A consultant, city housing staff and local service providers reviewed Las Cruces’s homelessness landscape and possible interventions at a work session Tuesday, Oct. 14, as council members pressed for clarity on which short- and long-term actions the city should prioritize.

The presentation by consultant Jen Lopez of Project Moxie and remarks from Natalie Green, the city’s housing administrator, and Nicole Martinez, director of Mesilla Valley Community of Hope, framed the issue as primarily a housing shortfall that requires both prevention and targeted housing investments.

Lopez told the council that the most cost-effective responses are eviction prevention and rapid rehousing. “Rent assistance, eviction prevention, [are] hugely powerful,” she said. Lopez cautioned that many crisis-response interventions started during COVID — motel vouchers, pallet shelters, tiny-home villages — have high ongoing operating costs and that communities should be sure they can fund operation for multiple years before launching new programs.

Why it matters: Council members said they want options that move faster than permanent supportive housing but that still prevent people from falling into long-term homelessness. Several members asked whether the city can pair “transitional” responses with durable strategies such as accessory dwelling units (ADUs), infill development and leveraging federal tax credit programs.

Key points from the presentation and discussion:
- Scale and data: Lopez and staff cited the 2025 point-in-time count at about 267 people experiencing homelessness locally and said roughly 800 affordable units are expected to come online in the next two years; the city’s 2024 affordable-housing strategy estimated a shortfall of about 5,600 affordable units. Lopez recommended better, coalesced data as an early step for strategy and advocacy.
- Prevention first: Lopez and multiple council members emphasized that preventing homelessness (through short-term rental assistance, eviction prevention and landlord risk-mitigation) yields the biggest returns for limited dollars, estimating $800–$3,000 to keep a housed household housed versus far higher costs for congregate or noncongregate crisis shelters.
- Crisis-response trade-offs: Tiny-home villages, safe-parking and motel conversions can provide immediate shelter but carry infrastructure and operating costs; Lopez gave a rough range that tiny-home units can cost $50,000–$100,000 to develop with ongoing operations (examples and local experience vary). She urged planning for at least three to five years of operations funding before committing to capital projects.
- Local capacity and coordination: Martinez explained Mesilla Valley Community of Hope’s operations and the data systems that support housing prioritization, noting the local coordinated entry and Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) requirements tied to federal funding. She urged preserving existing prevention and housing programs, warned against returning to a shelter-first model without housing exits, and said, “Another shelter is what you do when you don't have what we have in Las Cruces.”
- Funding risk: Lopez and local providers flagged federal changes as a risk to current programs — citing federal Continuum of Care (CoC) funding uncertainty — and encouraged the city to map what would be lost if grants shrink so it can prioritize sustaining the most effective programs.

Council response and next steps: Council members asked for clearer implementation pathways for ADUs, tiny-home pilots and motel conversions and pressed staff for more precise local budgeting. Natalie Green said staff will host an open house and a community survey as part of updating the city’s affordable-housing plan; she also said the city would convene stakeholders (police, fire, hospitals, school district, courts and nonprofits) to gather on-the-ground input. Community Development Director Chris Favor and other staff noted the Realize Las Cruces land-use code and MRA (Major Redevelopment Areas) tools that could be used for infill or pilot sites.

Provider and county updates: Mesilla Valley Community of Hope reported housing more than 1,800 people in the last year and said it brings roughly $1.3 million in annual CoC-funded programs to the region; La Casa and county officials said county funding averaged about $700,000 per year for homelessness services and described a county-led transitional supportive housing project in planning near the county government center.

Public comment: Residents, developers and nonprofit leaders urged faster action and more data transparency; one developer recommended focusing on low-income housing tax credits and other leveragable finance tools, while community advocates stressed collecting lived-experience input.

Ending: The council directed staff to return with more data, to convene stakeholders and to run a public survey and open house on housing needs and potential pilots. Councilors expressed support for pilot options — motel conversions, ADU incentives and landlord mitigation — but emphasized that any new crisis-response programs must include realistic funding and operations plans before the city commits capital.