New Mexico Resources
To find out about key benefits and services in New Mexico and how to apply, select from the topics below.
Key State Contacts
Jason B Trujillo
Karen Gonzales
State website
Local Resettlement Offices
State-based PSOs
Cash assistance available to residents who enter the U.S. under humanitarian protection with low incomes.
Federal nutrition program
Cash assistance designed to help low-income families achieve self-sufficiency.
Provides services to any one of any age. There are no restrictions for age or disability.
Road Runner Food Bank New Mexico is the largest nonprofit dedicated to solving food insecurity in New Mexico.
A program offering supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition information to low-income women who are pregnant or have children aged birth to five.
- Matching Grant
A federal program supporting participants to attain self-sufficiency within 240 days (8 months) of arrival in the United States through financial, case management, and employment supports.
Lutheran Family Services currently offers this program in New Mexico.
A program provides monthly payments to adults and children with a disability or blindness who have income and resources below specific financial limits. SSI payments are also made to people age 65 and older without disabilities who meet the financial qualifications.
Refugee & Newcomer Health
The Refugee Health Program (RHP) provides newly arrived refugees with integrated medical and mental health screenings. We serve as the entry point into the US health system, strive to prevent the transmission of communicable diseases to the public, and ensure follow-up for conditions that could affect the client’s well-being or impede their ability to effectively resettle in New Mexico.
Accessing Health Care
Medical Assistance (MA) is New Mexico’s Medicaid program for people with no income or low income.
Refugees and other eligible populations should first receive an eligibility determination for Medicaid. Those who do not qualify for Medicaid may be eligible for RMA. RMA is available for 12 months from the date of arrival in the U.S.
Primary care clinics located in Albuquerque and Rio Rancho. Many of these clinics offer women’s health services and appointments before 8 a.m.
The goal of the HIV Services Program is to support primary medical care and essential support services to persons living with HIV/AIDS. The Ryan White Part B program is for those who do not have sufficient health care coverage or financial resources for coping with HIV disease. Ryan White fills gaps in care not covered by other sources.
NMHIVGuide.org is designed to link individuals with infectious disease services across New Mexico. This includes the full range of HIV services including testing, prevention programs, care and support. In addition, services are listed for other infectious diseases such as sexually transmitted diseases (STD) and hepatitis A, B and C. There is also a guide of harm reduction services, including syringe exchange, helpful to persons with or at risk of infectious diseases.
New Mexico health insurance exchange is one of the state-based health exchanges that was founded under Obamacare to help connect New Mexicans with affordable health insurance.
University of New Mexico Hospital is home to the state’s only Level I Trauma Center, gaining its accreditation in 1983, the highest verification by the American College of Surgeons.
Since 1985, Albuquerque Health Care for the Homeless (AHCH) has been the premier health and service provider for our neighbors experiencing homelessness. AHCH continues to provide a distinctive continuum of wrap-around supportive services and integrated care teams to address the health-related causes and consequences of homelessness.
Phone: 505-344-4340
Persons with Disabilities
The go-to for families who have a child or youth with special health care needs (CYSHCN). Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs means an individual younger than 21 years old, experiencing a moderate to severe medical condition:
– With significant potential or actual impact on long term health and ability to function
– Which requires specialized health care services and/or a variety of services from multiple diverse systems.
Provides effective leadership, education, advocacy, and programs to reduce barriers to the social, economic, educational, cultural, and intellectual well-being of Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and DeafBlind New Mexicans and their families, friends, and colleagues.
Enables persons who are blind to achieve vocational, economic, and social equity by providing career preparation, training in the skills of blindness and above all, promoting and conveying the belief that blindness is not a barrier to successful employment, or to living an independent and meaningful life.
Seniors
Medicare is health insurance for people 65 or older. You’re first eligible to sign up for Medicare 3 months before you turn 65.
1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227)
Phone: 1-800-659-8331 or 505-764-6400
The Social Security program in the United States provides protection against the loss of earnings due to retirement, death, or disability.
Children's Health
Early intervention services for infants and toddlers at risk for developmental delays
Phone: 877-890-4692
Department of Human Services supports a range of children’s mental health services across the state, from prevention to crisis response, school programs to treatment.
Programs and Information for children with special needs
Mental Health
Through different programs, Las Cumbre’s aids immigrant and refugee families. The Santuario del Corazon program offers families trauma-informed mental health screenings and services as well as connections to resources such as transportation, housing, translation/interpretation, food assistance, legal assistance and childcare. Walking In Grace with Survivors of Torture Program offers relational, culturally and linguistically appropriate, trauma-informed, holistic, and community-integrated care to survivors of torture and their families. Santa Fe Afghan Resettlement Project helps families integrate into community. Bilingual, trauma-informed, culturally aware therapists provide mental health screenings.
If you are overwhelmed by life or emotions and you don’t know where to turn, 988 is here to listen and get you private one-on-one support from a caring, understanding and non-judgmental person to help you through the moment. No matter the circumstances, don’t wait to get help.
Call or text 988
Dental Health
Provides dental services to low-income and indigent families. Private pay clients also accepted. Offers general dental care for children and adults. The clinic on Hinkle street also offers orthodontic care. Walk-in emergency appointments starting at 6:45 am. Non-emergency patients must call for an appointment. Accepts Medicaid and UNM Care. Sliding scale fees.
Providing comprehensive preventive and therapeutic dental care to patients who have special healthcare needs is an important aspect of our practice. We value the unique qualities of each young smile we treat, and seek to ensure maximal health for all, regardless of developmental disability or other healthcare issues.
Vision Health
InfantSEE, a public health program, managed by Optometry Cares – The AOA Foundation, is designed to ensure that eye and vision care becomes an integral part of infant wellness care to improve a child’s quality of life. Under this program, AOA member optometrists provide a no-cost comprehensive eye and vision assessment for infants 6-12 months old regardless of a family’s income or access to insurance coverage.
Please note that there are no specialized housing supports or access specifically for new arrivals.
Find Housing
Affordable housing is available at subsidized rates due to government funding and incentives for low-income. Housing for seniors, disabilities, homeless and low income families.
HUD helps apartment owners offer reduced rents to low-income tenants.
SHARE New Mexico is New Mexico’s largest, most up-to-date and comprehensive community information website. SHARE is for individuals and organizations who are working to improve quality of life for New Mexicans. Built by and for New Mexicans to share information and resources and support collaboration for change, SHARE is your trusted resource for information.
The Keeping Families Together (KFT) program targets families with children ages 0-17, who have had or currently have involvement with the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD) and are experiencing homelessness. Families that have been determined to be in need of these services can be referred to the program for eligibility determination by the contractors in consultation with CYFD.
Assistance with Housing Costs
Emergency Homeless Assistance Program (EHAP) provides shelters with funding through MFA to assist individuals and families who are homeless and/or those fleeing domestic violence by connecting them with services that may ultimately enable them to obtain permanent housing. The EHAP program is part of the Continuum of Care coordinated by the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness (NMCEH).
The Rental Assistance Program (RAP) provides short and medium-term rental assistance, housing stability case management, and housing search and placement for individuals and households who are literally homeless or at-risk of becoming homeless. The program pays for both Rapid Re-Housing and Homeless Prevention.
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) assists eligible low-income households with their heating and cooling energy costs, bill payment assistance, energy crisis assistance, weatherization and energy-related home repairs.
The mission of Mesilla Valley Community of Hope is to promote dignity and empowerment among the homeless population by providing shelter services, case management, income support and permanent housing programs in Las Cruces and Dona Ana County, New Mexico.
Helps residents maintain housing stability
Call 211 (24/7) to speak to a Community Resource Specialist
Refugee Housing Solutions provides technical housing support to resettlement practitioners, landlords and property managers, refugees, and volunteers across the United States and partners with them to develop and implement cohesive strategies to increase the availability and affordability of housing.
Housing Counseling
HUD sponsors housing counseling agencies throughout the country to provide free or low-cost advice.
Phone: 800-569-4287
Renter Rights
Provides guides on landlord/tenant rights
This guide is based on the New Mexico law that covers landlord-tenant relations for residential housing.
Homelessness Prevention & Assistance
Supports the modernization bill, as it would help individuals temporarily residing in motels overcome barriers to finding permanent housing solutions.
Orientation
Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains is a faith based, nonprofit human services agency providing adoption, disaster response, foster care, older adult, family support & education, and refugee & immigration services since 1948. We provide help and support to children and families during their most challenging times regardless of race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation or age. At LFSRM, we believe that all people, from the newborn to the most elderly, are valued members of our community.
Employment services through the resettlement network
Hiring refugees creates a diverse, flexible workforce offering a more global perspective to employers. Newly arrived refugees are eager to begin working in the U.S., Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains partners with businesses throughout the region to help meet their hiring needs by matching the skills and experience of our refugee candidates to positions within their companies.
Other Employment Services
The Matching Grant program helps refugees and other ORR-eligible populations overcome barriers and quickly find jobs. The intent is for refugees to become economically self-sufficient through employment within 240 days and without accessing cash assistance programs.
Documentation
Information and resources about obtaining a driver’s license or state ID
Provide Social Security Numbers and administer retirement, disability, survivor, and family benefits, and enroll individuals in Medicare.
Language
VIZIONZ-SANKOFA was created in June 2014, to assist African American youth and young adults in becoming stewards of their lives due to socio-economic situations beyond their control.
New Mexicans speak many different languages. Find information about learning English as a second language and programs around the state that provide this service.
Childcare
The Child Care Assistance Program subsidizes the cost of childcare for families at or below 400% of the federal poverty level that are working, in school, or searching for employment.
Phone: 1-800-832-1321
Early Childhood Education
Community Action Agency of Southern New Mexico (CAASNM) is a 501 c(3) nonprofit organization serving the communities of southern New Mexico, helping low-income individuals build a better future for themselves and their families through innovative services that focus on whole-family success.
The Early Childhood Education and Care Department is working to ensure that all New Mexican families and young children have equitable access to high-quality early childhood opportunities.
K-12 Education
The New Mexico Public Education Department partners with educators, communities, and families to ensure that ALL students are healthy, secure in their identity, and holistically prepared for college, career, and life.
Resources on child vaccinations
Adult Education
Umoja’s mission is to empower refugee women with tools and resources to enhance and develop their skills through education to successfully integrate and become self-sufficient and independent into American society while still maintaining respective cultural values.
Refugee and Immigrant Well-being Project (RIWP) is an annual nine-month-long program pairing undergraduate students from the University of New Mexico with refugee families in the mobilization of community resources and mutual learning.
El Centro is committed to the cultural, social, academic, and emotional experience of students. The department and its programs value the students and their families at UNM. The work of El Centro has touched the lives of many people in the state. From mentoring, recruitment efforts, cultural programming, civic engagement, advocacy, student internships, professional development and emergency scholarships emergency scholarships.
Legal services through the resettlement network
Other legal services available outside of the resettlement network
The New Mexico Immigrant Law Center’s mission is to advance justice and equity by empowering low-income immigrant communities through collaborative legal services, advocacy, and education.
Santa Fe Dreamers Project provides high-quality, accessible legal services across New Mexico and West Texas. They partner with clients to meet individual legal goals, including humanitarian protection, family unity, economic empowerment, and liberation from detention.
NMCLP works to break down structural obstacles to financial stability for all New Mexicans, including immigrants.
Welcome Corps
Employment
The Labor Relations Division (LRD) enforces payment of wages, minimum wage, and overtime labor laws under the Wage Pay Act and the Minimum Wage Act.
Public Safety
Victim Services is part of the Advocacy and Intervention Division. Victim Services is committed to offering resources and support to victims of crime and their families. The New Mexico Department of Justice recognizes the importance of victims’ rights and is committed to working proactively to ensure that those rights are upheld throughout the criminal legal process.
Government office offering resources for legal rights and public protection in New Mexico.
Victim services/resources
Violence, Human Trafficking, and Exploitation
NMCSAP and our partners empower and support New Mexicans in preventing, responding to, and healing from sexual violence with a data-driven, evidence-based, social justice response. This response emphasizes the incidence and prevalence of sexual violence, social determinants, health outcomes, protective factors, legal and programmatic intervention, treatment, collaboration, and primary prevention.
For victims of sexual violence ; includes toll-free numbers for all of New Mexico
Find housing and assistance for domestic violence and abuse survivors in New Mexico
Adult & Child Abuse
Report elder abuse/neglect/exploitation
Report suspected child abuse or neglect by calling #SAFE (#7233) from a cellphone or 1-855-333-SAFE.
Mental Health
The 988 Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals in the United States.
The Resettlement Programs Office works with federal, state, and local partners to assist families to build well-being and contribute to a stronger New Mexico. It provides federally funded services through regional resettlement networks. These networks provide a variety of coordinated services with a whole family approach for people under humanitarian protection who have been in the U.S. less than five years. Services within the Resettlement Network include Family Assisters, Family Coaches, Employment Services, Immigration Services, Community Orientation Workshops and Community Health Workers.
Family Assisters
Key functions of Family Assisters are getting immediate help and connecting to resources outside of the Resettlement Network. Examples of supportive services that they assist with are county assistance navigation, interpreting, reading mail, ESL enrollment, housing search, emergency assistance, childcare and elder care, Drivers Ed classes and other supportive services.
Phone: 303-922-3433
Phone: 505-724-4670
Phone: 505-986-9819