LETTER: Let them build!

As a recovered homeless citizen of Las Vegas, I resent Gov. Joe Lombardo’s plan to suck up the few remaining houses available to purchase in Nevada, thus driving up the cost of housing once again and putting more disabled and harassed Nevadans on the street.

As I told Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman a few years ago in a townhall meeting, local governments have created at least half of Nevada’s homeless problem by enacting layers of suffocating regulations. The governor’s Kamala Harris-lite plan is another example of government screwing the little guy by ignoring the true nature of the problem: We do not have enough houses because we have outlawed affordable housing.

Such lackadaisical efforts fuel the foolish cry for rent control, another hyper-regulatory disaster of an idea.

The governor’s scheme, which Ms. Harris introduced last year, does nothing to solve the crisis. It worsens the issue by trimming around the edges. Rather than wasting taxpayer money on hastening the removal of the few remaining houses on the market for the public to buy, a governor with the working class family’s needs in mind should work to remove the legal obstructions to home-building legislative meddlers have been erecting in Nevada for decades.

I worry that my hopes for Nevada’s families and my grandchildren may be in vain, as the political class would have to admit that lawmakers can pass flawed laws, which would demand honesty and humility.