The defendant’s position is shown in eviction court at the Regional Justice Center Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2023, in Las Vegas. Photo by Ronda Churchill/Nevada Current

Around the same time Kathleen Dominguez filed a response with a court to the eviction notice she received in June, she also applied for rental assistance through Clark County in hopes of getting help paying $1,035 of back-owed rent.

The 7-day pay-or-quit notice came the day a statewide eviction protection expired, meaning there was no guarantee the landlord would have to work with the CARES Housing Assistance Program, the county rental assistance program known as CHAP.

Dominguez lost her job working for a law office in May, quickly fell behind on rent and was hoping CHAP would pay the outstanding balance. 

By the time her eviction hearing was set on Aug. 22, the unpaid amount had grown to more than $3,000.

The day before the hearing, Dominguez said she heard from a worker with CHAP that they were working on her application. 

But it didn’t matter.

At the start of the pandemic, state and local officials implemented a series of measures including a statewide eviction moratoria, diversion programs and funding wide-scale rental assistance to prevent a feared tsunami of evictions.

The last of those protections ended in June. Now landlords get to decide if they want to accept rental assistance from the county in lieu of moving forward with an eviction for nonpayment of rent. 

“CHAP has assigned a case worker but I don’t know what the status of that is,” hearing master David Brown told Warren Freeman, an attorney representing Dominguez’s landlord, Stout Management Company, during the eviction proceeding. “That is if this landlord wishes to work with them further.”

Stout Management Company manages more than 8,000 units in multiple properties in Southern Nevada, according to its website.

Dominguez wasn’t present at the hearing. Freeman appeared virtually.

“That landlord wishes to move forward” with the eviction, Freeman responded.

In less than one-minute, the summary eviction was granted.

Dominguez was one of the 3,045 people evicted at the Las Vegas Justice Court in August, the month that had the highest number of evictions granted since January 2022 according to court data received by Nevada Current.

In its Covid-19 Housing Policy Scorecard, which monitored state eviction protections between March 15, 2020 through June 30, 2021, the Princeton University-based EvictionLab, which collects and analyzes nationwide eviction data, scored Nevada as 4.3 out of 5 stars. It was the second highest score, attributed to the various policies set up throughout the pandemic.

Two years later, the Las Vegas metropolitan area has seen eviction filings 62% higher than prior to the pandemic, one of the highest jumps since the pandemic, according to EvictionLab.

Jacob Haas, a research specialist with EvictionLab, said eviction filings – the cases the court sees – in Clark County “have been well beyond pre pre-pandemic level” over the last several months since the eviction protections expired. 

The once widely available rental assistance program set up during the pandemic was not only scaled back but has only approved 68 applications out of 2,890 people who have applied. 

From Jan. 23, when CHAP began to wind down, through Sept. 18, 2,822 applications for assistance were denied.

What for many was the protection of last resort from eviction, referred to as the “Assembly Bill 486 defense” for the law passed during the 2021 legislative session that paused eviction proceedings while rental assistance applications were being processed, sunset June 5.  

Senate Bill 335, which was passed in the 2023 legislative session, sought to implement a scaled back version of that protection, but was vetoed by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo after languishing on his desk for several days after being passed.

In his veto message, Lombardo said the bill created more hurdles for landlords to evict and created “onerous burdens in Nevada’s residential renting market.”

The aftermath was felt immediately. 

The number of evictions granted at the Las Vegas Justice Court this summer spiked: 2,847 in June; 2,710 in July and 3,045 in August.

September data showed a slight drop back to 2,224. 

Jonathan Norman, the statewide advocacy, outreach and policy director for Nevada Coalition of Legal Service Providers, argued the vast majority of the evictions could be avoidable if there was a mechanism that ensured rental assistance is allocated to tenants and landlords.

“As our community grapples with rising homelessness and what we’re going to do about those people living unsheltered, we are letting people slip into homelessness because we’re not dealing with those avoidable evictions and getting rental assistance in a timely manner, which is what AB 486 allowed for,” he said. 

Clark County just started collecting data on how many landlords declined CHAP rental assistance in November, so it’s hard to estimate how many evictions in total could have been prevented by allocating rental assistance.

During November, 17 landlords opted out of participating in CHAP.

While the aftermath of protections being stripped away is still being assessed, legal groups and social service providers fear the higher eviction rates will exacerbate Southern Nevada’s ever growing homelessness crisis. 

“We had a homeless problem before,” said Celeste Williams, the family housing services coordinator with Help of Southern Nevada. “We put a bandaid on it for three years and just ripped it off.”

Filed, granted, locked out

Because of Nevada’s unique summary eviction process, which requires a tenant to be the first to file a case with a court after receiving a pay-or-quit notice from the landlord, there are a lot of unknowns about how many people are evicted each year.

Nevada Current requested data from Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson justice courts, overseeing all evictions handled in Southern Nevada, to get a better understanding of how many evictions had been filed and granted since January 2022. 

All three courts collectively granted 30,813 evictions in 2022. As of September, the number was at 24,537, which Norman said could outpace previous years. 

Haas, the researcher at the EvictionLab, says Southern Nevada has seen one of the highest jumps in eviction filings since the pandemic in all the metro areas the group monitors. 

EvictionLab collects data from 10 states and 35 cities. 

There were 62,963 evictions filed in 2022 in all three Southern Nevada courts. As of September this year, 45,796 have been filed this year, which suggest evictions are on pace to be slightly lower this year. 

But eviction reform advocates have long noted that the number of court filings don’t reflect the scope of actual evictions.

“The big caveat to all of this is even though we have these numbers in Clark County, there are all these informal evictions and displacements happening outside the court system,” Haas said. “There are large rent increases, people leaving at the end of their leases, illegal lockouts. We know from surveys it’s happening a ton, but we haven’t figured out a way to comprehensively track that.” 

Not every city has returned to pre-pandemic levels, especially not “two thirds above where they were prior to the pandemic” that the Las Vegas metropolitan area has experienced, Haas said.

“Dallas County, Texas has a similar number of rental households, similar size populations and similar median rents,” as Clark County has, Haas said. “Eviction filing rates there are well below where they are in Clark County.”

Haas said about a third are “serial filings,” or multiple cases brought on by the landlord issuing several pay or quit notices.

Additionally, not every filing will result in an eviction, but can still create confusion for the tenant, Norman said.

“On the 5th of the month, say a landlord gives a seven day notice to pay or quit and a tenant responds. There is nothing preventing a landlord from filing another one on the 6th and another one on the 7th,” he said.

The tenant would have to respond to each notice to avoid an eviction. 

“A tenant just has to miss one of those and then they are in that rocket docket eviction lockout,” Norman said.

After an eviction is granted, an order is given to the constable’s office to start the lock out process. They are required to put a 24-hour lockout notice on a person’s door. 

Clark County doesn’t collect data on the number of lockouts that occur.

Data requested by the Current showed 24,301 cases referred to the constables office in 2022 while this year there are already 19,758 as of August, a pace that would represent a 22% increase if it holds through the year. 

“When it comes to the report from the constable offices, the numbers reflect all eviction cases that were processed during that period for each jurisdiction,” Stephanie Wheatley, a spokeswoman for Clark County said in an email. “Not all the cases are closed due to a lockout. Sometimes a landlord and tenant find a resolution, sometimes the person leaves before a lockout. Cases are closed once they have been resolved regardless of the outcome.”

Even if a lockout doesn’t take place, Norman said the damage is already done. A person has an eviction on their record regardless. 

“It is shocking to me the disconnect between evictions and homelessness,” Norman said. “As eviction numbers climb and people get evictions on their record, our homeless population is going to climb.” 

‘That courtroom is pretty full’

During the pandemic, the county used federal relief dollars to fund the CHAP rental assistance programs. The county estimated that it provided nearly $400 million in rental assistance that prevented 70,000 households from being evicted. 

With those funds dwindling, the county drastically scaled back the program in 2023.

Only two rental assistance programs remain: Fixed-Income CHAP and Eviction CHAP. 

The requirements are extremely specific.

Not only do landlords have no obligation to accept approved applications, the process itself is limited and denies more than it approves. 

Of the 2,822 denied this year, the county said 840 applicants either did not have an eviction notice or were already evicted. The county isn’t able to specify between the two. 

For the remainder: 2,314 didn’t meet one or more eligibility requirements,1,359 didn’t provide all the required documents within the 10-day timeframe, and 846 didn’t have a change in circumstance. 

“If we have elderly people, or people with disabilities, and they are missing paperwork, I think we need to do a level of hand holding to stop those people from slipping into homelessness,” Norman said. “When I hear 2,083, and only 68 receiving assistance, I think we are not doing our jobs in keeping vulnerable people housed when we have the funds to do so.”

Randy Reinoso, the deputy director of social services with Clark County, said the county is trying to ensure applications are being processed before a court hearing. 

“We are working off of the eviction reports we get from the courts and prioritizing the cases and assigning them based on the hearing date,” Reinoso said. “We’ve made a lot of strides over the last couple months… in terms of having cases assigned far enough in advance that we can really make the best determination that a person is or isn’t eligible prior to the court hearing.”

But “we still have a way to go,” Reinoso acknowledged.

Just a day before their eviction hearing Oct. 10, Chris and Asia, a married couple who preferred not to use their last name, finally heard back about their pending application. 

“We applied for CHAP July 24, but they took about three months to let us know we weren’t eligible,” Chris said. “It’s overwhelming but you have to believe in the universe that everything happens for a reason.”

The couple moved into their apartment in May. A month later, Chris lost his job working for an IT company.

They had heard rental assistance wasn’t available at the scale it once was offered, but thought since they had fallen on financial hardships they might be considered. They thought they’d hear back faster.

“It takes a bit of time for a caseworker to get to you,” Asia said. “I understand there is a crisis and there are a lot of people going through what we’re going through. It is very unfortunate after waiting on a phone call and it comes the day before court. It just wasn’t enough time to appeal it.”

The couple owed $7,200 in back rent and offered to pay half of the amount during their court hearing and the remainder by Nov. 1, along with that month’s rent. 

Just like many other cases that have taken place since the eviction protection expired, the landlord declined and the couple was evicted.

“That courtroom is pretty full with people coming in for the same reason,” Chris said.

In addition to working with the courts, Reinoso said social service workers have tried appealing with the landlords ahead of court cases.

“We are also trying to work with landlords to demonstrate that we are committed to responding quicker than we have in the past,”  he said. 

“It’s not the same situation as we had in 2021,” Reinoso added, when CHAP was severely backlogged for several months.

Reinoso said there were county discussions on giving money directly to tenants. Ultimately county management decided against it. 

“When it comes to paying the tenants directly for Fixed Income CHAP and Eviction CHAP, it is recommended from the U.S. Treasury to pay landlords directly to ensure the money is paid to the intended recipient,” Wheatley, the county spokeswoman, said in an email. 

The other rental assistance program is fairing a little better. 

The county began offering rental assistance for those living on fixed incomes in late 2022 after officials noticed that circumstances around the need for rental assistance changed from the start of the pandemic.

More clients needed assistance not because of Covid, but because rent had skyrocketed to unaffordable prices compared to wages. 

There were 1,615 applications processed from Sept. 17, 2022 through Sept. 18 this year: 587 were approved; 1,028 were denied. 

The county, Reinoso said, has been focusing on relocation services for when applications are denied or landlords turn down CHAP dollars and an eviction proceeds. 

Though Lombardo vetoed SB 335, he approved Assembly Bill 396 to allocate $12 million over the biennium for rental assistance to Clark County. Reno and Sparks also received $3 million each for the same time period.

The county hasn’t drawn on the funds yet. 

“(Lawmakers) didn’t give millions of dollars so we can avoid 68 evictions,” Norman said of the low number of eviction CHAP applications approved. “They gave millions of dollars so we can avoid evictions for the most vulnerable in our community.” 

Since landlords don’t have to accept CHAP, Reinoso said the county has focused on offering assistance to help relocate people to new housing and prevent people from falling into homelessness. 

The county was unable to provide data for how many people who have applied for CHAP were directed to relocation services or housed. 

Yazmin Beltran, a spokeswoman with the county, said AB 396, which made the allocation, allows for those dollars to be used to help relocate families instead.

“It’s essential to note that relocation assistance is a relatively new addition to the CHAP program, having commenced around June,” Beltran said. “This addition was implemented to address the pressing issue of individuals facing eviction before receiving any assistance. We acknowledge the urgency of this matter and have initiated efforts to collect detailed information on the number of tenants assisted with relocation support.”

‘We had a homeless problem before’

After her eviction in August, Dominguez began experiencing homelessness.

“I was staying at a neighbor’s house but he got a notice that if he continued to let me stay then he would get evicted,” she said. “I had to leave.”

She tried staying at her mom’s house, but her puppy wrecked the house and Dominguez once again had to leave.

Dominguez began sleeping at parks and bus stops until October when she was able to stay with another family member. 

Williams with HELP of Southern Nevada said family is one option HELP looks at for clients facing eviction in need of assistance.

With rental assistance dwindling and limited resources, the nonprofit has had to adjust how it helps people. 

“Who can give you a buffer?” she said, as an example of questions she asks clients. “Can you make payment arrangements with your landlord? Can we reunify you with another family member?”

Throughout the pandemic, Williams said, HELP would see ebbs and flow in clients, with small spikes usually lining up with changes in rental assistance requirements or state eviction prevention programs. 

The same was true when the final eviction protection died this year.

“All of a sudden in June going into July, we were so busy, with lines over 100 people a day,” she said. “I honestly thought we had until the end of the year. Not this fiscal year. It didn’t even end on the fiscal year. What is June 5? Where did that date come from?”

The date coincides with the end of the legislative session. 

Data from the 2023 point-in-time count, a yearly tabulation of homelessness on any given night, showed homelessness among families with children had increased 54% from 2022. The count was conducted prior to the state’s eviction protection expiring. 

Those displacements from housing are reflected in the number of people HELP sees. 

“We have definitely seen an increase in families,” Williams said. “It’s more families than anything. There isn’t enough housing for the amount of people being evicted.”

For a brief time during the pandemic, Williams said “there was a boom where people were hiring at higher wages.”

That’s not the case anymore, she said. 

“No one is advertising for $20 to work at the store or a $1000 sign-on bonus,” she said. “Everything is bouncing back to normalcy except for rent. Rent is still going up. The cost of living is still high but the wages are still low.”

There are many reasons a client might be at risk of eviction. 

Each morning, the parking lot of HELP of Southern Nevada is full of people looking for housing assistance. 

Williams said though the need is growing, “we still have the same program and same funding.”

“I think over the next few months as courts start speeding up and cases start going through, there will be more and more evicted individuals,” she said. “I think our homeless count is going to increase because there are no new shelters popping up, no new things happening right now.”