Unlocked: How NMCEH Centralized Landlord Engagement in Albuquerque — and Cut Housing Search Time Nearly in Half
Padmission’s Unlocked series documents what changes when a community builds a structured, coordinated approach to housing access. These are accounts of operational change — what the system looked like before, what was built, and what became possible when the structure held. This entry covers how centralized landlord engagement took shape in Albuquerque, New Mexico, through the work of the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness (NMCEH).
A Program That Didn’t Exist Before 2024
When NMCEH launched its Landlord Engagement Program (LEP) in August 2024, it was starting from zero. There was no dedicated landlord engagement function in Albuquerque’s homelessness response system before the LEP — no vetted network of housing providers, no shared platform for case managers, and no team positioned to bridge the gap between the 15 agencies administering Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) and Rapid Rehousing (RRH) vouchers and the landlords those agencies needed to reach.
Before the LEP, agencies defaulted to public listing platforms like Zillow and Trulia. There was no way to know whether a listed landlord accepted housing vouchers, and no shared inventory of vetted housing options across the system. Agencies operated on personal contact lists and informal relationships — which meant the system’s reach was only as wide as any individual case manager’s existing network.
Clients navigating background checks, prior evictions, or other barriers were largely confined to wherever existing landlord relationships already existed in the city. The problem wasn’t concentrated in one place — it was distributed across every part of the system.
Building the Program with Connect from Day One
NMCEH launched the LEP with Padmission Connect integrated from the start. Because the program was still building its operational framework at launch, the team could design its structure around Connect rather than retrofitting the platform to an existing workflow. Tenisha Erni, NMCEH’s Lead Landlord Liaison, oversees the program alongside two additional liaisons, Juan Olave and Kendel Thrush. More than 100 case managers, housing specialists, and partner staff now operate within the Connect network.
The platform also addressed a trust problem that predated the LEP. On public listing sites, there was no way to verify whether a landlord actually worked with voucher holders, or what experience agencies would have if they brought clients to that landlord. Connect operates as a closed network: only agencies and vetted landlords participate. Every landlord in Albuquerque’s system has been reviewed by the LEP team before being listed.
“As a private platform exclusive to case managers and landlords, agencies have expressed being more comfortable with the housing search process as all landlords accessing Connect have been vetted by the LEP team. Connect serves as a one-stop shop for housing and has helped to streamline the process of locating housing for agencies.”
— Tenisha Erni, Lead Landlord Liaison, New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness
How Housing Search Changed for Case Managers and Clients
Before Connect, clients were often handed a list of landlords and expected to make contact on their own — a process that created compounding barriers. Not all clients had consistent phone access. Transportation was limited. And many landlords were more responsive to case managers than to voucher holders reaching out directly.
Connect shifted those dynamics. Case managers now take an active role in the housing search workflows — identifying units that match a client’s specific needs, neighborhood preferences, and voucher parameters. The platform enables case managers and landlords to develop working relationships through shared activity within a closed system, rather than starting each placement from scratch.
The platform also surfaces real-time inventory data: rent fluctuations across the market, available unit sizes, and gaps by neighborhood. For a coordinating body working across 15 agencies, that visibility is operationally significant. Capacity decisions and outreach prioritization can be informed by what the system actually shows rather than what any single agency reports.
From Gatekeepers to Partners: A Shift in How Landlords Are Understood
One of the more significant shifts for Erni has been in how she thinks about landlords. When the LEP launched, she held a view she now describes as common in the field — that landlords were primarily self-interested, and were effectively gatekeeping access to housing. Sustained engagement changed that framing. This kind of shift reflects a broader challenge visible across homelessness response systems: when landlord relationships are built person-by-person without a shared structure, the system can’t accumulate the trust that makes engagement sustainable.
“I have found that most landlords want to obviously be successful in their business, but also greatly care about the community. They are allies, and I recognize the fact that it can be very challenging being a landlord.”
— Tenisha Erni, Lead Landlord Liaison, New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness
The perception shift runs both ways. Landlords in Albuquerque have experienced the program as a genuine collaboration — with a dedicated team available to support tenancy, a vetted network of agencies they recognize, and a platform that doesn’t require them to field inquiries from unknown callers.
With Connect, I have found that many landlords are willing to be more flexible than they have been in the past. I think landlords view us more as partners and consider what we are doing with Connect as a collaboration.”
— Tenisha Erni, Lead Landlord Liaison, New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness
What the Data Shows
The outcomes in Albuquerque are measurable. According to HMIS data, the average time it takes for clients to locate housing has decreased from 90 days to 46 days since the LEP and Connect came online — a reduction of more than 48 percent.
According to HMIS data, the time it takes for clients to locate housing has decreased from 90 days to 46 days on average.”
— Tenisha Erni, Lead Landlord Liaison, New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness
Geographic access has also expanded significantly. Previously, available landlord relationships were concentrated in specific areas of the city, limiting where clients could realistically search. Through sustained outreach by the LEP team, the vetted landlord network now includes willing partners in all four quadrants of Albuquerque. What had been a geography-limited housing search has become citywide.
For clients who previously had one viable part of the city available to them — because that was where voucher-accepting landlords were concentrated — the expansion matters for more than speed. It matters for stability. Research consistently shows that housing choice improves long-term housing retention. Connect offers tenant choice in a way that the prior system did not.
One Placement, in Practice
One exchange captures what the system looks like when it works as designed. An independent landlord with several Albuquerque properties reached out to Erni, frustrated that a complex in a less sought-after part of the city wasn’t filling. He was weighing whether to sell.
Erni gathered information about the property, collected photos, and listed the complex on Connect. Within a couple of weeks, two of the units had been rented to families experiencing homelessness.
The landlord remained in the network. His properties are now accessible to all 100-plus case managers across the system. And two families who needed housing found it — in a part of the city that, under the prior model, might not have been on any client’s list at all.
Building Something Sustainable
When asked what she’d tell another organization considering Connect, Erni is direct about both the opportunity and the investment required.
“I think the more you put into Padmission Connect, the more you will get out of it.”
— Tenisha Erni, Lead Landlord Liaison, New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness
Building a vetted landlord database, conducting outreach, and keeping listings current takes dedicated staff capacity. The LEP team of three handles this alongside the ongoing work of supporting landlords, managing relationships, and responding to inquiries across 15 partner agencies. Organizations need to account for that before launching a program. But the result — a coordinated housing access model serving more than 100 case managers and housing workers across a major city — is something that didn’t exist in New Mexico before August 2024.
What Changes When the Structure Holds
NMCEH’s model illustrates what happens operationally when landlord engagement moves from personal contacts and agency silos to a shared, vetted system: the housing search becomes more coordinated, landlords become recognized participants rather than unknown contacts, and the geographic constraints that define where clients can realistically look begin to expand. Explore how similar programs have operated across other communities, or learn more about the operational design behind coordinated landlord engagement systems.
About the Author:
Daniel Davis
Related Posts
Unlocked: How NMCEH Centralized Landlord Engagement in Albuquerque — and Cut Housing Search Time Nearly in Half
Padmission’s Unlocked series documents what changes when a community builds a structured, coordinated approach to housing access. These are accounts of operational change — what the system looked like before, what was built, and what became possible when the structure held. This entry covers how centralized landlord engagement took shape in Albuquerque, New Mexico, through the work of the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness (NMCEH).
A Program That Didn’t Exist Before 2024
When NMCEH launched its Landlord Engagement Program (LEP) in August 2024, it was starting from zero. There was no dedicated landlord engagement function in Albuquerque’s homelessness response system before the LEP — no vetted network of housing providers, no shared platform for case managers, and no team positioned to bridge the gap between the 15 agencies administering Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) and Rapid Rehousing (RRH) vouchers and the landlords those agencies needed to reach.
Before the LEP, agencies defaulted to public listing platforms like Zillow and Trulia. There was no way to know whether a listed landlord accepted housing vouchers, and no shared inventory of vetted housing options across the system. Agencies operated on personal contact lists and informal relationships — which meant the system’s reach was only as wide as any individual case manager’s existing network.
Clients navigating background checks, prior evictions, or other barriers were largely confined to wherever existing landlord relationships already existed in the city. The problem wasn’t concentrated in one place — it was distributed across every part of the system.
Building the Program with Connect from Day One
NMCEH launched the LEP with Padmission Connect integrated from the start. Because the program was still building its operational framework at launch, the team could design its structure around Connect rather than retrofitting the platform to an existing workflow. Tenisha Erni, NMCEH’s Lead Landlord Liaison, oversees the program alongside two additional liaisons, Juan Olave and Kendel Thrush. More than 100 case managers, housing specialists, and partner staff now operate within the Connect network.
The platform also addressed a trust problem that predated the LEP. On public listing sites, there was no way to verify whether a landlord actually worked with voucher holders, or what experience agencies would have if they brought clients to that landlord. Connect operates as a closed network: only agencies and vetted landlords participate. Every landlord in Albuquerque’s system has been reviewed by the LEP team before being listed.
“As a private platform exclusive to case managers and landlords, agencies have expressed being more comfortable with the housing search process as all landlords accessing Connect have been vetted by the LEP team. Connect serves as a one-stop shop for housing and has helped to streamline the process of locating housing for agencies.”
— Tenisha Erni, Lead Landlord Liaison, New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness
How Housing Search Changed for Case Managers and Clients
Before Connect, clients were often handed a list of landlords and expected to make contact on their own — a process that created compounding barriers. Not all clients had consistent phone access. Transportation was limited. And many landlords were more responsive to case managers than to voucher holders reaching out directly.
Connect shifted those dynamics. Case managers now take an active role in the housing search workflows — identifying units that match a client’s specific needs, neighborhood preferences, and voucher parameters. The platform enables case managers and landlords to develop working relationships through shared activity within a closed system, rather than starting each placement from scratch.
The platform also surfaces real-time inventory data: rent fluctuations across the market, available unit sizes, and gaps by neighborhood. For a coordinating body working across 15 agencies, that visibility is operationally significant. Capacity decisions and outreach prioritization can be informed by what the system actually shows rather than what any single agency reports.
From Gatekeepers to Partners: A Shift in How Landlords Are Understood
One of the more significant shifts for Erni has been in how she thinks about landlords. When the LEP launched, she held a view she now describes as common in the field — that landlords were primarily self-interested, and were effectively gatekeeping access to housing. Sustained engagement changed that framing. This kind of shift reflects a broader challenge visible across homelessness response systems: when landlord relationships are built person-by-person without a shared structure, the system can’t accumulate the trust that makes engagement sustainable.
“I have found that most landlords want to obviously be successful in their business, but also greatly care about the community. They are allies, and I recognize the fact that it can be very challenging being a landlord.”
— Tenisha Erni, Lead Landlord Liaison, New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness
The perception shift runs both ways. Landlords in Albuquerque have experienced the program as a genuine collaboration — with a dedicated team available to support tenancy, a vetted network of agencies they recognize, and a platform that doesn’t require them to field inquiries from unknown callers.
With Connect, I have found that many landlords are willing to be more flexible than they have been in the past. I think landlords view us more as partners and consider what we are doing with Connect as a collaboration.”
— Tenisha Erni, Lead Landlord Liaison, New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness
What the Data Shows
The outcomes in Albuquerque are measurable. According to HMIS data, the average time it takes for clients to locate housing has decreased from 90 days to 46 days since the LEP and Connect came online — a reduction of more than 48 percent.
According to HMIS data, the time it takes for clients to locate housing has decreased from 90 days to 46 days on average.”
— Tenisha Erni, Lead Landlord Liaison, New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness
Geographic access has also expanded significantly. Previously, available landlord relationships were concentrated in specific areas of the city, limiting where clients could realistically search. Through sustained outreach by the LEP team, the vetted landlord network now includes willing partners in all four quadrants of Albuquerque. What had been a geography-limited housing search has become citywide.
For clients who previously had one viable part of the city available to them — because that was where voucher-accepting landlords were concentrated — the expansion matters for more than speed. It matters for stability. Research consistently shows that housing choice improves long-term housing retention. Connect offers tenant choice in a way that the prior system did not.
One Placement, in Practice
One exchange captures what the system looks like when it works as designed. An independent landlord with several Albuquerque properties reached out to Erni, frustrated that a complex in a less sought-after part of the city wasn’t filling. He was weighing whether to sell.
Erni gathered information about the property, collected photos, and listed the complex on Connect. Within a couple of weeks, two of the units had been rented to families experiencing homelessness.
The landlord remained in the network. His properties are now accessible to all 100-plus case managers across the system. And two families who needed housing found it — in a part of the city that, under the prior model, might not have been on any client’s list at all.
Building Something Sustainable
When asked what she’d tell another organization considering Connect, Erni is direct about both the opportunity and the investment required.
“I think the more you put into Padmission Connect, the more you will get out of it.”
— Tenisha Erni, Lead Landlord Liaison, New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness
Building a vetted landlord database, conducting outreach, and keeping listings current takes dedicated staff capacity. The LEP team of three handles this alongside the ongoing work of supporting landlords, managing relationships, and responding to inquiries across 15 partner agencies. Organizations need to account for that before launching a program. But the result — a coordinated housing access model serving more than 100 case managers and housing workers across a major city — is something that didn’t exist in New Mexico before August 2024.
What Changes When the Structure Holds
NMCEH’s model illustrates what happens operationally when landlord engagement moves from personal contacts and agency silos to a shared, vetted system: the housing search becomes more coordinated, landlords become recognized participants rather than unknown contacts, and the geographic constraints that define where clients can realistically look begin to expand. Explore how similar programs have operated across other communities, or learn more about the operational design behind coordinated landlord engagement systems.
About the Author:
Daniel Davis