Thousands of Las Vegans are “housing insecure,” and while some agencies are helping, the need outstrips the resources
Off and on over four years, Corina Dival shared a small twin bed with her two toddlers. If that wasn’t cramped enough, she was also pregnant for some of that time, making the tiny space assigned to her at the homeless shelter feel even smaller.
“There were bunk beds, but that wouldn’t work because the kids were so small,” she says.
Dival didn’t have much of a choice. Her husband, who stayed at another shelter, had lost his job, and, unable to pay rent, the family had been evicted from their apartment. As a last-ditch effort to obtain an affordable place to live, the family applied for public housing. “I knew the process was going to be slow, but didn’t know just how slow it would be,” she says.
Dival and her family waited four years to get placed inside public housing, the only thing they could afford. This isn’t out of the ordinary. Experts say Southern Nevada lacks affordable housing, and as a result, families like the Divals can experience long wait times as they vie for the few available units.
“We are in one of the most challenged metropolitan areas in the country,” says Mark Zellmer, former director of communications for the nonprofit organization Nevada HAND, short for Housing and Neighborhood Development. (Desert Companion learned at press time that Zellmer is no longer with the organization). “The reality is, we are not building enough affordable housing for families who need it.”
By federal guidelines, renters who spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing and utilities are termed “housing insecure,” while those paying 50 percent or more are considered severely rent burdened.
In March, the National Low Income Housing Coalition released its latest report on affordable housing. Las Vegas was named one of the most severe cities, with only 10 affordable and available rental homes for every 100 households of extremely low-income renters. Nevada, which ranks the worst as a state, has 15 per every 100. The report also found that more than 95,000 households in Nevada are considered extremely low income. One missed paycheck, medical emergency, or car problem — let alone the loss of a job — could send a family spiraling.
This isn’t an issue that has developed overnight, and it now unfolds against the backdrop of a booming, competitive real-estate market.
Dr. Vivek Sah, director of UNLV’s Lied Institute for Real Estate Studies, says there have been significant jumps in both home prices and rental costs. In 2012, the average price for a rental was about $745 (Sah says the average price takes into consideration anything from studio apartments to three bedrooms, meaning prices for larger units are higher). “We have data up to the last quarter of 2017, and the average price was $976,” he says — about a 30 percent jump. Sah says Las Vegas has always touted its low cost of living. “We are slowly moving away from that tag,” he adds.
Las Vegas continues to build housing, but most of those complexes rent at market value and are out of reach for many who earn low wages. “Developers are building the housing that is going to get them the biggest return on their investment,” says Kevin Sharps, vice president of resident services at Nevada HAND.
For an hourly worker in Nevada to be able to afford a two-bedroom rental unit, he or she needs to make at least $18 an hour, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. (Nevada’s minimum wage is $8.25.) This forces some families into tough spots, living in areas that lack convenient access to schools, public transportation, and grocery stores. It sometimes puts people at risk of being taken advantage of by landlords. “They know (renters) have no place else to go,” Sah says. “There is no place else they can afford.”
According to the report, Las Vegas needs another 64,000 affordable homes just to meet the needs of the most rent-burdened.
‘THE HUGE NEED WE HAVE’
Amparo Gamazo, the interim executive director for the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority, says there are two options for people who qualify. “We have the Section 8 program, which is a voucher that gives families a choice of where they want to live,” she says. “Then we have the public housing program, where we actually own the units. You have to income-qualify.” About 90 percent of the authority’s clients make less than $20,000 a year.
More than 11,000 families use Section 8 subsidies, while there are fewer than 3,000 public housing units scattered throughout Southern Nevada.
Gamazo says the Section 8 voucher allows people to move to any part of the city as long as there is a landlord willing to lease to them. This has a positive effect because it blends lower-income renters into middle-class environments and helps reduce stigma associated with housing assistance, she says.
Both options only require renters to pay 30 percent of their income. If a person’s income increases, so does the amount they pay. While they can remain in public housing no matter the increase, they can lose their Section 8 subsidy if they begin earning too much. “Some families prefer public housing because it offers more of a security blanket,” Gamazo says.
But first, people actually have to make it to the top of the waiting list. “For the Section 8 wait list, we haven’t opened it up in 10 years,” Gamazo says. “That tells you the huge need we have.”
Looking at her three-bedroom unit in Sherman Gardens Annex, a public housing development at Doolittle and H streets, it’s hard for Dival, 30, to believe where her family’s journey began. “All we had was a blanket and some clothes,” she says. “Now we have so much stuff. Almost too much stuff.”
Dival and her family lived paycheck-to-paycheck, so with the loss of income it wasn’t long before they lost their home. Not knowing how long the wait for public housing would take, the family did the only thing they knew to do, which was to bounce around among homeless shelters. Since most of her time was spent at women’s shelters, she was separated from her husband, who had to stay at a men’s shelter. “I would check in to get updates,” she says. “I wouldn’t do it every day, though. If I did, it would be too depressing, and I probably would have died.”
The couple, along with the three kids they had at the time — they have since had two more — had a brief respite from being homeless when they qualified for a rental-assistant program that paid for an apartment for nine months. Various nonprofits around town, such as Hopelink of Southern Nevada and the Salvation Army, offer help with emergency rental assistance, but this program, Dival says, arranged through the city of Las Vegas, placed her family in an apartment. But the couple still grappled with unemployment. After the program ran its course, they were unable to keep up the $900 monthly rent and headed back to the shelters.
After her husband finally found employment, the family moved into a studio-style weekly motel, paying $150 a week. “It had a sofa bed, a shower with no bathtub, a microwave but no kitchen, and a television with 10 stations,” she says. With no place for their children to play and the fear of upsetting property managers, their stay felt tense. But it was a place to lay their heads.
After a few months at the weekly, Dival finally got the news that was four years in the making: She was finally approved for public housing.
Her neighbor, 27-year-old Laquesha Fitch, arrived around the same time. “I was also waiting four years,” she says. “I was denied my first time because I had gotten into some trouble while I was waiting.” Fitch and her children were living with her mother at the time, and were struggling with food insecurity, which led her to shoplift a few times. “I know it was wrong,” she says. “It was for my kids, though.”
This infraction resulted in a denial, which Fitch appealed. The appeal was granted, and she and her children moved into their two-bedroom place. “People don’t realize you can appeal and fight,” she says. “I’m glad I did.”
‘A LOT OF CHALLENGES IN THE ECONOMY’
In late February, Nevada HAND hosted the grand opening of its 31st property, Cordero Pines Family Apartments, off Lamb Boulevard near Bonanza Road. The facility looks like any other apartment complex in the valley: swimming pool, modern clubhouse, even a small dog park. Yet it is affordable housing. And now home for Shelly Frost and her family.
Frost moved from Southern California to Las Vegas with her son in 2008. “We had nowhere else to go, but my mom was here, so we were able to move in with her,” she says. Six months later, they were kicked out and became homeless. “We slept in a cemetery one night before we were able to go to a shelter,” she says. “That’s where my sister’s boyfriend slept. He said it would be safe.”
After a few months at The Shade Tree, Frost was able to get assistance and moved into an apartment in Henderson off Boulder Highway. “At that time, I didn’t have any income, so I didn’t have to pay rent for two years,” she says. During that period, she also met her now boyfriend and had two more children. With his income, the family of five spent the next several years bouncing around from apartment complexes, paying between $700 and $775. Then the last place raised her rent from $775 to $900 per month. “It was a big jump,” she says. “To live there for $900, I didn’t want to do it.” Frost had previously applied for Section 8, but says she was denied.
One day, Frost saw an apartment complex being built. It was the soon-to-be-opened Cordero Pines Family Apartments.
The nonprofit, which started in 1993, owns and manages more than 4,000 apartment units in Southern Nevada. “Our units are funded through the low-income housing tax-credit program,” Zellmer says. “We get money from a competitive application process to build affordable housing. That keeps our mortgage rates low. With our mortgage rates being low, we can discount our rents.” Zellmer says applicants have to meet minimum income requirements. “If they move in and get a better job, we don’t ask them to move out,” he says.
Of the 7,200 residents Nevada HAND is housing, some 2,700 are seniors and 4,500 are families. Their average annual incomes are about $16,000 and $23,000, respectively. “Our residents are working,” Sharps adds. “These are not people who are lazily wasting time. They are taking care of their obligations, paying taxes, investing in their communities and families. They are doing all the things they are supposed to do as citizens and parents, but there are a lot of challenges baked into the construct of the economy.”
Meeting the income requirements from Nevada HAND, Frost’s family moved into a three-bedroom unit. “We were just praying we got this, because we didn’t know what else we’d do,” she says.
A committee with the Nevada Legislature is currently looking at affordable housing issues within the state to better determine what legislative support needs to be enacted.
There have been past bills some experts say could have an impact on those struggling to find affordable housing. Lauren Peña, the directing attorney at the Civil Law Self-Help Center (part of Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada), says one bill that went into effect in October allows some tenants to seal their records if there is an eviction. In general, an eviction complicates the search to find affordable housing. Peña says, for one, Nevada’s quick eviction process leaves many low-income families with few options. After receiving a notice, families can either pay the rent, move, or respond to the eviction through the court system. Even if they win, going through court puts a mark on them. Prior to this legislation, potential landlords could see if there was an eviction case, even if the tenant won the dispute. “Then a landlord sees that and doesn’t want to rent to you,” she says. Now, people who win their case can have the whole affair sealed. Peña says even if a person lost a case, they can still petition a judge to seal it.
While that’s a step in the right direction, the issue still comes back to the lack of housing. Back at the housing authority, Gamazo doesn’t know what future federal resources will look like for the agency, which she says constantly lacks adequate funding. “We have never been 100 percent funded,” she says. “Some years are less than others.” In the next year, Gamazo says the agency will be funded about 60 percent.
The other issue she says the housing authority is facing is needed repairs to existing facilities. However, the current federal budget decreases funding for capital improvement projects. “With HUD we have an agreement that says we (the housing authority) will maintain the properties, and they will give money for capital improvements,” she says. “Under President Trump, the budget for capital improvements has been cut to zero.”
Nevada HAND plans to open more facilities. “This population of those in need is growing every day,” Zellmer says. “So we continue to break ground on new complexes.”