OPINION: Safe, affordable housing for all the key to addressing other issues

I was fortunate to grow up in a safe, secure community — a gift that feels increasingly uncommon, but doesn’t have to be this way for future Bernalillo County residents.

When my parents moved from New Mexico to California, they stayed with cousins until they could get on their feet. Even while taking steps to build a new life, they nonetheless felt insecure and learned to appreciate any kindness offered them.

They, in time, repaid that kindness by inviting people who needed shelter or food into our home. My sister and I jokingly referred to it as “Hotel Chavez,” but we learned that a very natural way to build a healthy community is to make sure people have access to those essential resources.

That has stuck with me through a long tenure of public service and even more so since I returned to my birth state to become Bernalillo County manager.

The development of affordable housing — newly built, renovated or subsidized — is one of the county’s top funding priorities for the legislative session now underway. Foundational to economic security, physical safety and educational opportunity is assuring safe, affordable homes for all.

A recent study by the city of Albuquerque and the Mid-Region Council of Governments underscores our sense of urgency and identifies sobering needs across our community:

The shortage of affordable housing for poorer residents is nearly 22,000 homes.

Home affordability for renters and prospective owners has decreased significantly. More than half, 52%, of all renters spend more than 30% of their income on housing. Higher interest rates and market prices make home ownership difficult.

The annual point-in-time count of the homeless in the city from January 2024 was 2,740, twice the number from 2022, according to the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness.

There are, undeniably, numerous pressing issues that the Legislature must confront during this session. But addressing housing challenges can help resolve these other issues.

We need affordable housing for a workforce we’d like to recruit and retain, for example. Kids everywhere need a safe, warm place to be fed and do their homework. The Joint City/County Housing Collaborative would help make this a reality in each of our city’s four quadrants, building more than 2,000 new homes and rehabbing over 800 others. A $100 million request would close a $261 million funding gap.

The elderly population, which is growing locally at a faster rate than the population in general, needs help. Pensions don’t stretch as far, and yet rents continue to increase. It’s why we request $1.5 million to build a 60-unit affordable housing complex for low- to moderate-income seniors on county-owned land at Sixth and Coal.

Substance abusers need stable housing as they work through a sustained recovery. A critical $79 million city/county behavioral health transitional housing capital outlay request would help build out services locally. A $2 million request would acquire land to construct cottages and renovate a former clinic for affordable and transitional housing in the International District.

And the county stands in full support of other legislative asks for housing statewide, most notably the $500 million sought from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and the Mortgage Finance Authority. It would be shared by the state’s housing trust fund and the proposed Office of Housing with up to 20% set aside for local governments to build houses and rehabilitate existing housing.

So what’s our best-case scenario? For the state to believe in and endorse our proposals by investing in Bernalillo County and the city of Albuquerque, setting a goal for us and challenging us to attain it.

Frankly, we would embrace that challenge. We ask a lot because we want to do a lot. What better way to make this a great place to live than to help people find their own great places to live?

Cindy Chavez became Bernalillo County’s new county manager on Nov. 13, succeeding Julie Morgas Baca.