Disability Rights New Mexico (DRNM) has developed its proposed priorities for FY 2018-19.  This is a list of the issues that the agency plans to address and the kinds of individual cases it will accept this year.  To read the proposed priorities, click here.  For more information or to provide input, contact Bernadine Chavez at bchavez@drnm.org or 505-256-3100 or 1-800-432-4682 no later than August 31, 2018.

Disability Rights New Mexico (DRNM) is pleased to announce the hiring of Gary Housepian as our new Chief Executive Officer, as of April 2, 2018. Gary will succeed Jim Jackson, who is retiring as of March 31.  “We are very pleased that Gary will be leading DRNM,” said Jeanne Hamrick, DRNM Board President. “We are fortunate to have Gary, a committed leader with great vision and passion to serve the disability rights community, come to the Land of Enchantment.”  Click here for the full announcement.

In litigation filed recently in state district court in Santa Fe, Disability Rights New Mexico (DRNM) is seeking a court order requiring the Department of Health (DoH) to license boarding homes, which often serve persons with mental illness or other disabilities but are currently unregulated.  For decades, the state of New Mexico had licensing regulations and requirements in place for boarding homes, but several years ago DoH unilaterally scrapped them.  DRNM has obtained a temporary order and will seek to make the order permanent, in which case DoH would have to promptly establish and implement licensure requirements.  DRNM on-site visits, our death investigation a few years ago, numerous complaints we have received from residents and guardians, and a series of reports published in the Albuquerque Journal have all raised serious concerns about the conditions in many of these homes.