NM Office of Housing makes first two hires

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham failed to get the Legislature to pass a bill this year that she was an active proponent of; it would’ve created a statewide Office of Housing. The governor decided to create the office anyway.

The goal of the new office is to address the housing crisis in New Mexico. The office recently got its first staffing hires.

Daniel Werwath is leading the Office of Housing. He told the Journal New Mexico needs to work on bigger picture issues, including workforce and regulations, data and data accountability and support for local and regional approaches around housing.

"All these things are things that aren't really happening right now that need to, to move the needle on the housing issues," he said.

In the fiscal year 2025 budget, state officials allocated $2 million for “housing assistance personnel and programs,” which the governor said immediately after the legislative session was viable money to staff her Office of Housing.

“There is no single way to address the issue of homelessness but continuing down a path that has led to record increases in homelessness is simply not an option,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement earlier this year.

Indeed, the executive posted two job listings in August for an Office of Housing: one for director of homelessness initiatives and one for general team members. The director position pay ranges from $75,000 to $130,000 annually, and the general member pay ranges from $50,000 to $120,000 annually, according to the still-active job postings.

On Tuesday, Werwath told the Journal the Office of Housing has made its first two hires in Wesley Espinoza and Roslynn Gallegos.

Espinoza is serving as the head of data insights and strategic partnerships, making $130,000 annually. Espinoza, who started recently, will "work around housing data and evaluation and the creation of a statewide housing data dashboard," Werwath said.

"So really trying to move towards data-based and goal-based and outcome-based approaches around housing, which is, I think, sort of the paradigm shift we're trying to get to," he said. "Moving away from sort of project-based and anecdotal approaches. ..."

And Gallegos is a senior manager for specialty projects, making $95,000 annually. Gallegos, starting around mid-November, will be responsible for managing several statewide homelessness programs, Werwath said, including a federal Youth Homelessness Systems Improvement grant and the state’s participation in the National Academy of State Health Policy’s Health and Housing Institute cohort.

Werwath said he still hopes to hire a few more personnel before the end of the year, if capacity allows. He said the state is reviewing more than 50 general candidates.

Meanwhile, the state is still seeking a director of homelessness initiatives.

The office is also bringing on a consultant team with national experts to help guide the state's homelessness strategy, Werwath said.

"This work is really just so urgent," he said. "The hope is to get folks in here and helping us work on this big, top-level strategy piece."

The “ambitious” housing agenda for the Office of Housing includes creating statewide approaches to workforce and affordable housing as well as addressing homelessness, closing a more than 30,000 unit housing deficit in New Mexico and growing the state’s construction and trades workforce, according to the team member job listing.

Werwath said another initiative is a working group focused on removing red tape in getting housing built.

"Everything from land use and zoning to permitting inspections and utility connections — pulling together a really diverse group on that to make some recommendations about how we can speed up the construction of new housing and approval of new housing and lower the cost of construction," he said.

While the bill didn't pass in the 2024 Legislature creating a long-term statutory authority that would keep the Office of Housing in place beyond Lujan Grisham's term, Werwath said he expects the state to pursue another bill in the coming 2025 session for it.

"The work is just too big and too important and too long term for us to just work on it for the next couple of years in the remaining term of the governor," he said. "We've really got to create a long-term approach for the state around this. ...

"The bigger housing delivery system isn't working in New Mexico, and we need to fix it."

The listing for the director of homelessness initiatives can be found online at www.nm.gov/app/apply.html?jobId=95, and the general application can be found online at www.nm.gov/app/apply.html?jobId=97.

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