Several Nevadans struggle to find affordable housing.

What's being done about it, plus the latest from the legislature.

That's this week on Nevada Week .

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week .

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

When compared to other states, why extremely low-income renters have it hardest in Nevada.

That is ahead, but first to the Nevada legislature where we find The Nevada Independent reporter Sean Golonka.

Sean, The Nevada Independent is reporting some big news regarding Major League Baseball's Oakland A's possibly moving to Las Vegas.

What do you know?

-Hi, Amber.

Thanks for having me.

Basically, what we've learned is the Oakland A's have reached an agreement with Red Rock Resorts to purchase nearly 50 acres of land around Tropicana and the I-15, just north of Allegiant Stadium.

-And that is for the purpose of building a baseball stadium.

What have you heard from the A's themselves?

-So we've heard the stadium would cost around $1 billion.

And there's some other aspects of development in that area that would bring the total cost to about 1.5 billion.

You know, it's already a pretty heavily congested area between T-Mobile Arena and Allegiant Stadium.

There's been some talk of a pedestrian land bridge.

And then the big kind of unknown right now is there's some kind of tax agreement that would have to be worked out in the legislature that we don't really have a lot of details on what that looks like at this point.

-It begs the question: How would this be funded, the $1.5 billion?

-Right.

So what we understand is the A's would be largely responsible for that financing.

You know, the Governor has been very clear in his opposition to raising taxes.

And I think generally, there's opposition to using public money to help finance the stadium.

But there could be things like transferable tax credits or reductions in the taxes that the A's pay to make it a little, you know, easier for them to come in and build that stadium without paying more in taxes.

-You gotta tell me what a transferable tax is.

-Basically, they're credits against the taxes that the business or organization would owe, reducing the amount that they owe in taxes.

But transferable tax credits are a pretty unique thing in that they can be sold to other companies.

For example, Tesla sold some of their tax credits to MGM after the big 2014 deal that they had.

-Okay, so what you're talking about in terms of financing, that is the bill that would have to go through the legislature, according to The Nevada Independent 's reporting?

-Right.

And as of Thursday morning, we don't have a lot of details on exactly what that looks like.

We're still working on finding that out.

And, you know, it's going to kind of proceed through the rest of the legislative session.

-What have you been able to find out in terms of who's supporting this up in Carson City?

-So it sounds like there's support from really the top leadership: from the Governor, from Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager.

Really at the very top.

And I don't think we know much beyond that, other than hearing that, you know, some lower ranking lawmakers have been briefed on the deal.

But in terms of overall support from the legislature, I think we're still working on seeing where that lies.

-And what do you know about the lobbying efforts of the Oakland A's?

-So back earlier in the session, the A's hired two pretty high profile lobbying firms.

I think they have somewhere in the range of 18 lobbyists registered with them.

So they really have a full court press lobbying effort going on up in Carson City to bring this deal home and really to get probably the best deal possible for them outside of Oakland to get that new stadium.

-How would that compare to some of the other lobbying groups?

How many lobbyists typically make up a group?

-Well, it really depends, I guess, depending on, you know, the size of the company and what lobbying firms they are contracting with.

But I would say it's a pretty sizable lobbying group to be representing just one company.

-All right.

Sean Golonka, thank you for helping us understand that breaking news.

According to the Review-Journal, they spoke with the A's president, and this would be breaking ground in 2024 on the stadium with an opening season in 2027.

That again, is according to the Review-Journal.

Let's now move on to the topic of our show, and that is housing.

There are a lot of bills within the Nevada legislature this session addressing housing.

What stands out to you from them?

-I think a couple of things that stand out to me.

One is rent control.

We saw basically a failed effort last year during the election in North Las Vegas to enact a local version of rent control, basically capping rent increases at a certain level.

I think we're all aware of how much rents have been increasing in Las Vegas in recent years.

And so there's really been a conversation about how do we limit those increases so that people can afford to stay in their homes.

And there's one bill, Senate Bill 426, that's backed by the Culinary Union.

That would be kind of a statewide cap on rent increases tied to the annual inflation rate, but overall limited at 10%.

-And there was another one, AB 298, caps rent increases at 10% for people 62 years and older and those with disabilities.

Among those two, which do you think has the best chance of passing?

-Yeah, the one that you just mentioned certainly has a better chance because it's a little bit more limited.

Earlier this year, we heard Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager express a little bit more support for providing that rent control for those more vulnerable populations rather than kind of a blanket rent control policy.

-And if it was to get to the Governor's desk, what has been his policy or his thoughts on rent control?

-You know, I think we're not super clear on that.

The Governor has largely avoided weighing in on pending legislation.

I think there's potentially a little bit more support there for local rent control.

There's another bill this session that basically would allow local governments to enact their own rent control ordinances.

And that got some support from legislative Republicans, so perhaps that would have a better chance of getting a signature from Governor Lombardo.

-Another bill meant to keep tenants in their homes is regarding summary evictions, AB 340.

What can you tell us about that and its progress?

-Right.

So it did make it through the first major deadline, first committee passage earlier this month.

Basically, the summary eviction process in Nevada is pretty nationally unique, where it requires an eviction, a tenant facing eviction, to initiate the court proceedings, rather than the landlord.

And this would basically overhaul the process to instead require the landlord initiate those proceedings and, you know, make it a little less onerous on the tenant.

-And this is something that has been in a past session.

Why are lawmakers pushing for it again?

How good are their odds of getting it through?

-I think we continue to see the push for this bill, because there are a lot of lawmakers concerned about the housing crisis in the state in Las Vegas and people, you know, facing eviction.

I think coming out of the pandemic and some of the rental assistance that we had then, there are a lot more people who are unable to afford their rents, and so they're now facing eviction.

And I think kind of with that trend, there might just be a change in perspective more widely in the legislature to be open to this policy.

-Sean Golonka, last thing: You are a tremendous follow on Twitter, and partly because you tweet out "Overheard in the Legislature," some of the funny and unique things you hear.

What's been your favorite so far?

-You know, I think one of my favorites was the very first one I started the thread with, where one of the legislative police officers referred to another one as "ghost rider."

You just get some funny out-of-context things with listening in on other conversations in the building.

So it's a lot of fun.

-Yeah, it is fun to follow you.

And thank you for joining us today.

-Thanks, Amber.

-The National Low-Income Housing Coalition defines extremely low-income renters as those with incomes at or below the federal poverty line or those earning 30% of their area median income, whichever is greater.

In Nevada, someone earning 30% of the area median income, or AMI, makes about $25,000 a year.

The coalition says Nevada has just 17 affordable and available homes per every 100 extremely low-income renters.

That's the fewest number of affordable and available homes per 100 extremely low-income renters in the whole country.

South Dakota has the most at 58 homes per 100 renters.

That data is from the coalition's annual gap report which shows Nevada is short nearly 84,000 rental homes for extremely low income renters.

That's up from the almost 80,000 homes needed the year before, but there are efforts to improve those numbers.

Recently Clark County, Ovation Development, and the Bureau of Land Management announced a partnership allowing a land transfer from the BLM to Ovation in order for an affordable apartment complex for seniors to be built on that land near Pebble Road and Eastern Avenue.

In addition to securing the land, the County will provide millions of dollars in funding to offset costs through its Welcome Home initiative.

(Michael Naft) It's been a year to the date that Clark County Commission, my colleagues, allocated $120 million for this problem to really help close the gap between public and private partnerships and really help projects just like this one here at Ovation Ensemble get up and running.

-Ahead, Maria Silva shares the story of a local couple who has benefited from similar affordable housing.

But right now we explore what else it will take to adequately address the housing needs of Nevada's most economically vulnerable.

And for that, we bring in Tim Veenstra, Chief Operation Officer at Nevada HAND; and Lewis Jordan, Executive Director of the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority.

Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us.

-Good morning.

-Thanks for having us.

-Land availability is an issue here in Nevada, with so much of it being controlled by the BLM.

That's one example, but let's talk about what else is out there for making more affordable housing from the nonprofit development perspective.

I'll start with you.

Where would you start to get this problem solved?

(Tim Veenstra) Yeah.

It starts, from our perspective, with construction.

So building more affordable housing is our primary goal in supporting the needs of low income residents from Southern Nevada.

So it's identifying the land, it's getting the zoning, it's getting the building permits, getting the design that meets the community standards, getting the financing together, building the building, and leasing it up.

Affordable housing isn't any sort of magic.

It's not any different than building a single family house or a market rate, luxury high-rise building.

It has all the same steps, and it's due to the support from the federal government or local jurisdictions to help lower the amount of debt that's needed to finance the construction.

So we really work very closely with our partners in Clark County, City of Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas, to make the financing more affordable.

And that allows us to keep the rents at a more affordable level, 500- to $1,000 in rent instead of 2,000 and up.

-Lewis, from the government housing perspective, same question: Where do you start?

(Lewis Jordan) One of the things I'd like to add to what Tim says is that in bringing down that debt, we have a tool called the Project-Based Section 8.

And we partner with developers to go into long-term contracts to keep affordability down.

So supporting new development, as well as preservation.

You know, if you look at affordable housing or the public housing in our community, as around the country, it's very, very old stock.

And so the federal government has tools that will allow us to put debt on those properties and update them, if you will.

So those are a couple of things.

I think another thing that's really important is we talk about our Section 8 vouchers, the ability to partner with landlords in the community so that it gives tenants an opportunity to have choice where they live.

So it's a holistic approach.

It's not just a "one size fit all."

-Of where you would start.

-Where we would start, as well as a strong collaboration in partnership with developers, with landlords, with federal and local government.

-Which we will explore, but why isn't this happening now?

Tim?

-Yeah.

I think in Southern Nevada, we just have a lower amount of vouchers and rental assistance here locally than is available nationally.

I think there's a misconception.

Some people think public housing and vouchers, people don't pay rent at all or there's-- it's a free pass.

That's not the way it works at all.

So while what I will call an "affordable rental unit," our normal product at Nevada HAND, is anywhere from about 500- to $1,000, if you only have $1,000 in income from Social Security, it's not possible to pay $1,000 in rent, right?

It's not really possible pay $500 in rent.

The voucher comes in and makes that affordable to be $300.

And then the Housing Authority comes in and pays landlords, like Nevada HAND, that difference.

And so because we have so few federally subsidized rental assistance units here in Southern Nevada, that's why we have so many of our extremely low-income people paying such a high percent of their income towards rent.

-How many vouchers are available here in Southern Nevada?

-Here in Southern Nevada, we have 12,500.

-Is that Southern Nevada, or Nevada in total?

-That's Southern Nevada.

That's where the region, where the North Las Vegas, Henderson, and in Las Vegas, about 10 years ago came together and formed-- in Clark County, obviously-- formed the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Agency.

And we're given roughly 12,500 vouchers.

Now, keep in mind, 20 years ago we had about 400,000 people in the region.

Now we're somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.3 million.

We're working feverishly with HUD to convince them, which is our funding source, that as we've seen this exponential growth, the amount of federal subsidy has not kept up with it.

We recently opened up our Section 8 waitlist.

We got 27,000 applicants in a matter of 30 days.

We'll take 10,000 of those and put them on a waitlist so that we can try and provide housing.

Now, some will say, Well, if you got 27,000, will you have enough vouchers to meet those needs?

The answer is absolutely not.

-What would you say in regards to that aspect?

Why?

Why is the federal government not providing enough, and how much are they providing other states and areas?

-Yeah.

It goes back to the way vouchers are allocated to the Housing Authorities.

Housing Authorities get an allocation based on how many they used the year before and based on the year before that and the year before that.

And so they really haven't adjusted the formula based on population.

So the other resources available to build affordable housing--the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, the HOME program, the other sources of funds that we use to construct housing--are based on population.

The rental assistance program is based on whatever it was in 1980 and then carried forward today.

And we're clearly a different region, a different state, than we were in the '80s, and we have a bigger population.

And so we need to get our fair share in Nevada, like other states are getting in rental assistance to help with the lowest income.

-Do we have an example?

-Well, as Tim talks about utilization, you know, again, in order to-- One of the factors in asking for more is using what you have.

And that's why it's important that we partner with landlords and make sure that rental units are available.

The Housing Authority is in the midst of kicking off something we're calling the Landlord Partnership Program, where we're going to give landlords cash incentives, new landlords, to bring on or make available units for our Section 8 clients.

And existing landlords, if they will add to their stock, we'll do things like, you know, if a landlord will hold a unit vacant so we can get a Section 8 voucher holder in, we'll do things like that.

But really developing a strong, a stronger business relationship with our landlord community as a means of addressing this problem.

It's a daunting issue.

And I know, for example, the federal budget gave us a little more money this year.

Is it enough?

It's rare that we get what we ask for.

And I say "we," meaning all Housing Authorities.

But the efforts are being shown, but there's two things we have to do: We have to produce more units, and we have to preserve those units we have.

And we need those partnerships and collaborations to support those residents.

-And bring on more units from landlords that are already out there.

-Absolutely.

-As far as development, how do you attract developers to build affordable housing in Nevada?

-Yeah, it's-- It's really about the finances, right?

So it has to make financial sense.

So going out to borrow $100 million to build 400 or 500 units of affordable housing and only be able to charge 700 or $1,000 in rent, it's not going to be financially feasible, because all of that rent is going to go to pay that mortgage, and there won't be any money to pay for the staff.

So it's about building a financing plan that makes sense.

I really appreciate what Lewis was saying before about-- hearing the Housing Authority say, We want to build a business relationship.

You don't usually hear that from a Housing Authority always saying, thinking about business.

The Housing Authority, it's great that they're thinking about what does it take for a landlord to come into the program.

We have over 10% of our portfolio at Nevada HAND with a voucher on them.

So thinking about what does the landlord need, not just what the tenant needs, but also what the landlord needs, because the Housing Authority is bringing those two pieces together.

From a construction side, it's working with the local jurisdictions, the federal government to come in with that construction capital, and building that overall package.

And the local community, in terms of zoning, how to build in a way that integrates the community and makes the community stronger as a whole-- -And let's let Lewis talk about that real quick, because we are running out of time.

-Okay.

-You talked about bringing together community partners.

How do you do that?

-Well, you know, it has to be a intentional effort.

You know, when we're talking about housing, and let's be clear, it's not just housing.

People need health care.

People need jobs.

People need education opportunities.

I think that holistic approach allows us to, to look at poverty from the perspective of how do we cut it off and how do we create better for the next generation.

Case in point, I mentioned we had 27,000 applicants.

We ask two questions in addition to housing needs: Would you like a job opportunity here at the Housing Authority, and would you like training?

And we'll use that collaboration with our partners to see how we can create opportunities for those individuals.

-Gentlemen, we have run out of time, but thank you so much for joining us.

-Thank you for having us.

-Thank you.

-Earlier we told you about the new affordable apartment complex for seniors being built near Pebble Road and Eastern Avenue.

County officials requested the 5-acre parcel from the BLM as part of the County's Welcome Home initiative.

Ovation Design & Development won.

The County issued request for proposals and will construct that complex.

Nevada Week 's Maria Silva joins us now.

Maria, this is not Ovation's first project on BLM land.

-No.

Actually, Amber, it is Ovation's third project on BLM land.

They also have about another dozen affordable senior complexes around town.

And at that land transfer ceremony, we met one of the current residents, Carmen Campione.

Now Carmen was even asked to speak at that special ceremony.

She shared with us what these affordable senior apartments and all of the services that they offer mean to her and her husband, plus the message she has for Nevada leaders tasked with finding solutions to the affordable housing crisis.

(Carmen Campione) This housing is a blessing for many people in the community who have struggled with some kind of hardship in life.

-That hardship for Carmen Campione and her husband Randall... -He got kidney problems, and he's diabetic.

He had high blood pressure and heart condition.

-The Campiones, like so many seniors, are not only dealing with health issues, but they are also on a fixed income.

-Many seniors that need, need the help of a good apartment in very nice condition, because all apartments are very pretty, and low income and no utilities.

That's like a gift from God to us.

-The senior affordable housing community, the Campiones have called home for the past five years, developed by Las Vegas-based Ovation Design & Development.

All 13, soon to be 14, of Ovation senior affordable housing properties, a partnership with Coordinated Living of Southern Nevada, the nonprofit making sure the seniors are well taken care of.

-Well, they provide us with food twice a month.

That's another savings that we have.

Also some doctors come to the building, and nurses.

It's really, really convenient for us.

I love it here.

-Another reason Carmen loves it here... -It is more than anything a big, big family.

Let's say that person in that apartment live alone.

If we don't hear from that person in two or three days, we go check, Hey, how are you doing?

What's going on?

Are you sick?

Do you need something, you know?

And we do that for all the people.

-Being part of a big family?

Well, that usually means celebrating major milestones together.

We celebrate every month the birthdays of everybody that in this month.

Like everybody that's birthday is today, we make a party for all the people.

-And don't get Carmen started on the other fun events and activities.

♪♪♪ -Oh, you should see her dancing.

My goodness gracious.

-These seniors are definitely living an active lifestyle.

-We have two bingos.

We have the regular bingo that we play Sundays and Mondays, and then we have "bingocise."

There's bingo and exercise.

It's fun.

Oh, we have a ball.

-Carmen says it was an honor to be asked to take the podium and share her story.

-After being laid off, my husband and I moved to Las Vegas.

-And Carmen has this important message for those in charge of finding solutions to Nevada's current housing crisis, especially when it comes to our seniors.

-They need, you know, a place they could live comfortable, and they have enough to survive and to pay rent.

That's my message to the politicians.

With that said, we are just grateful for this place.

Thank you.

-And Amber, let's talk about that new project we mentioned earlier.

Groundbreaking expected to happen sometime in the fall, and then it's expected to open up sometime in early 2025.

-Okay.

And for seniors in need, that timeline doesn't work for them, any other options?

-Yeah.

Well, right now Ovation actually has its 14th property opening up.

That's opening up next month.

That's on Blue Diamond Road and Wigwam.

You do have to be on a waitlist or sign up if you are interested.

We do have all that information on our website, including the income requirements, because of course, there are some income requirements when it comes to getting one of those apartments.

-All right.

Maria Silva, thank you for that report.

And thank you for joining us for Nevada Week .

For any of the resources discussed, including links with information on applying for afforadable housing and housing vouchers, go to our website vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

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