By Kevin Hendricks, New Mexico Political Report — New Mexico has poured $524 million into housing since 2022, but households with the lowest incomes get about a penny of every income-restricted dollar. The state also can’t consistently say what the rest bought, according to a Legislative Finance Committee report presented Tuesday in Las Cruces.
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Agencies have spent or committed about $328 million, backing roughly 4,400 homes, the report found. Fewer than half of the planned new units are finished so far: 1,321 of 3,226. For 21 of 86 funded projects, agencies have yet to report.
Only 27% of taxpayer-funded housing subsidies studied were tied to income-restricted units, and only 154 of 3,202 planned income-restricted units are reserved for households earning 30% of area median income or less. That group faces the state’s steepest shortage.
Analysts also questioned a Boston Consulting Group contract worth up to $1.4 million for a roughly eight-week housing study. That works out to about $175,000 a week. Benchmarks from other states ran $35,000 to $175,000 for similar studies, the report noted.
The money mostly followed need. Bernalillo County drew $143.1 million, far ahead of Santa Fe County at $35.3 million and Doña Ana County at $16.4 million. But the state has no formula tying awards to regional need or local ability to pay, the report found. Lawmakers tried to steer up to $90 million toward Albuquerque and Las Cruces in 2025. The governor’s partial veto stripped that language.
Even in the state’s urban areas, housing funds were not allocated equally. Bernalillo and Sandoval Counties share a metro area and the same $100,400 area median income. The report paints them as housing opposites.
Sandoval County is booming. The county gained more than 10,000 residents through domestic migration from 2021 to 2025. It added 5,730 housing units from 2020 to 2025, a 9.8% jump and the third-fastest growth rate in the state. Bernalillo County lost more than 16,000 residents to domestic migration over the same stretch. It added 8,225 units, the most of any county, but its housing stock grew just 2.7%.
The shortage runs the other way. In 2023, Bernalillo County was short 18,124 rental units for its lowest-income households, the worst gap in the state. Sandoval’s gap was 1,819.
State money followed the bigger gap. Sandoval’s only listed award is $1.38 million for Sandoval Flats, a 216-unit income-restricted apartment project in Rio Rancho. Measured against each county’s shortage, the state put about $7,900 toward every missing unit in Bernalillo County and about $760 in Sandoval County.
BY THE NUMBERS
- $524 million: special housing appropriations reviewed, FY23–FY27
- $328 million: spent or committed as of August 2026
- 62,000: homes added statewide since 2020, compared with about 4,400 backed by the state portfolio
- 1%: share of income-restricted housing dollars aimed at households at or below 30% of AMI (about $1 million of $144 million)
- 2%: share of the reviewed portfolio spent preserving existing housing, which can cost half to two-thirds as much as new construction
- 18 of 26: homelessness and shelter awards ($17.3 million) that reported no bed, household or person count
- 3.6: New Mexico housing permits per 1,000 residents in 2025, third-lowest among eight Western states (Utah: 7.6)
Read the report: “Progress Report: Nonrecurring Appropriations for Housing,” Legislative Finance Committee, Sept. 22, 2026. Online: nmlegis.gov/handouts/ALFC%20092226%20Item%202%20Progress%20Report%20Hosuing%20Special%20Appropriations.pdf