Housing Matters: The Housing Trust Podcast
This is Housing Matters: The Housing Trust Podcast , where we share stories and insights about affordable housing and making homeownership a reality!
Housing Matters: The Housing Trust Podcast
Ep. 13 Keeping Housing Attainable in Santa Fe with Faviola Chavez
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode of Housing Matters, we sit down with Faviola Chavez from the City of Santa Fe’s Affordable Housing Program to talk about the future of affordable housing in our community.
Faviola shares her experience working in housing across New Mexico and Arizona, what brought her back home to Santa Fe, and the innovative ideas she hopes to bring into this role. From first-time homebuyer programs to sustainable funding solutions, this conversation explores what it takes to create long-term housing opportunities for future generations.
We also discuss why keeping young people in Santa Fe matters—and how housing plays a major role in the future of our community.
Learn more about The Housing Trust:
This is Housing Matters, the Housing Trust Podcast, where we share stories and insights about affordable housing and making homeownership a reality. I'm your host, Roman Tiger Abeta. Welcome to another episode of Housing Matters. This is the Housing Trust Podcast. And in this episode, we will talk with Fabiola Chavez with the City of Santa Fe. More specifically, Fabiola works with the city's affordable housing program. Welcome to the show, Fabiola.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Ramon. Thanks for having me here.
SPEAKER_01So tell us a little bit about your role with the City's Affordable Housing Program.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I started in September of this year. And my role is to deploy affordable housing trust fund dollars and also CDBG dollars. And we're hoping to implement some new initiatives to advance our affordable housing initiatives.
SPEAKER_01And so the, well, before we get into the affordable housing trust dollars and CDBG, let's find out more about you. I know with talking with you, you were born and raised in New Mexico, but you spent some time working in Arizona. So tell us about your New Mexico experience and your Arizona experience, and then what made you come back to Santa Fe?
SPEAKER_00Awesome. So I'm native New Mexican, seventh generation. So I have a longstanding here in New Mexico. I've lived here since um I was probably about 40 years old. And then I graduated from college. I was a late bloomer. And so I decided to move to San Antonio, Texas. So I lived there briefly for about a year and a half. And then I my parents started aging. So I needed to come back to the Southwest. And I decided to go to Phoenix. And I got a job with the city of Phoenix. I was the project manager for multifamily housing development, where I incorporated home programs and low-income housing tax credit programs to push initiatives for affordability. So I was really blessed by that opportunity. It gave me so much experience in affordable housing. And it really was the trajectory of my passion for affordable housing. And then after I left the city of Phoenix, I created my own company that is a catalyst for developers so that they can do a lot of their compliance mechanisms that are required through federal funding, like Davis Bacon, Section Three compliance. And now my daughter runs Zia Construction Services. And so right now that business has really flourished. She has businesses in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and hoping to expand. But, you know, I just saw that there was a gap in developers really understanding how to implement federal programs and do the compliance.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because they're complicated, right?
SPEAKER_00And so a lot of my developers would come to me while I was at the city of Phoenix and asking me, hey, can you come and work with us part-time? Can you help? I'm like, no, that's a conflict of interest. I can't do that. But enough people came to me that I really saw the need. And so ultimately I left and I created my own company, which is doing really, really well. My daughter runs it, like I said, but I decided that I needed to come back to work and I went to work for a nonprofit homeless shelter, um, one of the largest nonprofit home homeless shelters in Mesa, Arizona, called A New Leaf. And so I had several initiatives under my belt where I was running 57 public projects.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00And so I would be the developer. I went to a Lisc developer training and I became a developer for the nonprofit and pushed really a lot of the low-income housing tax credit applications, and then also creating additional homeless shelters where I created a graduated unit for men exiting homelessness to focus on healing and just really getting the services that they need to get back on their feet, workforce development services. And so that project is opening at the end of this month. So I'm really excited that that initiative happened despite me leaving and coming back into New Mexico. And then to answer your last question, why I came back to New Mexico is it was always my dream to come and help the people that helped raise me and my daughter. I wanted to come back and really be a catalyst for affordable housing here and really bring initiatives that I've learned in other municipalities and other cities that I've lived in.
SPEAKER_01Now that's really important because sometimes, I mean, it's great to be born and raised here, especially, but sometimes you don't know what you don't know because you've never worked for other cities or municipalities or counties or even other states. But what originally drew you to work in housing?
SPEAKER_00You know, I I worked for the New Mexico Finance Authority. I was I was like 17 years in banking, and I had an opportunity to come work for the New Mexico Finance Authority back in 2008. And it was a quasi-entity of the state. And that really pushed my passion to really help communities and municipalities doing new market tax credits and a lot of the other programs that I used to be in charge of at the finance authority. And so that really sparked my just, you know, it it was an amazing opportunity where I really felt I was making an impact in people's lives. And so that really pushed me into affordable housing. I saw, you know, how fortunate I was in having housing here in New Mexico and being able to afford a home. But when I started moving around the country, I noticed that not everyone had the same opportunities that I had. And so I was like, why is this happening? And why can't we do a combination of new market tax credits and light tech, low-income housing tax credits, and marry those two and really push those narratives? So that's what drew me to working for the city of Phoenix. They were the fifth largest city in America during the time that I joined the city. That was in 2019, and it was the beginning of COVID, and we had 225 people per day moving into the city of Phoenix. So we had this influx of people moving in and we had to deploy these units. And it was it was fast, it was a really critical component. But luckily, I fit right in because I knew how tax credits worked. I understood because of my experience working for the New Mexico Finance Authority, I really understood what it meant and how to deploy those initiatives.
SPEAKER_01So you're able to take your experience, what you learned in New Mexico, and take it to Arizona.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And low-income tax credits, that could be a podcast episode all by itself. We did three projects before I got here to the housing trust, but I had to get familiar with them. And the binders are like two, three feet. And it's I'm like, holy moly, this is so I understand the need for somebody who's an expert in just this field.
SPEAKER_00Right. And you should look at the new market tax credits. You know, that's even more of a compliance, and it's it's crazy. So you really do need that expertise to be able to flow those funds and get them deployed through the municipalities.
SPEAKER_01So let's get back to the city of Santa Fe. Because, like I said, the tax credits, I could ask you a million questions, but that's not the topic of this show. Maybe, maybe another episode. Because I have a feeling, Fabiola, there's going to be a few episodes with you because there's so much that you know and so much that the city of Santa Fe deals with when it comes to affordable housing. But uh specifically, what does the city's affordable housing program do and who does it serve?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so the affordable housing department, I like to call it attainable housing, right? It's attainable housing for everyone. It's one of the Maslow's theories of hierarchy. We need to have housing for everyone. Everyone deserves housing. And so what we do in our department is we flow funds for populations that meet the AMI set aside that we're targeting. That could be 50%, that could be up to 120% for the missing middle. But we really, this my initiatives are really focused on helping those most vulnerable populations because they're the hardest to really target and get the funding for. And so I'm I'm really hoping that some new strategies that we can implement can help those most vulnerable at 80% and below. But we'll help everyone, you know, all the way up until 120%.
SPEAKER_01Right. And here at the housing trust, we focus on that 80 to 120 and home ownership.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_01But at the city, you do not only that, but you homeless, right? Would fall under Absolutely or rental and all of that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So we also deploy the community development block grant dollars that HUD disperses on an annual basis to us. This year we received an allocation of about $611,000. And so a lot of our nonprofit arms are receiving this funding for those for those funds. And it's services, services like Youth Works, you know, where we're developing a commercial kitchen there.
SPEAKER_01So you could use CDBG funds. I'm familiar with them for housing and helping with down payment assistance, but there's other uses with CDBG funds?
SPEAKER_00Definitely. There's other sources. So it can be implemented into public projects. Oh wow. So public projects like let's say there's a community that is a 80% or below community AMI set aside, area medium income set aside, that needs new sidewalks. So CDBG could inject capital to improve those sidewalks.
SPEAKER_01Okay. I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_00So we have lots of uses. Unfortunately, um, the way our CDBG is runned right now is that we follow our consolidated plan. So our consolidated plan was issued back when my predecessor was here, and they have certain requirements that the CDBG funding is sourced for. Okay. And so those have already been implemented. But you know, we we update that every five years. And so we have an opportunity in 2027 to make those changes.
SPEAKER_01So because basically, as I understand it, you tell them what you're gonna use the funds for. That's your five-year plan. They give you the funds, you do that, but then if as things change, you could submit a new plan and it to the time, like you said, is 2027. And so then you can follow the new plan. Right. Because things do change in five years.
SPEAKER_00Things do change. And um, HUD wants us, HUD doesn't want us to nilly willy kind of be deploying these funds. Right. So we have to have a plan. And that's when our consolidation plan comes into effect. And then we also have our annual action plan that says, hey, these are what we anticipate we're going to be funding, these are the projects. And then our caper that comes in a little bit later tells uh the community about our results, okay. What we were able to achieve, the population that we served, and the number of people we served.
SPEAKER_01And the caper is an audit, right?
SPEAKER_00It is.
SPEAKER_01And so that's how they're able to say this is where the dollars went.
SPEAKER_00And HUD reviews that they they review it and make sure that the numbers are correct and accurate. And I do want to, you know, give a shout out to the staff. Even in the last year and a half that they didn't have a director of affordable housing, they were still able to push the initiatives and they still met and even exceeded the expectations of the annual action plan. And that was one of my first meetings with the city council that I got to deliver that very positive message that we've really done well, even though with the limited staffing that we had.
SPEAKER_01So you're the you're fairly new to the role of if you we your title is executive director of it's a it's director of affordable housing. Director of affordable housing. Um, so what has stood out to you so far about the housing needs in Santa Fe?
SPEAKER_00Well, first of all, I want to talk about the positive. So the positive, what I've what I've seen is our robust affordable housing programs that we have. You know, again, I came from the fifth largest city in America. They don't even have a program for first-time home buyers. We do.
SPEAKER_01And that's Phoenix.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00You know, that's that's amazing. I have a a consultant. Um, I told you earlier that I have a consultant that's with me and she's a national consultant, and she's also, you know, told me that wow, your your programs are very robust. There's many municipalities throughout the country that don't offer, they either do one thing and it's multifamily housing development, or they do umer home ownership. We do both.
SPEAKER_01Right. And that's amazing. And what's really cool about the homeownership is with the down payment assistance funds that you give us, that we in turn give to first-time home buyers who qualify, is if they refinance or if they sell the house, the funds come back to us because there's a lien that ensures that, and then we recycle it to somebody else. So it's it continues. Yes. And that's pretty that's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00That's the innovative stuff that we really need to be focusing on right now because you know the city um injects three million dollars a year into affordable housing trust fund, but how long will that last?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. So it's my job to ensure that my department is sustainable for the future. And how do we do that? Will we create mechanisms that allow that funding source to recycle?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, definitely. And and you get you update your plans, you get get audited so that as funds become available at the national level, for example, you're able to apply for them and are successful in getting them because of how well the city does with their programs. Is there anything that you learned or saw in Phoenix that you are excited to bring to Santa Fe?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I have um a few things kind of I'm an entrepreneur by trade. And so I I really always think innovatively. I don't think that, I don't know, my my mind always goes 100 miles an hour. And so what Phoenix, Tempe, Tucson, and many other places in the country do, they have a set-aside where they create their own nonprofit arm for development. This allows them to co-development with multifamily housing development projects, whether that's for-profit, nonprofit developers.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And they get half of the developer fee, which is a lot, and they are able to recirculate those funding sources for other projects. So that's an initiative that I'm looking into. I'm also looking into creating a revolving loan fund that would hopefully be generated through our arm of the Affordable Housing Trust fund and maybe an injection of a million dollars for one-time million dollars. And then every year, um, maybe just giving us $500,000. And I've done an analysis, that particular fund, if we created it in 10 years, we could double our fund, right? Because I used to work for a fiduciary for the state of New Mexico, which was the bond bank. So I'm always thinking, like, how can we reinvest in in bonds and how can we create more capital by having interest and and charging interest? Well, that's a mechanism that we can redeploy those funds, reallocate them through the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and redeploy fund funding.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome. That's awesome. Looking ahead, what are you most excited to work on or accomplish in this role?
SPEAKER_00You know, I I already started the discussions with a multifamily housing developer. I'm, you know, no promises again. I, you know, the mayor is is very supportive of of the work that we do and affordable housing. And so, you know, I'm hoping that I can co-develop with him and potentially give him some tax abatement strategies so that he will be able to pay, you know, the the part of the fee of the developer fee, and we can inject that into our affordable housing trust fund and redevelop, you know, redeploy. So I'm really keeping my fingers crossed for those initiatives. I've already bring brought up to the um interim city manager and to the mayor that I'm really I'm really excited about doing a revolving loan fund. I really think that that's a mechanism that will create sustainable dollars into our pipeline and we can rely on for the future. Because that's my main problem. Yeah, that's my main concern. You know, what's gonna happen with our younger generation? Right. How are we gonna keep our younger generation here in Santa Fe? And how are they gonna be able to afford it? And then how are they even gonna be excited to come work for the city? Well, we have to we we have to create innovative solutions and opportunities for them to be able to walk into a department and be able to run it.
SPEAKER_01Right. Well, and it's not just the the city, the schools. I know teachers, there's a lot of high teacher vacancy because of the cost of living, which is and I think when people talk about cost of living in Santa Fe, they're talking about housing, the cost of housing, whether it be rental or or to purchase. And so it sounds like you have really good ideas for diversifying the affordable housing trust fund. And because right now it just relies on an allocation from the governing body every year, right? Which ultimately comes from the general fund, which is GRT. And GRT goes up and down depending on what's happening in the economy.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. So and so we're the way we're deploying those funds now is those are grants, and so they're out, but nothing comes back in. And so if we would just take a little bit of those dollars and create a revolving loan fund, I could make sure and ensure that we continue this cycle of dollars and deployment.
SPEAKER_01So as you settle into this position as the director, what are your hopes for the future of affordable housing in Santa Fe?
SPEAKER_00My hopes for the future uh of affordable housing here in Santa Fe is that our younger generation, our younger people can live here and afford to be here. They're our future. And it's and if we don't really invest in them, what's gonna happen? You know, because I know for me and and other people, you know, we've had opportunities, but they're just getting started. And so what what are we gonna do for them? So my hope is that we can create more affordable first-time homebuyers programs because those are so needed, and we need to keep our our younger population here in Santa Fe.
SPEAKER_01And we need it not just to survive as a community, but also whether it be what our cultural values are as a community, workforce, exactly for a community to thrive and to be healthy, it takes young people, and we want ours, like you said, to at least know Santa Fe's an option. And they don't have to or if they go off to college, for example, too, they can go and not worry about being able to come back.
SPEAKER_00Right. Like when I bought my home here in Santa Fe, I was amazed by the cost. I couldn't believe it. You know, my my house was more than my house in Phoenix, the fifth largest city in America, where there's an abundance of economic opportunities. And I couldn't believe it. And I thought to myself, what would what would I do if I had a young child? Yeah and how would I what would I think their ability to have home ownership? Like what what's gonna happen to them? And so I'm really I'm really focused on our younger generation because I feel like they are really the hope of of America.
SPEAKER_01That's right. That's true.
SPEAKER_00So we really need to focus on how do we keep them here. And we that means that we have to bring, you know, we have to bring more education opportunities here. I don't care if it's a trade, I don't care what it is. If you want to, you know, healthcare trades, there's occupational therapy assistance, there's PT assistance that you we can uh train our our younger generation in, there's electrical trades, there's so much welding, you know, that's the key out of systemic poverty is education and getting no one can take that away from you.
SPEAKER_01That's right. That's right.
SPEAKER_00So if you get educated, you are able to have a higher paying position, and that means that you can ultimately afford a home here in Santa Fe.
SPEAKER_01And as far as trades go, the trades, that's one area that AI is not gonna take jobs from, not anytime soon. I mean, eventually there'll be robots, they say, that'll do a lot of these trades, but that's a long ways off. So yeah, that that's a that's a great point. Um, but Fabiola, thank you again for for being uh on our show. We're really excited to have you. We're really excited to have you in the role that you're in, especially the housing trust and how closely we work with the city of Santa Fe. But uh, we end our podcast uh with all of our guests and we ask them the same question. And the question we ask to wrap up is given our title, Housing Matters, tell us why housing matters to you.
SPEAKER_00Housing matters because again, it's you know, it's part of the Maslow's theory of hierarchy. Like we have to make sure that people are safely housed and secure and our younger population and our younger our children. Have a safe place to call home so that they can learn at school and they're not afraid of where they're gonna lay their heads down. So that's why housing should matter to everybody. So again, you know, it's just having a safe place to call home.
SPEAKER_01Fabiola, thank you for being on our show again. That's all for this episode.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for listening to Housing Matters, the Housing Trust Podcast. Thank you for listening to Housing Matters, the Housing Trust Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review. To learn more about our work and the latest at the Housing Trust, visit Housing TrustOnline.org. If you are interested in partnering with us or supporting our mission, we'd love to hear from you. You can find our contact information on our website.