By Michael Lyle, Nevada Current
Housing justice organizers on Tuesday called on Gov. Joe Lombardo to address the rising number of evictions and criticized the governor for “only sending whiny letters” to the White House as a way to solve the state’s housing crisis.
Skyrocketing rents, limited affordable housing options and a lightning quick eviction process have contributed to a growing number of people facing housing instability, members of the Nevada Housing Justice Alliance said Tuesday.
“The governor’s housing policy is to send a letter every six months to (President) Joe Biden asking for the release of federal land,” said Jonathan Norman, policy director with the Nevada Coalition of Legal Service Providers.
Lombardo has sent several letters to the Biden administration this year, starting in March, that blame the administration for its role in the housing crisis saying it’s not doing enough to make more federal land available for housing development.
His latest letter, sent last week, came days after Biden announced a proposal to cap yearly rent increases on corporate owned properties nationwide at 5% and free up federal land in Nevada to build more affordable housing.
“Housing developers throughout the state are poised to add to Nevada’s housing inventory, but we need a streamlined approach to the disposal of federal lands so they can get to work,” Lombardo wrote.
The coalition, which includes groups like Make the Road, the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada and the ACLU of Nevada, once again on Tuesday pointed out Lombardo’s role in making housing unattainable.
Lombardo vetoed several bills proposed during the 2023 Legislative session that offered tenant protections and reformed the eviction process, including Senate Bill 335, which sought to partially extend a 2023 eviction protection that paused a case while rental assistance applications were being processed.
Jarrett Clark, the communication director with For Our Future Nevada, said since then the housing crisis has gotten out of control.
“And during that time, Gov. Lombardo has only sent whiny letters to the Biden-Harris administration,” he said.
Norman said it isn’t as simple as the state seeking to “build our way out of” the housing crisis. Nevada needs better eviction policies and tenant protections to keep people housed, he said.
“Going into the next session, the solutions from our governor cannot be to, every since months, write the Harris administration and ask for the release of federal lands,” he said. “We need real tenant protections in our state.”
In the meantime, groups have launched an eviction monitoring program in order to push for some judicial accountability, said Ben Iness, the coalition coordinator with the Nevada Housing Justice Alliance.
Organizers who spoke Tuesday about the program said they still see countless evictions where a tenant has a pending rental assistance application, but the landlord declines to wait for it to be processed and would rather proceed with the eviction.
“We noticed depending on where a tenant had their eviction court case in the valley could determine the outcome of their case,” Iness said.
Tenants, he added, have to face a complicated legal system alone and don’t know how to navigate it.
“When tenants have to represent themselves and are asked, ‘what is your legal defense?’, naturally they share the crisis that they are in,” he said. “They are not trying to share a sob story but things are tough right now. But then they are told (by the judge) that’s not a legal defense.”
Then they are evicted.
Iness said he has also noticed in the times he has attended hearings that judges seem more willing to stay an eviction to give tenants a few extra days to move out.
“My fear is if we’re not in the courts that will stop happening,” Iness said.
North Las Vegas Judge Belinda Harris was the first to start using judicial discretion last year to stay evictions up to 10 days.
Iness said the group is planning to release results of the first few months of the court watching program later in the fall. He hopes the findings could help lawmakers with drafting legislation in the 2025 Legislative Session.
