1. What are the details of the governor’s housing bill?
A: If passed, $200 million in state general funds would go into a new account for affordable housing projects. The Nevada Housing Division will contribute another $50 million to support loans.
The bill would also allow out-of-state housing contractors to work on projects in rural areas, which Nevada law currently prohibits. This would address housing shortages in rural areas.
It would expand eligibility for affordable housing projects to not just the poorest Nevadans, but people making to 150 percent of an area’s median household income. That would amount to up to a household income of $106,000.
That’s less affordable than such major metros as Denver, Phoenix and Tampa Bay.
Las Vegas’ median home price was about $440,000 last month, which is about $3,000 monthly payment with taxes and insurance. The median household income in the valley is $77,943, which means the average resident has to spend 46% of their monthly income on their housing payment.
It’s unaffordable.
2.What are the cities of Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas spending on homeless services?
In the last two fiscal years, the cities spent a collective $39 million on everything from providing housing units to support services like homeless outreach and providing medical, and employment services, bus tickets, rent and utility assistance, and street level help in downtown Las Vegas.
FY 2023 and 2024 City of Las Vegas homeless services spending: $17.2M $18.6M = $35.8M
FY 2023 and 2024 City of Henderson $1.8 million
FY 2023 and 2024 City of North Las Vegas $853,000
Henderson said their $1.8 million doesn’t include prevention activities for vulnerable and low-income populations, things like rental and utility assistance. These activities keep people housed. In those last two years, they spent over $4 million on preservation and prevention activities.
Every year a count of homeless people is done at the end of January — this year’s in Clark County isn’t public yet but last year it was 7,900 people — that’s a 20% increase in one year, a 56% increase over three years.
3. You talked about Las Vegas being more expensive than Denver, Phoenix and Tampa Bay. Are other cities struggling as much with housing affordability and homelessness?
A: The median home sale price is the U.S in Feb was $425,000 — its $15,000 more in the Las Vegas metropolitan area.
Nationally the unemployment rate is 4% compared to 6% in Las Vegas.
Homelessness has increased around the country. Most major cities do these point-in-time homeless counts in January, so we can see the numbers every year.
The major cause is the affordable housing crisis —an increase in rents, fewer units available, stagnating wages, then you have things like natural disasters that can displace people, you also have lots of immigration, so more people coming in, and other factors.
In Clark County, a landlord only needs to give a tenant seven day’s notice before evicting them, even if they have an application pending for housing assistance.
Alexandria, Va has an anti-eviction task force that involves everyone from who decides about individual eviction cases (courts) to who evicts (sheriffs) to who supports residents (legal or nutrition services). And while it is not targeted at people who are already unhoused, the task force coordinates its work with local homeless-services officials—and has managed to find partners well outside the anti-homelessness orbit, like law-enforcement.