NEW MEXICO’S MOONSHOT OF INVESTMENTS

The crisis in affordable housing extends beyond New Mexico’s borders to all of the U.S. When families have to spend more than 30% of their income on housing, they face tough decisions on how to cut back on other expenses. The state faces a shortage of housing at every income level, from large-scale multifamily units to small units like casitas or duplexes in single-family neighborhoods to rental units for low income people. A study commissioned by Housing New Mexico shows the state lacks about 40,000 single family units and 18,000 rental units, making a total of 58,000 needed housing units. That’s a lot! There is also a need for supportive housing, like tiny homes, for people treated for behavioral health and addiction problems so they have an address and a place to shower while they seek work.  New Mexico does not have a lot of developers who build low-income housing. Those that do need support to keep a project moving along. In 2026, a Metropolitan Redevelopment Area bill was passed that allows cities to freeze property taxes in blighted areas at pre-development rates for up to 14 years. This allows developers to postpone high property taxes, especially in the crucial first years of a project. Building many housing units is a complex problem, requiring proper planning, design, regulatory permitting, and zoning—not to mention labor and materials. Quickly building housing units requires infrastructure and a consistent pipeline that can move from planning to construction efficiently. It requires both government and private enterprise to work in tandem.

In 1975, New Mexico’s state legislature founded Housing New Mexico (also known as the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority). MFA brings government agencies and companies together to make quality affordable housing and related services available to low- and moderate-income New Mexicans. It is a public entity that functions apart from the state. With 40 programs in all aspects of housing, from homelessness to house ownership, Housing New Mexico offers down payment assistance, rental subsidies, and financing for affordable developments. With its 400 partners, MFA can buy, construct, and improve housing for people of low and moderate incomes. One such program, launched in 2025, is the Zero Interest Homebuilder Program (ZIHP). This program offers interest-free construction loans to developers to build affordable entry-level homes. The Restoring Communities Program funds developers or nonprofits to purchase abandoned or foreclosed homes. A state governmental agency, the New Mexico Housing Trust Fund, offers low-interest loans for developers to build rental units for households earning 60% or less of the area’s median income.

New Mexico is looking at state pathways to get around uncertainty and changes in federal rules on funding for affordable housing. In 2025, Governor Lujan Grisham announced the distribution of $120 million for housing and homelessness projects across New Mexico. In the 2026 legislative session, she signed a state budget that includes $110 million dedicated to statewide housing initiatives and new housing units. When someone is afraid they may become homeless because their landlord has raised their rent, there aren’t many options. New Mexico has historically prevented cities from enacting rent stabilization (limits on how much landlords can raise rent annually) and rent control. However, state lawmakers are now considering rent stabilization, eviction restrictions, and habitability requirements such as ensuring that rental units have appropriate  heating, cooling, and running water.

It’s not just New Mexico facing a housing crisis – the whole country is. Billionaire investors have skewed the housing market by buying up land, single-family homes, apartment buildings, and mobile home parks. They park their money in these safe investments and then extract as much value as they can out of them. The result? Rising rents, homelessness, and Americans who feel that home ownership is out of reach. In a Santa Fe roundtable led by Sen. Luján in May, state housing officials expressed another concern: the rising cost of building materials caused by tariffs.  It’s clear: solutions to our housing crisis must also be sought at the federal level. New Mexico’s congressional members have pushed for funding, and have written and co-sponsored legislation on affordable housing with these priorities: Curbing predatory corporate home buying Expanding construction of manufactured and affordable housing Expanding financing options to help New Mexicans rent or buy a home Those became features of the “21st Century ROAD to Housing” Act, a bipartisan bill that is expected to be passed into law in the summer of 2026. (“ROAD” stands for “Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream.”) The bill includes 56 provisions related to housing supply, manufactured housing, mortgage financing, rural housing, veteran housing, and community banking. Rep. Gabe Vasquez called it, “the biggest win for housing affordability in a generation.”