing statistics exclude all but the highest wage earners and those lucky enough to get comfortably situated here before housing costs spiked in 2021 with the LANL hiring spree.

Figure 2. Screenshot from Zillow’s value history of a random house in Los Alamos, showing a 2021 spike associated with increased LANL hiring. Virtually all houses in Los Alamos show this same spike at the same time.

The county’s impressive median household income of $135,000 and low poverty rate of 3.7% are more reasons why we look so good on paper. But it raises a key question: Is the community helping lift people out of poverty, or are low-income families unable to live here at all?

With a high demand for housing and a stagnant supply, many people who want to live in Los Alamos can’t afford to live here. This is not just an unfortunate byproduct of economic forces but a result of policy choices that have shaped the town’s development. Land-use policies in Los Alamos (and across the country) have effectively banned affordable housing options like apartments and townhomes on most residential land. The majority of our limited land available for housing has been set aside for the most expensive type of housing — the single family home.

This land-use policy is a deliberate decision, not an accident. And it skews the demographics of the town, influencing the metrics used by USN&WR. If a hundred people enter a tall tower with the task of climbing to the highest floor, and only 3 people make it to the top, then the “population” of that highest floor looks healthy indeed. Everyone who is left on the lower floors remains uncounted and invisible. The same goes for Los Alamos: many people necessary for the town’s economy just can’t afford to live here, even though they would like to. They are excluded.

Figure 3. Need for housing units in Los Alamos County. Source: Los Alamos County’s 2024 Affordable Housing Plan - final review draft.

The nature of exclusivity

Consider the analogy of a private school that only admits students who have passed a strict entrance exam and have parents who can afford the steep tuition. The school boasts that it has higher test scores than the regional public schools — which are required to take all kids. Is that private school actually doing a better job educating its students? Or has it just done a better job excluding everyone who might bring down the test scores?

It doesn’t have to be one or the other — it could be a mix. But there is no doubt that the private school’s exclusivity is influencing the test statistics. Los Alamos is a lot like an exclusive private school in a very poor region. The town’s small supply of dedicated affordable housing is similar to an elite school ensuring 3.7% of its students get scholarships. You get what you design for, and no more.

With a median rent of $2,500 per month — “affordable” only to households making 120% of the area median income (AMI) — and home prices exceeding half a million dollars, it’s worth asking whether Los Alamos is creating opportunities for everyone who wishes to call the Pajarito Plateau home. County employees, teachers, healthcare workers, veterinary technicians, service industry workers, and firefighters all make vital contributions to the town’s success. Yet many are left out of the data that contribute to the “healthiest county” rankings because they are simply priced out of the community. The County’s own Affordable Housing Plan states that a significant number of workers “essential to the community, economy, culture, and quality of life” cannot live where they work, because they “earn wages that are too low to afford housing at Los Alamos market prices.” The metrics that celebrate Los Alamos’s health and prosperity often fail to reflect the realities of those who are excluded.

Figure 4. Wage disparity by industry. Source: Los Alamos County’s 2024 Affordable Housing Plan - final review draft.

Struggling in the shadows

Despite the increasing financial burden, some less-well-off residents have managed to stay in the county, but only barely. Over the nine months that Boomtown has been delving into the “stories of a changing Los Alamos,” we’ve heard many tales of people who struggle to hang on to housing, struggle to keep their lights on, struggle to feed their families, and even struggle to stay alive. In our latest piece, young people and parents tell us about seeking treatment for substance-use disorder for themselves or their kids — and being unable to find any treatment options in this “healthiest town.”

We’ve heard “there are not enough resources in Los Alamos” from virtually everyone we’ve interviewed, from county social services to police to schools to families. This is true whether we are reporting on housing insecurity, food insecurity, health care, therapy, or addiction.

We’ve heard stories of domestic violence victims forced to live with their abuser because they can’t afford rent alone. Of elderly, disabled folks unable to pay their electricity bill. Of food assistance boxes being picked up faster than anyone can remember. Of people living in cars because the cheapest housing is still too expensive. Of twenty-somethings working minimum wage jobs who are so depressed they play roulette with fentanyl — fully aware of the risks. We hear of 7th graders at cocaine-fueled parties with 27-year-old men who are there trawling for minors. To borrow from one officer we interviewed: Is it worse than other towns? Probably not. But are these the stories you imagine when you hear “healthiest county?” Also probably not.

Delving into numbers

While there is much to celebrate in the metrics behind the USN&WR rankings, there are a few concerning numbers to pull out.

The “Gini Index Score” (measuring income equity) of 0.39 against a national average of 0.45 is read by USN&WR as a good thing, because inside the county you have more “income equity” than you’d see in, say, Albuquerque. But this may simply be because everyone poor has been filtered out. The same thing can be said for race and neighborhood disparity. Is Los Alamos doing better than others because of carefully designed, equitable policies that help people succeed — or because of inequitable policies that lock people out?

Figure 5. National, state, and local comparison of income equity in US News & World Report ranking details.

Opportunity score references business growth and job diversity in the USN&WR rankings. This, too, is concerning, though it won’t be surprising to anyone who has observed the number of vacant buildings downtown. The business growth rate below the national average indicates limited economic diversification and accessibility for non-LANL employees, impacting local entrepreneurs and non-scientific professions.

Figure 6. National, state, and local comparison of “opportunity” in US News & World Report ranking details.

Vacant housing: At first glance, it seems like having fewer vacant houses than the national average might be a good thing. We associate vacant housing with a depressed, dilapidated area. Los Alamos, in contrast, is a high-income, high-demand city. That does bring benefits, but it has a big downside: low housing vacancy rates strongly correspond with housing insecurity and homelessness. Most housing economists agree that low vacancy rates indicate a housing shortage, and housing shortages are not actually healthy for a community.

Figure 7. National, state, and local comparison of housing quality in US News & World Report ranking details.

Infrastructure: Los Alamos gets an impressive 94 score on infrastructure, but sharp-eyed readers might notice the “workers commuting 60 minutes or more” section and squint at the 1.4%. Only the smattering of Los Alamos residents who commute off the hill are reflected in the statistic, making it misleading. As established, the majority of the workforce actually lives in outlying communities because they cannot afford or find housing here. These workers face long commutes into Los Alamos every day, but since they don’t reside in the county, their commutes are not captured in this statistic.

Figure 8. National, state, and local comparison of infrastructure in US News & World Report ranking details.

A community conversation

These are just four areas in which we identified critical nuances that challenge the metrics used to determine “healthiest” communities. Julia Haines, a data analyst with USN&WR, acknowledged in an email to Boomtown that while their rankings consider more than 90 metrics, including 7 specifically related to housing, these numbers alone “cannot always capture the nuances of how a multi-county region balances the distribution of wealth, resources and populations.” For example, Haines pointed out that metrics like displacement of lower-income families and demographic skew “are complex, and can be difficult to capture consistently at the national level.” The implications, she added, are a discussion that the community may want to have with itself. “We recognize that community health is multifaceted, and if our results reveal that one community is doing well while its neighbors are not, that can certainly spark conversations at a more local level about how those challenges should best be addressed,” she wrote.

Gaps

There is no doubt Los Alamos has much to offer. Anyone who has stood at Overlook on a glorious fall day and gazed at the sparkling river below, watched kids having a blast at the Kite Festival, or enjoyed an afternoon on the slopes of Pajarito Ski Hill knows that the county is, in many ways, kid-friendly, outdoorsy, and fun. But as Boomtown has learned, there are many gaps — and people silently falling into those gaps. Residents who are struggling with everything from gynecology to mental-health crises must go outside of the county for help. And that’s just the residents. In a shift from previous decades, the majority of the workforce now must commute to Los Alamos. Many of those commuters — about 75%, according to a county analysis — would like to be part of the community but cannot find a foothold here.

And that’s really the story behind the story: when we look at all those reasons the county is ranked among the healthiest, how much are we looking at effort and investment in the town and the region? And how much are we looking at the predictable results of exclusivity? If the county wants to earn the moniker of “healthiest county” through inclusionary policies and sustained effort, rather than excluding everyone who can’t make it to the top of the tower, what does that look like?

This is the beginning of a conversation we’ll return to, and we want to hear your thoughts: write us and tell us what you think! editors@boomtownlosalamos.org