Housing policy experts warn that urban sprawl creates other problems, such as the lack of transportation infrastructure needed to connect people to jobs, food and other resources.  (Photo: Elizabeth Beard, Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Nevada’s housing crisis isn’t new, nor is the push by local and state elected officials to open up federal land beyond city limits to build more affordable units.

Yet land availability is just one part of the equation, and experts say the state would be better served focusing on permanent funding for affordable housing projects on available land within the metro area’s current boundaries.

As President Joe Biden made his way to Southern Nevada in March to speak on federal solutions to address the nationwide housing crisis, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo sent a letter criticizing the White House for not making more federal land available to build more housing.

“To address the housing crisis, the State of Nevada and our local communities need to access the land that is within their respective borders,” Lombardo wrote. “Unfortunately, we must rely on acts of Congress and severely backlogged federal agencies to secure the land necessary to grow. The federal process for privatizing land for development is too slow, too complex, and contributes to higher costs for Nevada families seeking homeownership.” 

The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) estimates Nevada lacks more than 78,000 affordable homes for extremely low-income households, defined as those with incomes at or below the federal poverty level, which is about $31,000 for a family of four.

“At the end of the day, what makes affordable housing affordable is the financing,” said Wally Swenson, the vice president of corporate affairs at the nonprofit developer Nevada HAND, which builds affordable housing units. “For Nevada HAND and our developers’ perspective, it’s about having robust financial resources to build, it’s having affordable and available land to build on and it’s having favorable zoning.”

The American Rescue Plan Act, signed into law by Biden in 2021, allocated billions of dollars of federal funds to Nevada. 

Former Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, pledged $500 million of ARPA dollars for housing, which gave the state needed dollars to address financing gaps and either build or preserve affordable housing projects. 

Swenson said it created an unprecedented amount of funding for the development of affordable housing. But those dollars are finite and will only go so far.

Around 3,000 units are being built statewide using federal relief money.

“It’s not going to get us out of our crisis alone,” he said. “What we can do as a community is come together to identify the different ways to address this crisis, from land availability to making additional financing available to developers.”

Lombardo didn’t respond to the Current’s emailed questions about what specific proposals, if any, his office has looked at to address financing gaps in building and developing affordable housing projects.

Yonah Freemark, the research director for the Land Use Lab at the D.C. based economic think tank Urban Institute, said some communities throughout the country have looked at identifying new revenue sources, such as various tax increases, to fund affordable housing projects. 

Maurice Page, executive director of the Nevada Housing Coalition, said the coalition is “looking at best practices around the country” but isn’t ready to back a particular idea. 

He said the state could include looking at real estate taxes or property taxes. 

“We have to be very creative in where we can raise taxes without affecting our current workforce,” Page said. “We have to be able to offset some of these costs. These are issues where we have to be able to look at and analyze to see if that would be a win for us and a win for the state.”

Another area the policymakers should consider is seeking more support for housing from corporations when they locate to Nevada, and “seeing if they would be willing to put in their budgets money for housing for their workforce,” Page said. 

With the high volume of people in need of housing – Swenson said Nevada HAND gets thousands of inquiries every week – the state has reached “a point in time where every conversation should be on the table.”

“The conversation of tax increases have been thrown out by legislators in session,” Swenson said. “That hasn’t moved forward.”

‘You push up transportation costs’

Though land is needed to build more housing, not all types of land are the same. 

The majority of federally owned lands are on the perimeter of the Las Vegas Valley, meaning its development will result in more urban sprawl.

Housing policy experts warn that urban sprawl creates other problems, such as the lack of transportation infrastructure needed to connect people to jobs, food and other resources.  

“Land plays a huge part,” Page said. “Let’s not also forget the fact that when we’re opening up more land and trying to get homes built, we also look at the infrastructure. We have to look at child care, transportation, utilities. We have to look at all of that as well. All of that costs money.” 

Alex Horowitz, the project director of the Pew Charitable Trust Housing Policy Initiative, said the further people get from work, grocery stores and school, “even if you’re adding more housing you push up transportation costs.” 

“Transportation is often the second biggest item in a families budget after housing,” he said. “If you add housing further and further out from the places people go every day, that’s usually a recipe for extending commute and pushing up transportation costs.” 

Freemark added that just because federal land might be an option, “doesn’t mean we should necessarily build housing on it.”

“I do approach the use of federally owned lands with a bit more skepticism because it’s often going to result in negative outcomes for sensitive ecologies,” Freemark said. “And frankly, it’s going to encourage more driving.”

M.J. Maynard, the CEO with the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada, warned Clark County commissioners in April that future revenue projections indicate the agency could start seeing a $156.3 million deficit starting in 2028. 

Those projections are just for maintaining existing roadways.

Building housing on new federal land further away from city limits would also require building, and then maintaining, new roadways and transportation infrastructure. 

While there has been a push to use federal land, there are no parameters on the type of housing could be built there if freed up. 

The Current reached out to the Howard Hughes Corporation, a real estate developer that has built master planned communities like Summerlin, to see how making more federal land available would affect their ability to develop more housing. 

They declined to comment.

Swenson said Nevada HAND’s model is to identify infill development, which utilizes existing urban spaces. The nonprofit developer, he said, has worked with local governments to address zoning barriers to build more units. 

Horowitz said there are still more solutions cities and states can research to address its housing shortage. 

“We see states making sure certain types of housing are not prohibitive by localities that have adopted exclusionary zoning,” he said, referring to laws that restrict the types of homes that can be built. “Nine states have legalized accessory dwelling units when a single family house or duplex usually has a basement or backyard apartment or they can convert a garage into an apartment.” 

Horowitz points out the City of Las Vegas is triple the size of Paris, which he added “has more than triple the population of Las Vegas.”

It’s possible to build more housing within the city limits. 

“Even though sometimes cities, you hear people say if the city is built out because if there isn’t a lot of open space or green fields to build on, we see jurisdictions can succeed at adding housing within city limits,” he said. “Often that means people can live closer to the places they go every day.”

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A volunteer packs food at Three Square Senior Hunger Campus. (Photo courtesy Three Square of Southern Nevada)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Food insecurity climbed across Southern Nevada last year with an estimated one in five children uncertain where their next meal is coming from, according to the latest findings from Three Square Food Bank.

Data released Thursday as part of the Feeding America’s 2024 Map the Meal Gap Study comes after food pantries and services providers warned in 2023 that end of pandemic era benefits on top of rising costs could increase the number of people relying on food assistance programs.

“The surge in food insecurity underscores pressing challenges Southern Nevadans face,” Beth Martino, the president and CEO of Three Square Food Bank, said in a statement. “Inflation and rising living expenses, especially grocery prices and rent, are causing financial strain for too many of our neighbors.”

The report, which includes data from Clark, Nye, Esmerelda and Lincoln counties, all within Three Squares service areas, found 341,480 people, or one in seven, were deemed food insecure.

Combined food insecurity rates for all four counties increased from 12% in 2022 to 14.7% in 2023. An estimated 14.6% of Clark County residents were food insecure, up from 12% the previous year.  

The highest rates are among Esmeralda and Nye counties, at 18.4% and 17.3% respectively. Both counties had a 13.9% rate the previous year.  

The report also found that rates among children spiked from 17.8% in 2023 to 22%. Roughly one in five children, about 115,000 children, live in food-insecure households.

The fear that more people might need to rely on food banks began last year after the supplemental allotment for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, ended. The additional monthly payment began during the pandemic. 

Martino spoke to state lawmakers at the interim joint Committee for Health and Human Services April 8 about the rise in demand the nonprofit has seen.

“Most recently from September through the end of February we saw a 23% increase,” she said. “What’s unique about what we see now in the data is not as many new people are coming into food pantries but people who were food insecure in the past are becoming repeat customers.”

Three Square, which provides food with the assistance of 150 community service providers, distributed more than 43 million pounds of food last year throughout Southern Nevada and anticipates the amount to grow this year.

Martino cited a report earlier this year that found “Nevada has the second highest grocery prices in the country,” and said that coupled with skyrocketing rent prices has added to the strain.

“Those earning minimum wage in Nevada at $11.25 an hour, potentially without health insurance, need to work 82 hours a week in order to afford a one-bedroom apartment,” she noted. 

Martino encouraged lawmakers to revisit universal free school lunches in the next legislative session as a way to keep “children well fed and nourished so they can learn and ultimately live their best lives.”

Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoed a bill carried by Democrats in 2023 that would have provided universal free lunch for K-12 students. 

“Having universal access to free school breakfast and lunches is something that can make a meaningful difference in the life of the child, but also to a family as a whole who may be struggling to put food on the table,” she said. 

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Homeless rights activists hold a rally outside of the U.S. Supreme Court on April 22, 2024 in Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, a dispute over the constitutionality of ordinances that bar people who are homeless from camping on city streets. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

WASHINGTON — A majority of U.S Supreme Court justices Monday seemed inclined to side with an Oregon town’s law that bans homeless people from sleeping outdoors, in a case that could have broad implications for local ordinances related to homelessness across the country.

During oral arguments in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, conservative justices said that policies and ordinances dealing with homelessness are complex, and indicated it’s a policy question that should be left up to local elected representatives rather than the courts.

“Why do you think these nine people are the best people to judge and weigh those policy judgments?” Chief Justice John Roberts asked, referring to the Supreme Court.

Taking a much different tack, the three liberal justices said that Grants Pass officials went too far and targeted those experiencing homelessness with fines for the basic human need to sleep when they camped outside.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor grilled the lawyer for Grants Pass on how the city law essentially criminalized homelessness.

“You don’t arrest babies who have blankets over them, you don’t arrest people who are sleeping on the beach, as I tend to do if I’ve been there a while. You only arrest people who don’t have a second home, is that correct?” Sotomayor said.

The case originated in Grants Pass, a city in northwest Oregon that argues its ordinance is a solution to the city’s homelessness crisis.

An attorney representing a group of homeless people argued that they are involuntarily without housing because there are limited shelter beds for the number of homeless people in the area. The lawyer also said the ordinances criminalize homelessness through fines and potential jail time for camping or sleeping in outdoor spaces.

The town of nearly 40,000 has about 600 people who are homeless and the only nonprofit that can provide shelter can house only up to 100 beds, according to a brief submitted by the nonprofit, Grants Pass Gospel Rescue Mission.

‘Cruel and unusual punishment’

The justices are being asked to decide whether the enforcement of that local ordinance on regulating camping on public property violated the “cruel and unusual punishment” clause of the Eighth Amendment.

Theane Evangelis, the attorney representing the city, argued that the city is going after the conduct of unhoused people, rather than the status of homelessness.

“We can look at the law and it has a conduct element — the conduct is establishing a campsite,” she said.

The attorney representing the plaintiffs, Kelsi B. Corkran, argued that the ordinance is a violation of the Eighth Amendment by inflicting punishment for the status of being homeless.

“Although the city describes its ordinances as punishing camping on public property, it defines campsite as any place a homeless person is while covered with a blanket,” she said. “The city interprets and applies the ordinances to permit non-homeless people to rest on blankets and public parks, while a homeless person who does the same thing breaks the law.”

Corkran is representing Gloria Johnson and John Logan, who are both homeless.

Effects across the United States

The case could not only have implications for the city in Oregon where the case originated, but for cities across the U.S., particularly in the West, including Las Vegas and Henderson in Nevada, that have similar ordinances and are grappling with an increasing homelessness crisis.

There are nearly 327,000 people who are homeless in the country, according to most recent U.S. Census data. States with the highest population of homeless people per 10,000 people include California, Oregon, Washington and Montana, according to five-year estimates in the American Community Survey.

Outside the court, advocates gathered to show their support of the injunction that bars the city ordinance from taking place.

“Homelessness is a result of systemic issues such as a lack of affordable housing, exorbitant rents, and a shortage of well-paying jobs,” Sarae Lewis, a spokesperson for Community Solutions, said in a statement. “Arresting and fining people for sleeping on the streets is ineffective, keeps people homeless for longer, and distracts from real solutions like those we see working in communities across the country.”

Community Solutions, a nonprofit that works to end homelessness, was joined by other organizations that advocate for people without homes such as the National Homelessness Law Center and the National Coalition for the Homeless.

History of the case

The city is appealing to the Supreme Court after lower courts ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, Johnson and Logan, who are homeless residents of Grants Pass.

A federal judge blocked the city’s ordinance that prohibited people from camping and sleeping in parks and on public property. Grants Pass also barred people who are homeless from using blankets, pillows or other material to protect themselves from the weather while sleeping outside.

If that ordinance was violated, it carried a $295 fine that, if not paid, increased to more than $530. Repeat offenders could also be jailed for up to 30 days.

A three-panel judge on the 9th Circuit determined in 2022 that the city has such strict restrictions on anyone sleeping outdoors that it led to a ban on being homeless. 

That decision relied on a 2018 case, Martin v. City of Boise. The case involved homeless plaintiffs who sued the city of Boise, Idaho after it fined them under a camping ordinance.

The 9th Circuit found that the city’s ordinance violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment because it imposes criminal penalties for homeless people sleeping outside or on public property when they do not have access to a shelter.

On Monday, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted that the state of Oregon enacted a statute that codified the Martin case, saying city regulations “of this nature have to be objectively reasonable as to time, place and manner, with regards to people experiencing homelessness.”

“It seems like the state has already precluded Grants Pass from doing the sort of thing it’s doing here,” Jackson said to Evangelis.

Evangelis said that the new law was not similar to the Martin case and that the city ordinance also takes into consideration the safety of the community.

“They protect the health and safety of everyone and it is not safe to live in encampments,” she said. “It’s unsanitary. There are the harms of the encampments themselves on those in them and outside.”

City’s argument

Evangelis argued that the court of appeals was wrong in its interpretation, as well as the plaintiffs, who cite a 1962 Supreme Court decision in Robinson v. California.

In that case, the Supreme Court deemed that a state cannot criminalize someone for their status of being addicted to drugs because it violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment.”

That case barred the criminalization of narcotics addiction, but not the conduct of the crime that someone who is addicted to drugs might participate in, such as using, buying, selling or possessing drugs.

Evangelis argued that the Grants Pass law is “so far removed from what was at issue in Robinson that it just isn’t implicated here.” She said that the city’s ordinance does not criminalize the status of homelessness.

Justice Samuel Alito said that the Robinson case “presents a very difficult conceptual question.”

“The point is that the connection between drug addiction and drug usage is more tenuous than the connection between absolute homelessness and sleeping outside,” he said.

Evangelis said that the case the plaintiffs are making is that camping or sleeping outside and being homeless are “two sides of the same coin.”

“It’s collapsing the status that they claim into the conduct,” she said. “So we think the conduct here is very clear, because it applies generally to everyone. The law does not say on its face, ‘It is a crime to be homeless,’ I just want to make that clear.”

Justice Elena Kagan asked if under Robinson, the status of homelessness could be criminalized.

“I don’t think that homelessness is a status like drug addiction,” Evangelis said.

Kagan said that homelessness is a status, because “it’s the status of not having a home.”

Evangelis said she disagreed with that because being homeless is a fluid experience that could change from day to day.

Jackson said that the city’s ordinance seemed to punish the basic need for sleep.

“What’s happening is you’re only punishing certain people who can’t afford to do it privately,” she said.

Corkran argued that if someone is violating the city ordinance, and is told to leave but they have no place to go, that means that person is homeless.

“So again, homelessness is not something you can do, it’s just something that you are,” she said.

Department of Justice neutral 

The Biden administration took the middle ground, issuing a brief that is neither in support of nor against either party.

The brief agreed with the 9th Circuit decision in the Idaho case, but argued that cities should be allowed to enforce restrictions for the health and safety of their residents.

“Although the United States continues to believe that the fundamental principle recognized in Martin is sound, it shares amici’s concerns about the broad and burdensome injunctions entered by some district courts in the Ninth Circuit, which may limit cities’ ability to respond appropriately and humanely to encampments and other legitimate public health and safety concerns,” U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote.

U.S. Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler offered partial support in a brief statement and also answered questions posed by the justices.

“It’s the municipality’s determination, certainly in the first instance with a great deal of flexibility, how to address the question of homelessness,” he said.

A constitutional issue?

Justice Brett Kavanaugh seemed skeptical that the city’s ordinance was a constitutional issue and instead is a policy one, such as how there are not enough beds.

“Do you think the constitutional role should be different when the number of beds available in the jurisdiction exceeds the number of homeless people versus the number of homeless people exceeds the number of beds available in shelters?” he asked Evangelis.

She said that it was unworkable.

“There is no way to count what beds are available and who is perhaps willing to take one and who would consider it adequate, then the question becomes, are those beds adequate?” she said.

Kavanaugh said that “it’s a difficult policy question.”

Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked Evangelis if the city laws are enforced, “is there a way for everyone to be cared for?”

“That ultimate question is for the legislature and policymakers to figure out what the right solution (is), what the right mix of policies is, but the wrong answer is to do what the 9th Circuit did here,” Evangelis said.

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A homeless person near an elementary school in Fruitdale Park in Grants Pass, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Ed. note: Las Vegas and Henderson are among numerous cities nationwide that have filed amicus briefs in support of the Grants Pass law against sleeping in public even if people have nowhere else to go.

On April 22, 2024, the Supreme Court will hear a case that could radically change how cities respond to the growing problem of homelessness. It also could significantly worsen the nation’s racial justice gap.

City of Grants Pass v. Johnson began when a small city in Oregon with just one homeless shelter began enforcing a local anti-camping law against people sleeping in public using a blanket or any other rudimentary protection against the elements – even if they had nowhere else to go. The court must now decide whether it is unconstitutional to punish homeless people for doing in public things that are necessary to survive, such as sleeping, when there is no option to do these acts in private.

The case raises important questions about the scope of the Constitution’s cruel and unusual punishment clause and the limits of cities’ power to punish involuntary conduct. As a specialist in poverty law, civil rights and access to justice who has litigated many cases in this area, I know that homelessness in the U.S. is a function of poverty, not criminality, and is strongly correlated with racial inequality. In my view, if cities get a green light to continue criminalizing inevitable behaviors, these disparities can only increase.

A national crisis

Homelessness in the United States is a massive problem. The number of people without homes held steady during the COVID-19 pandemic largely because of eviction moratoriums and the temporary availability of expanded public benefits, but it has risen sharply since 2022.

The latest data from the federal government’s annual “Point-in-Time” homeless count found 653,000 people homeless across the U.S. on a single night in 2023 – a 12% increase from 2022 and the highest number reported since the counts began in 2007. Of the people counted, nearly 300,000 were living on the street or in parks, rather than indoors in temporary shelters or safe havens.

The survey also shows that all homelessness is not the same. About 22% of homeless people are deemed chronically homeless, meaning they are without shelter for a year or more, while most experience a temporary or episodic lack of shelter. A 2021 study found that 53% of homeless shelter residents and nearly half of unsheltered people were employed.

Scholars and policymakers have spent many years analyzing the causes of homelessness. They include wage stagnation, shrinking public benefits, inadequate treatment for mental illness and addiction, and the politics of siting affordable housing. There is little disagreement, however, that the simple mismatch between the vast need for affordable housing and the limited supply is a central cause.

Homelessness and race

Like poverty, homelessness in the U.S. is not race-neutral. Black Americans represent 13% of the population but comprise 21% of people living in poverty and 37% of people experiencing homelessness.

The largest percentage increase in homelessness for any racial group in 2023 was 40% among Asians and Asian-Americans. The largest numerical increase was among people identifying as what the Department of Housing and Urban Development calls “Latin(a)(o)(x),” with nearly 40,000 more homeless in 2023 than in 2022.

This disproportionality means that criminalizing homelessness likewise has a disparate racial effect. A 2020 study in Austin, Texas, showed that Black homeless people were 10 times more likely than white homeless people to be cited by police for camping on public property.

According to a recent report from the Southern Poverty Law Center, 1 in 8 Atlanta city jail bookings in 2022 were of people experiencing homelessness. The criminalization of homelessness has roots in historical use of vagrancy and loitering laws against Black Americans dating back to the 19th century.

Crackdowns on the homeless

Increasing homelessness, especially its visible manifestations such as tent encampments, has frustrated city residents, businesses and policymakers across the U.S. and led to an increase in crackdowns against homeless people. Reports from the National Homelessness Law Center in 2019 and 2021 have tallied hundreds of laws restricting camping, sleeping, sitting, lying down, panhandling and loitering in public.

Just since 2022, Texas, Tennessee and Missouri have passed statewide bans on camping on public property, with Tennessee making it a felony.

Georgia has enacted a law requiring localities to enforce public camping bans. Even some cities led by Democrats, including San Diego and Portland, Oregon, have established tougher anti-camping regulations.

Under presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the federal government has asserted that criminal sanctions are rarely useful. Instead it has emphasized alternatives, such as supportive services, specialty courts and coordinated systems of care, along with increased housing supply.

Some cities have had striking success with these measures. But not all communities are on board.

The Grants Pass case

Grants Pass v. Johnson culminates years of struggle over how far cities can go to discourage homeless people from residing within their borders, and whether or when criminal sanctions for actions such as sleeping in public are permissible.

In a 2019 case, Martin v. City of Boise, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Eighth Amendment’s cruel and unusual punishment clause forbids criminalizing sleeping in public when a person has no private place to sleep. The decision was based on a 1962 Supreme Court case, Robinson v. California, which held that it is unconstitutional to criminalize being a drug addict. Robinson and a subsequent case, Powell v. Texas, have come to stand for distinguishing between status, which cannot constitutionally be punished, and conduct, which can.

In the Grants Pass ruling, the 9th Circuit went one step further than it had in the Boise case and held that the Constitution also banned criminalizing the act of public sleeping with rudimentary protection from the elements. The decision was contentious: Judges disagreed over whether the anti-camping ban regulated conduct or the status of being homeless, which inevitably leads to sleeping outside when there is no alternative.

Grants Pass is urging the Supreme Court to abandon the Robinson precedent and its progeny as “moribund and misguided.” It argues that the Eighth Amendment forbids only certain cruel methods of punishment, which do not include fines and jail terms.

The homeless plaintiffs argue that they do not challenge reasonable regulation of the time and place of outdoor sleeping, the city’s ability to limit the size or location of homeless groups or encampments, or the legitimacy of punishing those who insist on remaining in public when shelter is available. But they argue that broad anti-camping laws inflict overly harsh punishments for “wholly innocent, universally unavoidable behavior” and that punishing people for “simply existing outside without access to shelter” will not reduce this activity.

They contend that criminalizing sleeping in public when there is no alternative violates the Eighth Amendment in three ways: by criminalizing the “status” of homelessness, by imposing disproportionate punishment on innocent and unavoidable acts, and by imposing punishment without a legitimate deterrent or rehabilitative goal.

The case has attracted dozens of amicus briefs, including from numerous cities and counties that support Grants Pass. They assert that the 9th Circuit’s recent decisions have worsened homelessness, stymied law enforcement and left jurisdictions without clear guidelines for preserving public order and safety.

On the other hand, the states of Maryland, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Vermont filed a brief urging the Court to uphold the 9th Circuit’s ruling, arguing that local governments retain ample tools to address homelessness and that criminalizing tends to worsen rather than alleviate the problem.

A brief from 165 former local elected officials agrees. Service providers, social scientists and professional organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association filed briefs noting that criminalization increases barriers to education, employment and eventual recovery; erodes community trust; and can force people back into abusive situations. They also highlight research showing the effectiveness of a nonpunitive “housing first” model.

A race to the bottom?

The current Supreme Court is generally extremely sympathetic to law enforcement, but even its conservative members may balk at allowing a city to criminalize inevitable acts by homeless people. Doing so could spark competition among cities to create the most punitive regime in hopes of effectively banishing homeless residents.

Still, at least some justices may sympathize with the city’s argument that upholding the 9th Circuit’s ruling “logically would immunize numerous other purportedly involuntary acts from prosecution, such as drug use by addicts, public intoxication by alcoholics, and possession of child pornography by pedophiles.” However the court rules, this case will likely affect the health and welfare of thousands of people experiencing homelessness in cities across the U.S.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Texas has made camping on public property a misdemeanor and Tennessee has made it a felony.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Or maybe get a show on talk radio. (Photo: Richard Bednarski/Nevada Current)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Gov. Joe Lombardo issued another press release masquerading as a letter to President Joe Biden about housing Thursday.

Lombardo’s latest idea to address affordable housing – or rather, for the federal government to do it – as articulated in his press release/letter to the president Thursday, is to tell Biden to “embrace free market principles that rely on supply and demand and rein in excessive federal spending.” 

Sounds legit. Joe Biden accomplished more significant legislation in his first two years than most presidents achieve in two terms, legislation that brought the U.S. and Nevada economy back from the pandemic much more quickly than anyone thought possible – and that assured when Lombardo was sworn in as governor he and the Nevada Legislature would have a plumpy budget. So the White House is probably really interested in the economic insights of a guy whose last job was running a publicly subsidized security service for the Las Vegas resort industry.

You may recall Lombardo also sent a letter to the Nevada press, er, the president last month, in which the governor urged Biden “to take immediate action on the affordable housing crisis” by making it easier for the development industry to obtain ownership of federal land.

There are any number of things the development industry might do if it acquired parcels of federal land on the outskirts of the Las Vegas metro area. Developing affordable housing isn’t one of them. 

Even if you take the charitable view – more new development would put more product on the market and eventually might lead to more “affordable” housing – it’s an uncertain and distant, at best, response to the region’s dearth of affordable housing.

Meanwhile, Lombardo seems increasingly committed to the proposition that Nevada’s affordable housing policy is the federal government’s problem, not his.

Maybe he’s in the wrong job.

Economic analyst Joe Lombardo

Inflation “spiked” in March, and was 3.5% higher than it was in March 2023, Lombardo said in the press release he sent to the president Thursday.

A 3.5% year-over year increase in the consumer price index, while a couple tenths of a percent higher than anticipated, is hardly a “spike.” The 9.1% rate in June, 2022 … that was a spike.

In any case, Lombardo would have you believe the sole culprit for inflation is “excessive federal spending.” 

He’s got economic myopia.

As you may recall, there was a pandemic. Lombardo surely must remember; it’s one of the main reasons he has the job he has now.

During the pandemic and as the economy began to emerge from it, shifts in consumer purchasing patterns combined with supply bottlenecks and industrial disruptions, and prices went up. 

Corporate profiteering ensued – if people are paying more, hurray, let’s see just how much more they’ll pay – that sort of thing. If inflation had been caused solely or even mostly by “excessive federal spending,” corporations would have been feeling the pressure just as much as consumers, and wouldn’t have been able to afford to do what they did – inflate prices and spend billions of the profits on stock buybacks to enrich CEOs and whale shareholders.

And speaking of whales, the pandemic and its chaos also created opportunities for people with, let’s say, excess capital. Just the other day, a report estimated that private equity investment has jacked up the price of housing more in Nevada than in all but two other states.

Given his newfound and newly professed interest in affordable housing policy, perhaps the governor would care to see if there’s anything the state might do to confront the pernicious impact on housing costs inflicted by private equity ownership. (There is, by the way.)

And given his concerns about the impact of higher costs generally on Nevadans, perhaps the governor would care to see if there’s anything the state might do to relieve the pain inflicted on lower- and middle-income Nevadans by the state’s upside down tax structure that overburdens those Nevadans while coddling rich ones. (There is, by the way.)

But no. The governor of late seems far more interested in federal policy than any state-level solutions he might be expected to have anything to do with.

In his press release/letter to Biden in March, in his press release/letter Thursday, and in his endorsement of Democratic Rep. Susie Lee’s bill to make America safe for land appraisers (a bill which, like Lombardo’s call for making more federal land available to developers, is indirectly at best connected to the cost of rent), Lombardo’s newfound interest in affordable housing is confined to blaming the federal government for it, and relying on the federal government to fix it.

When it comes to making housing more affordable and lowering needless costs borne by Nevada’s working class, apparently to be a Nevada governor is to be a potted plant.

If Lombardo is going to punt to the feds, the least he could do is spread his support around to initiatives sponsored by other members of Nevada’s Democratic congressional delegation.

Specifically, he could endorse the bill Rep. Dina Titus is co-sponsoring with Arizona Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego to boost the number of federal Housing Choice Vouchers in fast-growing metro areas like Clark County, which traditionally has been short-changed by the voucher program compared to some other metro areas, and where the waiting list for vouchers is huge. 

The Titus-Gallego legislation, which has the support of the Nevada Apartment Association, dovetails with Biden’s budget, which calls for more spending on the federal housing voucher program. But the bill also specifically targets those metro areas – like Las Vegas – that over the years have received less voucher support per capita than other parts of the country.

The legislation would also do something that Lee’s bill and Lombardo’s suggestions would not: directly and, if enacted, relatively quickly confront the Nevada affordable housing crisis in a meaningful way.

The Lee legislation Lombardo endorsed, like most legislation supported by the Problem Solvers Caucus, is cotton candy by comparison. But unlike the Titus bill, it doesn’t involve federal spending, so however irrelevant and inconsequential to Nevada’s immediate housing problem, it got a nod from economic analyst Joe Lombardo.

Lombardo should run for Congress (although talk radio is another option)

Governors have a responsibility to bring issues that are crucial to their state to the attention of federal officials, including the president. And if a governor is conveying trenchant information about a state-specific issue, information that federal officials may be unaware of or don’t fully understand, federal officials have an obligation to take a governor’s insights seriously.

Telling a president to “embrace free market principles that rely on supply and demand and rein in excessive federal spending” is not an example of a governor fulfilling that responsibility. It’s the regurgitation of simplistic economic bromides beloved by angry right-wing white men who host talk-radio shows. The White House doesn’t need Lombardo for that. It can get that from Sean Hannity.

If the governor is convinced, as his recent actions suggest, that Nevada’s problems can only be solved by the federal government, instead of sending press releases to the president, he should have run for his party’s nomination to challenge Democratic incumbent Sen. Jacky Rosen, or filed to challenge Titus, or Lee, or Nevada’s other Democrat in the U.S. House, Steven Horsford.

Alas, the filing period for federal office closed a month ago. It’s too late now. 

So Lombardo, and Nevadans, would be better served if he quit lobbing banal trickle-down talking points at the Nevada press, er, the White House, as if waiting for the federal government to fix things, and see if there are ways Nevada can fix some of those things itself. (There are, by the way.)

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"The private equity business model is built on pooling money from big investors like public pensions to take over companies and quickly restructure them, often in ways that are harmful to workers, patients, customers, residents, and ultimately state and local economies,” according to the report. (Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Nevada is one of the states most vulnerable to the profit-hungry influence of private equity firms, according to a new analysis by a national watchdog group.

Nevada ranked 5th overall in the Private Equity Stakeholders Project’s Private Equity Risk Index, which the group launched this week. Only New Mexico, North Carolina, Arizona and Florida are considered more at risk.

The housing industry in Nevada is particularly at risk, earning a “very high risk” score of 94 out of 100. Only Georgia and Arizona fared worse. Private equity investment often leads to increased rental costs, housing market disruption and unsafe living conditions, according to PESP.

Nevada has one of the highest shares of single-family homes purchased by corporate investors over a five-year period, according to PESP.

PESP recommends states combat the influence of private equity by passing legislation to prohibit evictions of tenants except for specific reasons (such as non-payment of rent), cap annual rent increases statewide or allow local jurisdictions to cap them, and create a mandatory landlord registry to identify corporations with multiple holdings.

Bills for all three recommendations have been introduced in recent sessions but either died in the Nevada State Legislature or were vetoed by the governor.

Private equity’s hold is growing across myriad industries.

“The private equity business model is built on pooling money from big investors like public pensions to take over companies and quickly restructure them, often in ways that are harmful to workers, patients, customers, residents, and ultimately state and local economies,” states PESP. “The focus is on turning a quick profit for investors regardless of the risks and consequences for communities across the country.

The watchdog group ranked Nevada at “high risk” of private equity influence on public pensions and health care and “medium risk” of private equity influence on workers and jobs.

University Medical Center and Culinary Health Fund leaders last month told a committee of state lawmakers they are already feeling the effects of corporate consolidation and private equity investment.

“I was looked in the eye by this company and told our 10% profit margins are not enough; we had to be at 20%,” said UMC CEO Mason Van Houweling.

PESP estimates that companies controlled by private equity firms employ more than 11 million workers nationwide, own millions of homes, and are increasingly moving into critical industries like health care.

“Let’s call out private equity’s abuse for what it is: legal looting,” said U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in a statement praising the risk index. “Together, we’re taking on this trillion-dollar, behemoth industry that’s hurting working people and sucking money out of the rest of the economy.”

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The ordinance, which passed in a 3-2 vote Tuesday, makes it a misdemeanor to camp on county-owned property or within 1,000 feet of the Truckee River, live in vehicles on county owned property or public spaces, and obstruct uses of the public sidewalk. (County Commission video screengrab)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Despite Washoe County Commissioners declaring they don’t much care for the idea, a majority of commissioners voted Tuesday to make it a crime for people experiencing homelessness to live in their cars.

Commissioners agreed the lack of housing has worsened the region’s homeless crisis, mulled the idea to designate parking lots for people living in their cars, and even voiced concerns over criminalizing homelessness, but still approved imposing restrictions on where unhoused people sleep. 

The ordinance, which passed in a 3-2 vote Tuesday, makes it a misdemeanor to camp on county-owned property or within 1,000 feet of the Truckee River, live in vehicles on county owned property or public spaces, and obstruct uses of the public sidewalk. 

The Washoe County’s Sheriff’s Office told commissioners the goal was not to over-incarcerate.

Corey Solferino, the chief deputy of the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, said the ordinance would put the Washoe in line with similar ordinances adopted by Reno and Sparks.

“While we understand the sheriff and the (Homeless Outreach Proactive Engagement) HOPE team’s intentions with this and the efforts to make this less harmful, at the end of the day it’s still an anti-camping ordinance,” said Chasity Martinez, an organizer with Faith in Action. “It is still fundamentally flawed by being a law that criminalizes people for doing things that are life sustaining.”

As in much of the country, Nevada has seen a growing number of ordinances banning camping and restricting sleeping in public places as homelessness increases. 

Sparks just passed an ordinance clarifying the criminal intent of ordinances that outlaw sleeping in cars and on sidewalks. 

In nearly two hours of public comment, which was overwhelmingly in opposition to the bill, residents, religious groups and housing advocates tried to sway commissioners not to pass similar measures. 

County Commission Chair Alexis Hill said when the ordinance was initially proposed in 2022, she “had some serious concerns” and voted against going forward.

While she said she had “difficulty with what the ordinance is” and said she wanted to revisit the ordinance’s implementation in a year, she voted for the bill.

“We are being told by our staff this is something they need,” Hill said. 

Commissioner Mariluz Garcia agreed that “the lack of housing is the main issue here” but chose to support the ordinance after complaints from her constituents about illegal dumping and fire hazards. 

“We all know and all agree that more housing is going to be the thing that ultimately ends homelessness in our region,” she said. 

Vice Chair Jeanne Herman and Commissioner Michael Clark voted against the measure. 

Clark expressed concerns that the public defender wasn’t at the meeting to weigh in on the ordinance.

“It’s going to be the public defender and alternate public defender defending these people because they are indigent, because they are on the streets, and because they don’t have a house or any assets,” he said. 

The public defenders officer, he added, needs “to weigh in on what we should be doing before we make a logical decision.”

Clark also suggested looking at other solutions, such as designating certain parking lots for those with cars to sleep at night, as long as the car is operational and drivers have licenses. 

The county, he added, could also provide showers and portable toilets.

Garcia supported the idea of “potentially piloting a safe parking option.” 

“I think vehicular homelessness is really a gap in services in our region,” she said.

Commissioners gave no timeline on when Washoe could see that idea come into effect. 

Solferino said the goal was not to arrest on the first offense. 

Law enforcement, he said, has discretion to issue a verbal warning first, followed by a written warning, and attempt to connect  people experiencing homelessness with services and referring them to community court prior to a citation or arrest. 

“We do not want to incarcerate,” Solferino said. “We want to provide a pathway and push toward services. Some people simply aren’t ready for housing and we want to make sure they get the ability to be reformed.” 

The ordinance comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments to review the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that prevents cities from punishing unhoused folks for sleeping on the streets if there aren’t enough adequate shelter beds. 

The court’s jurisdiction includes Nevada.

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HELP of Southern Nevada was among groups offering services next to a homeless encampment in August. (Photo: Michael Lyle/Nevada Current)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Rising rents and limited housing stock in Southern Nevada, in addition to hurting tenants, has made it difficult for social service providers to place unhoused clients, or those at risk of homelessness, in apartments across the valley. 

HELP of Southern Nevada is now planning to build its first 50-unit complex specifically to provide on-site permanent supportive housing, which comes with case management and wrap-around support services to address the growing need. 

The organization received about $18 million from Clark County last week, which will go toward the 50-unit “Tropicana Trails” project. 

It was part of $30 million Clark County allocated to construction and operation of housing projects that focus on extremely low-income residents, including those experiencing or at risk of homelessness. 

Fuilala Riley, the executive director and CEO of HELP of Southern Nevada, said building a facility was something the nonprofit has considered but never pursued – partly because it’s an expensive endeavor.  

The housing crisis, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic, made the change necessary. 

HELP of Southern Nevada has previously used “scattered site” housing across the valley where case managers “go find apartments out in the community and then we worked really hard to get our clients into apartments,” Riley said. 

But the funding to place clients in permanent supportive housing doesn’t go as far as it used to and Riley said “it’s harder and harder to find units that we can afford.”

A studio apartment that once cost $900 a month is now $1,214, she said. 

Riley said while state and local governments have directed federal funding provided by the American Rescue Plan Act toward building affordable housing, most of those projects aren’t targeted at extremely low income residents.

A portion of the developments target those who earn 30% to 50% area median income “but a bulk” of projects are aimed at households with 50 to 80% area median income, she said. 

“This isn’t me advocating for other types of affordable housing to stop being built,” she added. “We still need that.”

A recent report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates Nevada has more than 91,000 extremely low-income households, defined as those with incomes at or below the federal poverty level.

In Nevada, only 17 units per 100 households are affordable for people making less than 30% of area median income, she said, and ”in Southern Nevada, there are only 14” per 100 households.

Tropicana Trails, she said, would be geared toward extremely low-income residents who make less than 30% of area median income. 

HELP of Southern Nevada is working with developer George Gekakis to build the project, which Riley hopes will break ground by December of this year and open the following December. 

“This is our first but I don’t think it will be our last,” Riley said.

HELP’s project wasn’t the one the county allocated funding by the county.

The Coordinated Living of Southern Nevada, which is partnering with Mojave Health, was approved for funds to develop a 50-unit project for extremely low-income individuals with chronic mental illness, and Nevada HAND will get money to expand an existing assisted living facility and develop a project for foster youth aging out of the system. 

Cost, benefit

The need for more housing, specifically permanent supportive housing for those experiencing or at risk of homelessness, comes as the rates of homelessness have increased in Southern Nevada. 

Homelessness in Clark County jumped  16% in 2023 from its previous year.

There were 6,566 people counted in January, 2023. An estimated 16,251 were expected to experience homelessness in Clark County at some point last year.

“The question is, where do folks go that are in that 30% of medium income or less?” Riley said.

The number of permanent supportive housing beds in the state has decreased in recent years, according to an analysis from the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

There were 2,086 supportive housing beds statewide in 2022. The number was 2,284 in 2020 and 2,484 in 2019. 

Data collection was interrupted in 2021 due to the pandemic, the organization noted. 

Riley says it’s partly because funding was allocated to other types of housing, such as transitional housing. But also, rising rents means providers can’t house as many people. 

“A lot of folks will make the case that permanent supportive housing is too expensive,” Riley said. 

Research on costs of services conducted by the Corporation for Supportive Housing, which provides assistance and data on housing, showed that “a year of supportive housing equals the same as three emergency visits at a UMC and it also equals three months at the Clark County Detention Center,” Riley said. 

While Tropicana Trails is nearly two years from opening its doors, there could be more projects targeting extremely low-income renters. 

Lawmakers in 2023 passed Assembly Bill 310, which allocated $30 million from the state general fund to go toward grants to create and support permanent supportive housing. 

The Nevada Housing Division created a supportive housing grant fund designed to develop housing with wrap-around social services for unhoused folks.

Grant applications will open this summer Steve Aichroth with the Nevada Housing Division, recently told the Nevada Interagency Council on Homelessness. 

State lawmakers last year also approved a $100 million fund to build a “transformational campus” to provide support services for the unhoused and those at risk of homelessness – the proposal would be similar to the City of Las Vegas’ Courtyard Homeless Resource Center. 

That project is still being developed, though Clark County commissioners have expressed reservations on opening another large-scale facility similar to the Courtyard and have advocated converting hotels into non-congregate shelter space . 

Riley said solving homelessness will take a multipronged approach that has investments in preventative measures, interim solutions and permanent housing. 

“It’s imperative we make concurrent investments in those three areas,” she said. “Without all three, if you don’t make those prevention investments our homeless population is going to possibly double, maybe even triple.”

She says some proposals under consideration, such as building a larger homeless “campus,” is an interim or short term solution.  

“Putting all our money in one bucket isn’t going to solve the problem long term,” she said. 

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Joe Lombardo had a chance to address the housing crisis last year. He took a pass, vetoing multiple housing bills. (Photo: Richard Bednarski/Nevada Current)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

You can’t begrudge Gov. Joe Lombardo for trying to throw some shade on Joe Biden when the president made a campaign visit to Nevada Tuesday.

Democrats do the same thing when Trump comes to Nevada.

But let’s not pretend the letter Lombardo sent to Biden – and more importantly for Lombardo’s purposes, to the Nevada media – was what Lombardo wanted you to think it was: a cogent or even relevant position on Nevada’s current affordable housing crisis. It wasn’t.

In case you missed it – unlikely given the oodles of local headlines about it – Lombardo welcomed Biden to Nevada Tuesday by sending a letter to the president, dated the same day, urging Biden “to take immediate action on the affordable housing crisis in Nevada by releasing more federal land for development.”

Giving federal land on the edges of the metro area to the growth industry, and expecting that industry to do something with it that would address, as Lombardo called it, “the affordable housing crisis,” is a dubious proposition at best. 

Would the growth industry build warehouses? Definitely. 

Upscale housing? Most definitely. 

Big box stores and strip malls? But of course. 

Gas stations for people to fill up vehicles to drive on even more seven-lane pedestrian-hostile byways in a town with no rapid mass transit system and no commitment to ever having one? That is, to borrow a phrase Lombardo pitifully tried to brand, the Nevada way.

And affordable housing? 

That hasn’t been a hallmark of Nevada’s development and building industry since the late 20th century, if then.

But let’s say Biden were to do exactly as urged by Lombardo.

“Specifically,” Lombardo wrote, “I urge you to direct the Department of the Interior to complete a statewide Resource Management Plan (RMP) or update the 18 RMPs that govern management of most of the Silver State. RMPs determine appropriate uses of public lands and should provide a strategy for addressing the housing crisis.”

Lombardo acknowledges in his own letter that “updating these plans will take time and resources.”

Even if the “immediate action” that Lombardo asks of Biden were taken, well, immediately, it would have no impact on what Lombardo himself describes as “the affordable housing crisis” for years.

Lombardo’s letter wasn’t a serious statement on an urgent problem that makes life harder for Nevadans than it needs to be. Lombardo’s letter was an attention-grabbing stunt laced with boilerplate growth industry talking points.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

Lombardo had a chance to address the housing crisis even earlier than immediately – last year, to be specific – and he took a pass, vetoing multiple housing bills. 

Some of those bills were designed to lower costs to renters. For example, Lombardo vetoed a bill to rein in junk application fees and charges. He also vetoed a bill to cap rent increases at 10% for seniors and people on disability benefits.

He also vetoed bills designed to help keep people housed.

One bill passed by lawmakers would have reformed Nevada’s nationally notorious “summary” eviction process, which is super confusing for tenants, super friendly to landlords, and allows super-quick evictions.

Lombardo also vetoed a bill to extend a 2021 law that paused eviction proceedings for 60 days if a tenant’s application for rental assistance was still pending.

Tenants’ advocates and legal aid groups warned eliminating the pause would result in a wave of evictions.

It looks like they were right. Lombardo’s veto happened to coincide with the expiration of the law pausing evictions. Court filings indicate that within a couple months of the veto, the monthly number of evictions granted by courts in Southern Nevada was 49% higher than the average over the last 18 months the pause was in effect.

Evidently not content just to veto state legislation that would have provided tenants more protections against junk fees and quickie evictions, Lombardo also denied local governments more authority to confront the crisis. He vetoed a bill that would have empowered local governments to enhance affordable housing through regulatory and zoning reforms.

Lombardo’s list of top legislative priorities last year, most of which were thankfully ignored by legislative Democrats, included but were not limited to a law by which mail-in ballots would only be sent to voters who requested them, and another bill designed to eventually give private schools a half-billion dollars of public money. 

One issue that was not on his list of priorities: affordable housing. The only position Lombardo has demonstrated on housing is that he believes Nevada should keep doing what it’s always done: Let developers do whatever they want and let everybody else navigate the ensuing and maddening unchecked sprawl the best they can.

Maybe Biden should write Lombardo a letter.

Lombardo’s letter to the president was not a serious effort to confront an urgent problem. But it garnered a lot of local headlines. And that, not addressing the housing crisis, was the point.

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President Joe Biden focused his remarks on housing affordability in Las Vegas Tuesday. (Photo by Ian Maule/Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Amid a growing housing crisis in Nevada, as with the rest of the country, President Joe Biden called for investing billions of dollars to build more affordable units, expanding assistance for unhoused and low-income residents, and helping first-time homebuyers in a Las Vegas stop Tuesday.  

Though never mentioning him by name – only referring to him as “my predecessor” or “the last guy” – Biden warned former President Donald Trump was committed to “cutting funds for affordable housing.”

“Not building,” Biden said. “Cutting funds for them.”

Ahead of his most recent visit to Nevada, which started with a stop in Reno, the White House announced that Biden’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget is calling for $258 billion in housing investments, which includes expanding rental assistance for low-income families. 

Biden is seeking to expand Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, which are used to aid developers in building affordable units, and direct $20 billion for an “innovation fund for housing expansion” to support construction of affordable multifamily units.

He said his plan will lead to the creation of an estimated 2 million affordable homes, “including tens of thousands right here in Nevada”

“I know affordable housing has been a challenge for a long time,” Biden said. “To solve it long term we have to increase supply because when supply is down, demand is up,” and costs rise. 

“The bottom line to lower housing costs for good is to build, build, build,” Biden said. 

The housing crisis isn’t new and has only been exacerbated by the pandemic when rent prices skyrocketed and the pathway to homeownership steepened.

In a report released earlier this month, the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) said that while every major U.S. metropolitan area has a shortage of affordable units, “of the 50 largest metropolitan areas, extremely low-income renters face the most severe shortages in Las Vegas.”

The NLIHC criticized Trump while he was in office for proposing cuts to housing benefits, eliminating the national Housing Trust Fund and slashing funds for tenant-based rental assistance.

Biden said, by contrast, he is seeking the most “consequential housing plan in more than 50 years.” 

The administration has called on Congress to pass the Mortgage Relief Credit Act, which would provide first-time homebuyers with a $10,000 tax credit over two years, and also providing down-payment assistance to first-generation buyers.

The White House also wants an additional $8 billion in new grant programs to “expand temporary and permanent housing strategies for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness” and is calling to expand Housing Choice Vouchers, commonly referred to as Section 8 assistance. 

“In the United States no one should have to live in the streets,” Biden said. 

‘Calling it sugar’

Democratic U.S. Rep Dina Titus, who spoke ahead of Biden, said Biden’s proposals are important but will face resistance from Republicans.

“With the Republican Congress leading in the House, we can’t get those to the floor,” she said. “We need you to remember elections do make a difference so we can get some of those proposals passed.” 

The administration, through various agencies, has also looked at ways to lower closing costs, and regulate rental “junk fees” such as charging tenants to pay rent online. 

Biden said the administration is working to crack down “on big corporations that are breaking antitrust laws by price fixing to keep the rents up” and address discrimination practices in home buying. 

“We are also going to end the legacy of discrimination based on home evaluation,” Biden said. “It exacerbates the racial wealth gap and holds back Black and brown families. It’s simply wrong.”

States have already been using funding provided from the American Rescue Plan Act, passed in 2021 which provided states and localities with billions in relief dollars, to develop and preserve affordable housing.

The law was enacted without any Republican support. 

Former Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak pledged $500 million of ARPA dollars for housing, which is still being developed. The Nevada Housing Division, which has been overseeing the allocation of the funds, estimated about 2,800 would be built throughout the state.  

Ahead of Biden’s visit, Nevada Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, who has endorsed Donald Trump for president, sent a letter to the White House urging the administration to make more federal land available for housing development.

“Even after Congress identifies land for community use, the process, which includes land surveys, appraisals, and environmental impact assessments, is notorious for slowing timelines and escalating project costs,” Lombardo wrote. “Despite spending billions on laws like the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the federal government still struggles to efficiently deliver on public land conveyances due to a lack of resources and manpower.” 

Titus pushed back on Lombardo’s arguments, saying voters shouldn’t be misled by Republicans “calling it sugar” – a reference to a remark Titus made  during Vice President Kamala Harris’s visit in January when Titus said not to let Republicans “sell that same old shit and call it sugar”

“This is a good example of that,” she said. “And don’t forget the governor vetoed about half a dozen bills the legislature passed to help with the housing issue.”

Several bills Lombardo killed during the 2023 Legislative Session sought to bolster tenant protections and further regulate deposit and application fees. 

He also vetoed bills that would have made changes to the state’s quick eviction process, including a proposal to extend a modified version of a 2021 protection that temporarily paused an eviction while a rental assistance application was being processed.

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