A light glows in an occupied apartment at the Hotel Clovis in Clovis, New Mexico in February 2022. (Patrick Lohmann / Source NM)
The New Mexico House of Representatives on Tuesday approved by a wide margin a bill that would allow a state program that now helps support commercial development to add housing to its portfolio.
The change to the Opportunity Enterprise Act, which would become the Opportunity Enterprise and Housing Development Act, would mean the New Mexico Finance Authority could make loans to help build, acquire and rehabilitate housing projects. At the moment, the act only allows commercial development.
The projects would be geared toward “workforce housing” projects, which are those that are affordable to people who make low or middle incomes, but whose income is too much to qualify for affordable housing.
“We have a real lack of supply in the housing market right now, and especially for projects that are affordable, not necessarily ‘affordable housing,’ per se, but housing that is affordable for middle-income earners,” said bill sponsor Linda Serrato (D-Santa Fe). “And so what this fund would do is it fills that gap.”