“There are homeless people in Los Alamos?”

Part 1: Social Services and Housing Insecurity

Published 11/16/2023

Story by Stephanie Nakhleh

Photographs by Minesh Bacrania

A tent at the boundary of Los Alamos townsite and Santa Fe National Forest in November 2023.

When most people think of homelessness, they think of big cities, tent encampments, panhandlers on street corners. They don’t think of small towns, and they certainly don’t think of a place like Los Alamos, New Mexico.

But Los Alamos, among the cities with the most millionaires per capita of any in the United States, does have a homeless population. And it appears to be growing.

“Each week when I go to the Farmer’s Market this issue comes up and people are blown away,” said Deni Fell, case coordination specialist for the Los Alamos County (LAC) Social Services division. “They say surely there’s only one or two [homeless people], and I say, oh no, there’s many more than one or two.”

While reliable data on homelessness in Los Alamos are scarce, Fell said her office has “about 25 to 30 people we’re working with,” a number t…