By Lily Alexander
The Santa Fe New Mexican
RIO RANCHO, N.M. — As Santa Fe police Officer Patrick Pinson’s family started to grow, they decided to move from their home in rural Pecos.
They wanted to live closer to culture and amenities.
They began house-hunting in Santa Fe in 2017 — after Pinson had been with the city police department for several years — but quickly realized buying property in the City Different was not feasible. Like many other locals, they were priced out of the market.
Instead, Pinson would become one of many Northern New Mexico law enforcement officers who live in Rio Rancho or surrounding Sandoval County but continue to work at an agency elsewhere. Data shows the numbers of Rio Rancho residents working at some agencies — including those in the city and county of Santa Fe — outpace the number who live in the city or county that employs them.
The trend isn’t new — even former Santa Fe police Chief Andrew Padilla, who served in the role from 2018 to late 2021, told The New Mexican he had moved to Rio Rancho midway through his tenure as chief.
But as housing costs have risen in Santa Fe, local governments face increasing challenges convincing officers to live where they work, which often is perceived as a deterrent to crime and a way for an officer to better connect with the community they police.
All about affordability
When Pinson was seeking housing in Santa Fe, the costs were $250 to $300 per square foot, he said. That compares with about $120 in Rio Rancho. Buying a home in Santa Fe would have meant remaining in a space too small for a growing family.
“The biggest houses we could afford were pretty much the exact same thing we were living in before — around 900 to 1,000 square feet,” Pinson said.
Rio Rancho — often referred to as New Mexico’s fastest-growing city, with a population of 112,524 — is roughly 50 miles from Santa Fe. Every weekday morning, commuters descend in droves along the stretch of northbound Interstate 25 between the two cities. Among them are many law enforcement officers.
“Just within about 100 yards of my house, there’s three state police officers, myself and there’s some Santa Fe County, there’s quite a few Bernalillo County,” Pinson said. “So, I mean, there’s a really high concentration of law enforcement in Rio Rancho due to the affordability.”
Of the Santa Fe Police Department’s 159 officers — from cadet to chief — only 39 live in Santa Fe city limits, while 22 live in Santa Fe County, data from the agency shows. Meanwhile, 49 city officers live in Sandoval County, where Rio Rancho is the largest and most populous city.
The other 49 officers are spread across Bernalillo, Rio Arriba, San Miguel and Los Alamos counties.
The local-to- Rio Rancho ratio is similar at the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office. Of the agency’s 90 sworn employees, 28 live in Rio Rancho and 26 live in Santa Fe — with a handful living in Glorieta, Madrid and Edgewood, data shows. The rest live in other surrounding counties.
Safety in ‘City of Vision’
Pinson cited a low crime rate in Rio Rancho as another reason fellow officers might opt live in the City of Vision rather than the City Different. Rio Rancho was ranked the fifth-safest city in New Mexico this year by SafeWise, a safety and home security research organization.
It falls just below Anthony at No. 1 and Los Alamos at No. 2, followed by Corrales and Sunland Park.
Newly elected Rio Rancho Mayor Paul Wymer — who stepped into his role this month, succeeding former mayor and Republican gubernatorial candidate Gregg Hull — also believes the presence of a large number of law enforcement officers helps keep the crime rate down.
He regularly sees cars from out-of-town agencies throughout the city, he said.
“I think it’s the safest community in the state,” Wymer said. “I’ve heard that directly from police officers, where they say, ‘Well, you know what? I’m living in Rio Rancho because Rio Rancho is safe, and when I go to work, whether it’s in Rio Rancho or it’s to APD or Albuquerque or to Bernalillo County, I want to know my family is safe.’ ”
He added, “I don’t see it at all as a problem. In fact, from a Rio Rancho standpoint, I see it as an asset.”
Wymer said police cars parked in a neighborhood, regardless which agency they’re associated with, creates a feeling of protection for residents — and could dissuade people from committing a crime.
Pinson, however, feels differently about patrol cars serving as a crime deterrent.
“I’ve had a police unit in front of my house for quite a few years, and I’ve seen a lot of crime happen on my street and around my street,” he said. “I think crime just kind of goes wherever it wants. People don’t really take into account whether there’s a law enforcement vehicle in front of a house or not.”
His experience was similar when he lived in Pecos, Pinson added.
Reports also debate whether a visible police presence is actually a crime deterrent.
Still, many agencies across the U.S. allow officers to take home their cars specifically with visibility in mind.
In 2018, the Albuquerque Police Department relaxed its take-home vehicle policy in a move spokesperson Gilbert Gallegos called an “innovative way to fight crime,” KRQE-TV reported at the time.
Albuquerque is often cited as having one of the highest violent crime rates in New Mexico.
About a fifth of Albuquerque’s classified, sworn officers live in Rio Rancho, according to data the agency provided to The New Mexican. It shows 64% live in Albuquerque, and the rest live in Los Lunas, Belen, Bosque Farms, Tijeras, Edgewood and Corrales.
Those statistics do not include commanders and officers of higher ranks.
Enduring the commute
Though Rio Rancho is generally considered safe, getting to Rio Rancho from Santa Fe can be a different matter.
Pinson doesn’t mind his morning and afternoon commutes, he said. He gets in the right lane, sets his cruise control to 75 mph, he noted, and takes the time to wind up or down for the day.
Though, he acknowledged when crashes occur on I-25 and lanes close, it can take him up to two hours to get home, which is “kind of frustrating.”
Commuters have long sounded the alarm about crashes and dangerous driving on I-25 between Albuquerque and Santa Fe . That stretch has at times seen around 400 crashes per year, The New Mexican reported in 2023.
Last year, a man died in a crash with an off-duty Santa Fe police officer who was driving home on I-25 near Bernalillo. The man was driving the wrong way on the interstate, and police deemed alcohol a contributing factor in the crash, The New Mexican reported at the time. The officer was treated for injuries that were not life-threatening.
Bringing officers back?
Wymer touted the economic benefits for his city of law enforcement officers coming home to Rio Rancho from other communities.
“I think the more people that reside in Rio Rancho, the more likelihood that those same people will shop in Rio Rancho or shop via the internet, which also results in gross receipts tax that come to Rio Rancho,” Wymer said.
But for the city of Santa Fe, officers living elsewhere are a missed economic opportunity — and a missed opportunity for community members to engage with them outside their working hours and crime responses.
“I want folks being engaged with our police and fire on a daily basis to where they are confident and comfortable and know that these first responders are going to help and keep everybody safe,” Santa Fe Mayor Michael Garcia said.
“So, just being a part of the fabric of the community — whether it’s just being visible in the community or participating in volunteer activities such as coaching sports teams or helping being mentors in the community,” he added.
One of Garcia’s priorities for the city, he said, is to provide “appropriate incentives” that encourage officers to reside in Santa Fe, where a housing supply and affordability crisis has loomed for years.
Garcia wants to provide an equitable financial benefit to officers who opt to live in the City Different, he said, but he also doesn’t want to penalize those who don’t choose to live there.
The city’s current incentive allowing officers who live within a 60-mile radius of Santa Fe to drive their patrol cars home “has a financial cost to the city,” Garcia said. He’s looking into other options for the next fiscal year.
Such an initiative is not included in the spending plan for fiscal year 2027, he noted.
“Part of the process is to kind of determine the value of that benefit — of somebody utilizing a city vehicle — and provide that in kind of a housing stipend for an officer and provide that for those folks who live in Santa Fe,” Garcia said.
He also plans to study a failed down payment assistance program the city tried to implement several years ago.
“It’s my priority to ensure that we are providing a robust set of options in regards to housing opportunities that will encourage our first responders and any other person who works in Santa Fe to reside here in Santa Fe,” Garcia said.
Pinson said he and his family are happy living in Rio Rancho and don’t plan to try to move back to Santa Fe.
Moving back, he said, would be “pretty much impossible” when he weighs his salary against the city’s high housing costs.
“We haven’t really considered it,” he said. “We’re very content where we’re at.”
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