Living In Belen, NM? (Albuquerque, Los Lunas: crime rate, tech jobs, schools)

[councilor j]

Belen makes the list in the highest crime index cities in all of the nation,and so does the town Los Lunas which is 10 miles away, also lots of crime in the rural areas in Valencia County.

[Ryan Antionette]

Velencia Co. has been hit hard by a Meth epedemic. Not to mention that Belen has almost nothing to offer as far as shopping and other entertainment. I would look in the East Mt. area of Bernallilo County.

[lacey]

Only certain parts of Valencia County have a meth problem; the same holds true for Torrance, Bernalillo and Sandoval Counties. It's important to check out every aspect of where you want to live or are thinking about living. Schools in New Mexico are terrible, send your childrent to a private school if you can swing it. Someone said there was a rape in Belen's Middle school. Recall a rape at La Cueva High School a few years ago? How about the East Mountain murders? Vandalism is random. If you do choose the East Mountains, be sure to check the depth for water, etc. Some homes in that area have to truck in their water. Drilling can be expensive. Development, infrastructure, water and sewer availablity, Police and Fire Dept. coverage, zoning for the areas should influence your decision as well.

[ArenasNM]

Los Lunas, the town isn't bad. The consider Medow Lake Los Lunas and that's what gives Los Lunas a bad rap. They might as well call Medow Lake little Mexico. The good thing about Los Lunas is that they put another high school over there so that will seperate the town and Los Lunas High will have a chance to build themselves back up. I agree with being zero shopping in Belen and the places to eat are family businesses that a lot of the food taste the same besides the fast food places. Belen isn't as much active as Los Lunas at night but I think there is a reason for that. I work at the local Wal-Mart there and I'm hearing stories. Some involve just getting a gun pulled on them at Sonic, a 12 year old kid came into the store with a gun. If your going places in Belen, make sure you have someone with you. Just be careful there. I know crime and drugs are everywhere but there is places where it is out of control and other places where the town is trying to do something about it and I don't think Belen is trying.

[LLD]

I have a colleague in Belen and she is enjoying taking the train in to work from Los Lunas. However, I think she will be moving to town at some point because there are not a lot of things in Belen.

[NM-Bound]

I'm doing research on Belen, any info will be helpful.

[mortimer]

I suggest searching using the City-Data Forum's great
search engine and looking for both [Belen] and [Los Lunas].

I did this and found three pages of stuff, some of it useful
like this one:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/new-m...ighlight=belen

and

http://www.city-data.com/forum/new-m...ighlight=belen

There, if your questions are not answered, you can revive the
thread(s). The benefit of doing the search is that you can get
instant gratification rather than wait for people to post answers
that they have already posted to the same question(s).

[owneratUMR]

Is there information available about Belen NM? Surrounding area?

[mortimer]

owneratUMR posted the following:

> Is there information available about Belen NM? Surrounding area?

Yes.

If you do a search on [Belen] or [Los Lunas]
you will find threads such as

http://www.city-data.com/forum/new-m...ighlight=Belen

The benefits are; that you can get instant gratification
rather than waiting for people to respond with information
that they may already have painstakingly typed in
answer to a previous question.

If you need more information, you can revive the old thread
and ask specific questions.

[sodbuster]

I was just over looking for houses because I am being transferred to Kirtland. I started out in the E. Mountains as the last poster suggested. I picked up a paper to look for Real Estate info and do you know what the front page headline said? "Three more meth labs busted this week." I think NM must be just one big meth lab, from what I can tell. It's going to take lots of parent involvement (even more than normal) to keep on top of kids any place over there. East Mountain wise, I have not even mentioned yet that there are some great views of the Eastern Prairie out there... just beautiful - five acre plots with trailers as far as the eye can see.

The most annoying thing about trying to find anything out about Belen, Las Lunas, or any other comunty on city-data is that no matter what place you ask about 90% of the information is negative and comes from people who don't live (and may not have even been to) the place they're posting about.

Listen, guys, I can read the city-data page with the crime statistics just as well as you can. The reason I read these message boards is to get first hand, non-statistical data about what the place is really like. Thank you to the few locals and "grew up theres" that actually have some experience with the town to relate.

As for me, I'm going to keep looking in the Jarales area just outside of Belen, because I prefer not to pay half a million dollars for a house and an acre and a half of land (i.e. Bosque Farms, a relatively nice place, but who can afford that? Not even me on an Air Force Major's salary). Wish me luck!