Deming Headlight: Columbus residents hatch plans for senior housing

COLUMBUS, N.M. — Jeane Canfield said she began thinking about local housing 15 years ago.

At the time, she lived with her husband on some open land at the northern end of Columbus with views of the Florida Mountains and the peaks known as the Tres Hermanas. A short distance to the north sat the experimental living community named City of the Sun.

“I just had this dream, which became a passion to provide better housing for some of the people I knew who were living without any water, any electricity, heating or cooling. I was thinking of independent living and little cottages.”

Bud Canfield, her husband, died in 2020 at age 82. They had been married 45 years. Her mind is still on housing today, but now with a focus on providing local seniors with comfortable assisted living facilities in the village.

The need was underscored earlier this year, she said, when a well known character in the village — Gordon Taylor, a former elected trustee, avid photographer and extrovert — suffered a stroke. He currently receives care at a facility in Silver City, some 85 miles away from his friends, with no family nearby.

With a few acres of land at the ready and the help of friends, Jeane Canfield hopes to break ground on a campus for senior living within a few years. Several residents have founded a nonprofit foundation to support the project, named for Bud Canfield, and are in the beginning stages of developing a plan for an assisted living facility, how to staff and fund it, and raising money to build it — a steep undertaking, as admitted by the founding board members.

“It’s something we’re all going to need someday,” Karen Martin said. “We have an aging population down here.”
Read the full article at the Deming Headlight.