HOUSING
JUSTICE
In 2020-2021, PLAN worked hard to support the Eviction Moratorium to support Nevadans struggling with housing after the Covid-19 Global Pandemic. We also held community listening sessions to ensure we were connecting with the community to identify the biggest needs of our community and to clarify our legislative and policy priorities.
PLAN continues to work at the local, state, and federal level to address housing policy. Our goal is to ensure tenants, public housing residents, manufactured homeowners, and unhoused people are at the center of decision-making and policy change. With those most directly impacted by the housing crisis at the forefront of our campaign, we believe that we will win concrete improvements in people’s lives to increase housing stability in Nevada, increase the control and opportunities tenants have over where they live and what they pay, and take away power from corporations and egregious landlords through statutory changes and community presence in the legislative process.
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PLAN'S VISION
We envision a world that centers the needs, safety, and interests of marginalized communities over profits; a world that decomodifies housing and instead guarantees safe, affordable, and comfortable housing for all.
Our Demands:
Rent Stabilization: Tenants across the state are being priced out! Rent is too damn high and we need solutions. Wages still are not rising fast enough to support rising rents and corporate buyouts are exasperating the problem. We need action from our elected officials to limit rapidly rising costs of rent.
Tenant Protections: Tenants need to get their security deposits back in a timely manner in order to secure new housing. There needs to be clear standards for what can be taken out of a security deposit and what can be charged for cleaning. We also often hear stories of tenants who in the process of finding an apartment, pay multiple application fees, sometimes over $100, eating away into their budgets.
Source of Income Protections: Renters who are reliant on housing-choice vouchers, rental assistance, disability income or other benefits may currently be denied housing based on their legal source of income. Adding source of income as a protected class into our state’s fair housing law will protect vulnerable populations from housing instability and homelessness by removing discriminatory barriers to housing.
Eviction Reform: Nevada’s summary eviction procedures are among the fastest in the country. These expedited processes to evict tenants leaves renters with very little time to defend themselves in court. In fact, with a summary eviction the person being threatened with eviction must initiate the court case, a process that is unique to the state of Nevada. Families who are summarily evicted do not have due process or the opportunity to defend themselves in court. During the 2023 Leg Session, AB 340 sought to rewrite the eviction process to put responsibility on the landlord to initiate the complaint process.
No Cause Evictions: Nevada law also allows landlords to evict renters for “no cause,” or no fault of the tenant. The law requires landlords provide a 30 day notice to a tenant who pays monthly or 7 days to a tenant who pays weekly. This is not enough time to find a new place to live in today’s market. Many other states have sought to limit these types of evictions, as they can be used to cover discrimination as well as lead to housing insecurity. During the pandemic, landlords used no-cause eviction as a loophole to get around emergency protections prohibiting nonpayment of rent evictions for those who have been impacted by the crisis.
Eviction Diversion: We need a strong program that would permit the Justice Court to create Eviction Diversion Programs to mitigate a family or tenant from being evicted in the first place. Preventing tenants from the aggressive process of eviction also usually prevents them from entering dangerous cycles of recidivism.
Rental Assistance + Eviction Diversion: Nevada tenants have not recovered from the pandemic and are continuing to be pushed out of their homes. The current rental assistance program has many process errors and often leaves tenants with more questions than answers.
Rental Assistance: SB335 in the 2023 NV Leg Session sought to extend protections from evictions for 60 days if a tenant had a pending rental assistance application. There is also a large sum of funding waiting to be claimed by the state which could be utilized to support creating more affordable housing opportunities.