Santa Fe: Voters Prioritize Safety, Housing & Homelessness | 2024 Focus

The City of Santa Fe will host a community input session on March 24, 2026, to gather resident perspectives on affordable housing priorities, officials announced Friday. The session, scheduled from 6:30 to 8 p.m. At the Genoveva Chavez Community Center, will be conducted in both English and Spanish.

The meeting comes as Santa Fe grapples with a persistent shortage of affordable housing, a challenge that has intensified across the United States. Rising home prices and limited housing stock have contributed to increased rental costs and a growing risk of homelessness within the city, according to the Santa Fe Community Foundation.

City officials plan to present a plain-language overview of affordable housing initiatives currently underway, including programs focused on home repairs, down payment assistance, preservation of existing affordable rentals, and new construction. The Office of Affordable Housing (OAH) is leading the effort, with Faviola Chavez serving as Director and Roberta Catanach as Project Administrator.

The S3 Santa Fe Housing Initiative, a consortium involving the Santa Fe Community Foundation, Thornburg Foundation, McCune Charitable Foundation, Anchorum St. Vincent, the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness, the City of Santa Fe, and Santa Fe County, is actively working to address the crisis. S3 aims to expand access to safe, stable, and supportive housing while developing long-term policy solutions.

The City’s housing investments in 2024 and 2025 have focused on repairing homes for safety and accessibility, providing assistance for home purchases, preserving existing affordable rental units through rehabilitation and acquisition, and building new income-restricted housing.

The Santa Fe Housing Action Coalition provides a list of resources and information about housing services and support programs available in the city. The Built for Zero movement, of which S3 is a member, is a nationally recognized model for systematically addressing homelessness with the goal of achieving “functional zero,” a state where homelessness is rare and brief.

The community input session is designed to be interactive, allowing residents to share their priorities and identify barriers to affordable housing. The OAH can be contacted at [email protected] or by mail at P.O. Box 909, Santa Fe, NM 87504-0909.