‘It’s our responsibility’: Advocate urges community’s help housing homeless
When it comes to getting homeless people into homes in Las Vegas, Maurice Page finds one statistic sticks out for him.
According to a U.S. Government Accountability Office study, a $100 increase in median rent is associated with a 9 percent increase in the homeless rate. Rental rates have begun to drop in various communities across the Las Vegas valley, but they remain higher than pre-pandemic levels while wages have not kept pace and the cost of living has risen.
Speaking Tuesday to a group of real estate professionals, Page said the number one issue is that Nevada’s minimum wage — set to rise to $11.25 for employees not offered health insurance and to $10.25 per hour for employees offered health insurance on July 1 — needs to keep going up.
In July 2024 there will be also be a uniform minimum wage of $12 per hour, which Page said is a good start in helping people be able to access affordable housing. However, he said rental rates in Nevada need to be in reach for those making minimum wage.
“If we can just get rents down just a little bit, we can get people in, get them settled and then ultimately increase our economic growth here in the city and the state,” said Page, the landlord engagement specialist for the Operation Home! program. The government-funded program works with individuals to get them into homes via incentives for landlords and property managers.
Page spoke Tuesday at the Homeless to Homes Summit at The Center in downtown Las Vegas. The summit brought together members of The National Association of Residential Property Managers, the Women’s Council of Realtors, The LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance, the National Association of Real Estate Brokers and Residential Real Estate Council of Nevada to talk about the issue of homelessness in Las Vegas, and how the real estate industry can help.
Page said that right now Nevada is short about 85,000 affordable homes.
“If rents are going up, mortgages are going up and if you have a situation like a few months ago where eggs are $8 a dozen, that hurts people,” he said.
The current economic climate across the U.S., where the cost of living is much higher than it was pre-pandemic, means many people are simply one economic misfortune from becoming homeless, Page added.
“If say 50 percent of a person’s income is going toward their housing, that number is not justifiable and so what happens is you miss one payment, or say the alternator goes out on your car, then that messes up the whole budget for your month if you’re making minimum wage,” he said.
Operation Home! takes applicants who are “none to moderate income individuals” and helps find them landlords or property managers willing to take them in as renters. Operation Home! in turn offers up to one year of guaranteed rent, plus applicable security deposits and access to money for repairs for damage, plus $500 upfront.
The program currently has approximately 3,500 people within its system looking to be housed, Page said. He said that since July 2021, Operation Home! has housed more than 2,700 people, compared to about 800 people a year pre-pandemic.
Data suggests that homelessness in the area has been on a steady rise since 2017. Last year, 7,618 people in Nevada were homeless on any given night with 5,645 of them located within Clark County, according to county data. This equates to approximately 24 homeless people per 100,000 people in Clark County.
Page said combating homelessness ultimately helps the bottom line for everyone.
“At the end of the day it’s our responsibility to help out those less fortunate than us,” he said, “and this is basically what we are trying to do is give our homeless population a leg up.”
Contact Patrick Blennerhassett at pblennerhassett@reviewjournal.com or 702-348-3967.
