TUCUMCARI — The painted-white building with colorful trimmings in the heart of Tucumcari was first a church. Then it was an office.
Soon, it will become the small town’s newest childcare center.
Using a low-interest loan from the state, Michelle Chavez, the owner of one of the only such facilities in the Eastern New Mexico community, plans to open a second location this year. The move, years in the making, will allow dozens more children to access childcare in an area that has long struggled to provide enough.
“It is the light at the end of the tunnel,” Chavez said.
“It will definitely help the community,” she added, “but we still need more.”
Faced with an ongoing struggle to build enough capacity to fulfill an ambitious promise by New Mexico lawmakers and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham for free, universal childcare, the state has turned to a new strategy in recent months: issuing low-interest loans to providers so they can construct facilities to take in more children.
Though the approach will by no means singlehandedly solve the state’s capacity problems, providers and state officials have lauded the program, arguing it takes a measured, incremental approach to creating a universal childcare system.
“We’re changing some of the game in New Mexico,” said Hailey Heinz, director of the Early Childhood Education and Care Department’s Policy, Research and Quality Initiatives Division. “… Historically, childcare businesses have struggled to access capital, and so this is sort of a way of making that capital accessible, because we know we need to build supply.”
Loans from New Mexico’s Child Care Facility Revolving Loan Fund, which Heinz said started out with about $12 million and has already been tapped, can range from $100,000 to $2.5 million. Interest rates are fixed at 2% per year.
Lawmakers initially approved the program in 2003, but expanded it last year to allow providers to use the loans to build new facilities or add on to old ones.
Since then, nine providers have gotten the green light for $10.4 million worth of loans from the state, with three more in the pipeline, according to data provided by the early childhood department. Funding for the approved projects is less than a tenth of the amount requested for proposals so far, officials said.
Nathan Burton/The New Mexican
The average of the nine loans is roughly $1.2 million, and the state projects 914 additional children will receive childcare at facilities that benefited from the program.
‘More flexibility’
Against a statewide shortfall of more than 15,700 childcare slots, according to a study published by the early childhood department in June 2025, the new capacity brought by the loans so far is a drop in the bucket.
But providers say the funding has provided a lifeline to corners of the state that otherwise might never be able to expand their childcare capacity.
In Clovis, where Sindi Davis owns and works at a early childhood center called Future Generations, hundreds of children are currently without childcare. Davis’ facility has enough room for 171 children, but she can’t take in any more, and the center has a long waitlist.
According to the supply and demand report, Curry County had a shortfall of 548 slots.
Davis was approved by the state earlier this year for an $882,000 loan, which will allow her to construct a new building with four additional classrooms and a commercial kitchen. The expansion will open 60 new slots for children to receive care.
“This just gives us a lot more flexibility to try to take care of the community,” she said.
Ashleigh Tackitt, director of Future Generations, said the state’s strategy of increasing its physical capacity for childcare in incremental fashion was prudent. She noted increasing a center’s capacity does not just mean expanding its square footage; it also involves other considerations, like hiring and training new staff, to ensure New Mexico is investing in quality services.
“ECECD is not just about providing childcare, it’s about providing good, quality childcare,” she said. “And I think in order to be [a] good steward for the money, you can’t just throw money out there.”
Though the new facilities constructed with state loans will provide much-needed capacity increases, the help will come slowly.
Timelines for when new facilities will be ready vary wildly. Many providers had not received their checks as of mid-April.
Heinz noted the state is largely still in the process of underwriting the loans.
Barbara Tedrow, who plans to open a childcare center in Los Lunas that would serve 176 children, expected to break ground before the start of summer and to finish construction by January 2027. However, she had not yet closed on her loan as of early April.
Yadira Armendariz, who also was waiting for her check from the state to come through, is planning to add several classrooms to an existing facility in southwestern Albuquerque.
She had hoped she could build her new facilities within 10 months; though, she noted construction could take up to 18.
‘Childcare deserts’
The early childhood department received many more applications than it had money to give out — in all, the project proposals added up to $116 million, Heinz said.
To narrow the field of applications, the department had to prioritize providers suggesting projects in areas of New Mexico in which demand for services outpaces the supply of available seats, also known as “childcare deserts.”
However, in New Mexico, almost everywhere is a childcare desert, especially when considering seats for the state’s youngest children.
Nathan Burton/The New Mexican
The June study found about two-thirds of New Mexico’s 33 counties had a shortfall of childcare slots for all children under 6. Some, including Santa Fe County, had shortfalls of more than 1,000 slots, while Bernalillo and Lea counties had shortfalls of 4,894 and 2,803, respectively.
Meanwhile, a staggering 30 counties did not have enough slots for infants and toddlers, the study found. Santa Fe County again had among the highest needs of all New Mexico, falling 1,010 slots short, while Bernalillo County lacked 3,651 seats.
With such widespread capacity issues, Heinz said the state was forced to be selective in its decisions over which providers received the loans, and considered the intensity of the need of specific areas among its criteria.
“Everywhere has a shortfall, but not everywhere has the same severity of shortfall,” Heinz said. “… And so that was considered as we were doing this work.”