LETTER: Government handouts won’t make housing affordable

President Joe Biden was recently in Las Vegas to tout “affordable housing,” while Gov. Joe Lombardo asked the president to cut “red tape” and release federal land for more housing. The Clark County Commission voted to approve $30 million in “affordable housing” projects.

First, I’d like to ask all three what they consider to be “affordable housing.” Giving $15,000 to new homebuyers does not make homes more affordable. Particularly when that money comes from taxpayers such as me who received no such benefit.

One factor that has happened here over the past five years is people moving from California with higher incomes and the profits from the homes they sold. They have driven the price of owning and renting in Las Vegas to high levels. The growth here has been at a percentage not imagined, nor prepared for. Who thinks adding more “affordable housing” is going to change that?

I read that there have been more than 6,300 evictions so far this year in Clark County. More than 30,000 in 2023. Some of the locations were left empty and taken over by squatters.

It would seem to me that lowering the cost of existing homes would keep many people in their houses, reduce the unhoused population and allow local governments some breathing room to see that all growth is not good.