Nevada lawmakers want ways to increase affordable housing

Approximately one in five Clark County households needing help with affordable housing finds it.

In Washoe County, the ratio is closer to one in four.

Nevada Housing Division administrator Steve Aichroth highlighted the staggering disparity Tuesday morning during the first 2018 meeting of the Nevada Legislature’s interim affordable housing committee.

“All these numbers are abysmal,” said state Sen. Julia Ratti, D-Sparks, who chairs the committee.

They also underscore the arduous task facing the bipartisan committee’s six members, who have until June 30 to prepare up to five bill draft requests to submit for the 2019 session of the Legislature.

Aichroth told them Tuesday that average rental rates in Nevada’s metropolitan areas have rebounded past pre-recession peaks. Vacancy rates are falling.

Meanwhile, the federal government has reduced resources for housing choice vouchers and government-owned housing in Nevada. Families in the state who apply for such services can easily wait years before receiving them.

And recent reform of the federal tax code has devalued tax credits that incentivize private investors to help build apartments for low-income families.

U.S. Census Bureau data from 2016 shows nearly half of all renters in Nevada are cost burdened, meaning they spend more than 30 percent of their income on utilities and rent or mortgage.

Victoria Rogers, waiting list coordinator for the Nevada Rural Housing Authority, explained the toll housing costs can have on a family. Once a single mother in her early 20s, Rogers recalled having to choose between buying toilet paper and healthy foods for her son.

“I was living paycheck to paycheck with not a penny left over,” she said.

Rogers’ fortunes changed after she was accepted into the government’s housing choice voucher program. A subsidy allowed her to spend only 30 percent of her income on rent.

“I finally had an opportunity to save money for my son’s future,” Rogers said. “This program has helped to ensure that I could put healthy meals on the table for my child.”

After close to six hours of testimony Tuesday, Ratti decided on two definite goals for her committee: Settle upon standard definitions for different types of affordable housing to ensure conformity throughout Nevada’s laws, and improve the way the state collects and disseminates data on affordable housing.

“For me, the definitions and data pieces are foundational for everything we do,” she said.

Contact Michael Scott Davidson at sdavidson@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861. Follow @davidsonlvrj on Twitter.