New Mexico has spent $500M on housing in last 3 years as homelessness persists, new report says

Homelessness in New Mexico has increased, particularly in the Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Santa Fe areas, despite a half-billion dollar investment in recent years, according to a new report from the Legislative Finance Committee.

Housing leaders last week briefed state lawmakers at a hearing at Central New Mexico Community College. Analysts with the LFC found that Bernalillo County’s unhoused population, in particular, doubled between 2022 and 2024.

“I want everyone to be able to have the dream of owning their own home,” Gilbert Ramirez, Albuquerque’s Health, Housing and Homelessness director, told the panel of state lawmakers, adding that the cost of home construction and ownership has significantly increased in recent years, which has shifted increased costs onto rentals.

Indeed, nearly half of New Mexico renters are “cost-burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent and related housing expenses.

The report highlighted recent efforts in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County to build new and transitional housing for low-income families, and found that such projects can range in cost from $36,000 per unit to more than $350,000 per unit.

Albuquerque officials in recent years have expanded operations at the city’s Gateway Center, which provides overnight beds and services for sobering and case management, after previously promising to house 1,000 people by this summer. Ramirez said that as of last week, the city was serving more than 1,200 people experiencing homelessness and instability. Recent Gateway Center improvements include 50 new beds for women and 41 new “young adult” beds.

Issues of instability and homelessness increasingly impact New Mexico’s youth. Another recent LFC report found that 32,000 New Mexicans between the ages of 16 and 24 don’t work or go to school, which increases their likelihood of experiencing housing instability.

Last week’s report also found the state Department of Workforce Solutions and the Office of Housing are projected to invest more than $58 million in nearly 1,000 affordable housing units, the majority of which are rentals.

Sen. George Muñoz (D-Gallup), who serves as the vice chair of the interim Legislative Finance Committee, told state, county and local housing officials that affordable housing projects need to be “attainable,” as well.

“It has to be affordable and attainable,” he said. “If you’re generating money off the rent…are you going to use it to lower the rent? Because that’s what affordable is, to me.”