New Mexico
Lengthy to-do list before NMFA begins approving $125 million in new housing loans • Source New Mexico
The head of the state’s finance authority tasked with doling out a windfall of housing loans said the authority is on track to OK loans in the fall — so long as what she called the “timeline gods” are merciful.
In the legislative session that wrapped up in February, lawmakers approved $125 million for the New Mexico Finance Authority to spend on workforce housing development and affordable housing infrastructure. Workforce housing is generally aimed at those who exceed income thresholds that would qualify them for subsidies.
It’s a big windfall for the relatively new Opportunity Enterprise Revolving Fund created in 2023 for commercial development and then amended legislatively to include housing. Under the new law this year, the fund will be used to address the statewide housing crisis. The state lacks at least 32,000 affordable housing units, according to a recent study.
Citing the pressing need, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, when she signed the legislation in late February, challenged the authority to approve loans by the fall.
Marquita Russel, CEO of the authority, told Source New Mexico on Friday that the authority has much to do before it can get that money out the door, and staff will be “threading the needle” to get it done by then.
House Bill 195, which goes into effect May 15, requires the authority to add new board members with expertise in housing and also create new rules governing the loan program. State rulemaking requires 45-day public comment periods, and the new board won’t be able to approve the initiation of draft rules until they convene after the law goes into effect.
The rules will be subject to multiple hearings, and the board will have to incorporate public comments once they are submitted, Russel said.
“It’s a lengthy process,” she said. “It requires a lot of transparency and public hearing, and then notices, so it can’t happen quickly.”
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But when the application process opens, she hopes by late summer, private developers will have access to low interest loans to help build roads, sewers and other infrastructure to affordable housing projects or to build new housing for people, like many police officers and teachers, who can’t afford to live in the communities where they work.
The fund as it exists now provides commercial loans at 60% of the Wall Street Journal prime interest rate on the day it is issued. That rate Friday was 8.5%.
Russel said she’s not sure whether the funds will go primarily for affordable housing infrastructure or workforce housing, or whether it will go to nonprofits or private developers. But she added that she believes there is a high demand for workforce housing and few places for developers to go for financing.
Lawmakers this session also approved $50 million for the Mortgage Finance Authority’s Housing Trust Fund, which is geared for affordable housing programs and development.
Taken together, the $175 million — plus $20 million to address homelessness and other individual housing projects — is the biggest housing investment in the Legislature’s history, aimed to boost new development of low- and middle-income housing.
Another bill passed this session, Senate Bill 216, adds nonprofit housing developers to a list of possible recipients of low interest loans for the NMFA’s Public Project Revolving Fund. That fund was established in 1992 for local government projects, but amended to let nonprofit housing agencies apply.
However, Russel said no nonprofits who apply will be authorized to receive that money until the next legislative session, when lawmakers sign an annual bill approving recipients.
But Russel said she hopes that fund, when it’s finally available, will end up becoming the go-to source of capital for housing nonprofits, leaving the $125 million fund for for-profit developers, “because there isn’t another place for those,” she said.
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The University of New Mexico plans to build new gates at four campus entrances along Central that will close nightly.
The gates will replace manual barriers in a project expected to cost about $1.5 million.
The Board of Regents approved the security upgrades for the UNM campus.
University officials said the gates will automatically close nightly from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
The gates will go in near Princeton Drive, Stanford Drive, Yale Boulevard and Terrace Street on the south end of campus.
A current rendering shows the gate completely blocking the road. Officials said the change will reduce unauthorized traffic and allow police officers to focus more effectively on prevention and response.
Construction will start in May. University officials hope to finish the project by September.
A 9-year-old boy who begged to be released from an immigration detention center so he could attend his state spelling bee has been freed with his family, their lawyer said Wednesday.
Deiver Henao Jimenez made the plea during a video call this month with children’s entertainer Ms. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Accurso.
“I don’t want to be here anymore,” Deiver said on the call, which was later shared on Accurso’s social media pages. “Nothing is good here.”
He and his parents, asylum-seekers from Colombia, had been held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas since early March, when they were detained during a routine immigration check-in in New Mexico, according to their lawyer, Corey Sullivan Martin.
ICE freed the family on humanitarian parole Wednesday, about a week after Martin filed a request for their release and days after NBC News reported on their case.
His elementary school principal wrote a letter in mid-March supporting the family’s release, which was later delivered to immigration officials, describing Deiver as “a dedicated student with excellent attendance and high marks.”
Sullivan Martin said Deiver is eager to return to school, rejoin his gifted and talented classes and get back to practicing his spelling words.
“I don’t see how it was necessary at all to detain a child who was doing exactly what we want children to do,” Sullivan Martin said.
The family planned to return to New Mexico, she said, where they will continue checking in with immigration officials while their case proceeds.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Deiver was released a day after ICE freed another child whose case drew widespread attention following a video call with Accurso. Gael, a 5-year-old boy with developmental disabilities, had experienced worsening medical issues while he was detained at Dilley, his parents said.
The facility has faced growing scrutiny from immigration lawyers and advocates, who say children there have struggled to access adequate medical care and education in an environment where lights remain on around the clock and officers stand guard. Some families have described poor food and long waits for medical attention.
DHS has disputed those accounts, saying families are provided appropriate care in a facility designed for their needs.
After her video meetings with the children, Accurso — known for her signature pink headband and singsong delivery — called for Dilley to be shut down and for families to be returned to their communities.
During their conversation, Deiver told Accurso he missed his friends and said the food at Dilley made his stomach hurt. But he was most worried about getting out in time to compete in New Mexico’s state spelling bee in May after he earned a spot by placing third at a regional competition.
“We’re trying to get a child out of a jail to do a spelling bee,” Accurso said last week. “I just never thought those words would go together.”
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