What the Office of Housing’s Strategy Could Mean for Taos

Housing conversations in Taos often come back to a practical question: how do we

move from identifying a need to creating a home someone can actually live in? A new

strategy from New Mexico’s Office of Housing looks at those steps alongside the need

for more housing funding. The Office joined the Department of Workforce Solutions in

2025, and its strategy sets out proposed policy changes and funding requests for 2027.

It focuses on building new homes, preserving existing ones, and helping people access

housing they can afford.

The Office of Housing is important because funding alone cannot address everything

that keeps housing from moving forward. A project may need roads or utilities, a local

government may need help with planning and approvals, and several state agencies

may need to work together. The Office gives New Mexico a place to coordinate that

work and help communities, particularly smaller ones with limited staff, turn housing

needs into homes.

For Taos, one of the most relevant of the Office’s proposals is support for local capacity.

Towns, Counties, and housing organizations need staff time and technical expertise.

That work is especially demanding in smaller communities, where the same staff

members may have many other responsibilities and limited capacity.

The Office is requesting $5 million per year for three years statewide to support local

permitting capacity, technology, training, and technical assistance. It also proposes $2

million per year for three years for local and regional infrastructure, housing, and

homelessness planning, and $1 million per year for three years for housing workforce

programs. If funded and designed to be accessible to rural communities, they could help

local partners do the groundwork that projects depend on.

The strategy also places considerable emphasis on preserving existing homes. That is

important here. New construction gets much of the attention in housing discussions, but

an existing home that needs repairs is also part of our housing supply. The Office

proposes a home rehabilitation and preservation program and requests $5 million in

recurring statewide funding. It also requests $500,000 one time for a statewide

preservation plan and $500,000 one time for a preservation pilot. The details of those

programs are still to come, but the focus on repair is relevant to communities like Taos

with older housing stock and high replacement costs.

For new projects, the strategy recognizes that the cost to build often exceeds what local

households can afford to pay. Even when a project has a site and a development

partner, it may need funding for roads, utilities, site preparation, or the housing itself.

The Office proposes a statewide grant program of $50 million per year for three years to

help cover financing gaps while it works on broader barriers to construction. It also

requests $30 million in one-time capital outlay and $5 million in recurring homebuyer

assistance.

Those requests could be meaningful for Taos, depending on how the programs are

structured. Rural projects are often smaller than developments in the state’s larger

cities, and their costs do not always fit neatly into standard funding programs. The ability

to support smaller projects and address infrastructure needs will make a difference in

whether rural communities can use these resources.

The strategy also considers the rules that affect what can be built. It proposes model

zoning codes, changes to state building codes, and greater permitting and inspection

capacity. Its aim is to make smaller-scale housing and manufactured or modular homes

more feasible where they make sense. These proposals do not carry the same specific

funding requests as the rest of the proposed programs, but they could affect the range

of housing options available in Taos over time.

The strategy is still a set of proposals. Funding would need to be approved, and the

state would need to decide how each program will work. THP will be following those

decisions, particularly whether rural communities and smaller projects can make

practical use of the resources.

What stands out about this strategy is that the Office of Housing has thought through

the full path of housing development, across the housing spectrum. It looks at what has

to happen before a project can start, what it takes to get homes built, how to keep

existing homes in use, and what people need to access housing they can afford. No

other state-level entity is currently bringing those pieces together in quite this way. THP

supports that approach and will advocate for the resources and policies needed to make

it work for rural communities like ours.