Submitted
Cicero native and Hamilton Heights graduate Nicholas Gilmore won first place in investigative reporting at the New Mexico Press Association awards on Oct. 28.
Gilmore is a reporter at the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper, covering public safety and utilities. He won the award for a recent months-long investigative series about two low-income apartment complexes in nearby Española, N.M., one of which was slated for closure after lax oversight from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s housing program.
Local housing advocates credited Gilmore’s reporting for helping to shine a spotlight on substandard housing conditions experienced by some of the community’s poorest residents who receive assistance from the USDA’s Rural Development housing program, including the elderly, disabled and military veterans. He also helped to spur the federal agency to take action to halt an out-of-state landlord’s attempt to evict dozens of tenants with less than one month’s notice.
Gilmore also contributed to a recent series in The New Mexican about local and state governments’ noncompliance with public records laws, which won a Sunshine Award. He covers housing issues, crime, local government and gas and electric utilities for the daily Santa Fe paper.