Preserve New Mexico Conference Wrap-up
Images above: HSFF’s Giulia Caporuscio, Chris Wilson lecture, Emily Wilson of Taylor-Mesilla Historic Site, Chris Cody of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Slide from Pat Taylor’s presentation, Slide from Bethany Moore’s presentation, Michelle Ensey, SHPO, Elmo Baca lecture, and Monica Bencomo and Aastha Singh of Homewise, Inc.Historic Santa Fe Foundation was honored to be a sponsor of the revived Preserve New Mexico Conference coordinated by Cornerstones Community Partnerships and New Mexico’s State Historic Preservation Office.
Some presentation’s slideshows and all abstracts are on the Preserve New Mexico website: https://www.preservenewmexico.com/presentation-powerpoints-1
HSFF’s Historian Giulia Caporuscio spoke about the Endangerd Properties Program:
In 2023, the Santa Fe-based nonprofit Historic Santa Fe Foundation (HSFF) partnered with Santa Fe Habitat for Humanity to combine Habitat’s repairs program with HSFF’s knowledge of historic preservation standards, techniques, and practices to serve our community with historic home repairs. Historic preservation and its connection to affordable housing is a topic that Historic Santa Fe Foundation has explored for over forty years. This exploration prompted the establishment of the Endangered Properties Program, which set out to help people stay in their homes by providing free repairs to low income households. With the assistance of a Certified Local Government Grant from the City of Santa Fe, HSFF explored the program and found that it had many limitations and difficulties. This case study provides insight into our program’s future and could provide valuable information towards the establishment of a comparable program by other organizations. This presentation will give a brief history of HSFF followed by information on this program presenting the difficulties of finding projects, struggles from funder restrictions, homeowner hesitations, and identifying houses in Santa Fe. We will also share perspectives from the oral histories from this program on how Santa Fe has changed and how a program may prove successful.
