Affordable Housing

The price of rent in Las Vegas has gone up every single year that I have lived here. In the late 2010s, a two bedroom apartment rented for $900 at most. Since COVID, that number has skyrocketed up to nearly $2000. Wages have not kept up. We are forced into a position where finding a job that can actually pay the rent is nearly untenable. Many people are living with roommates well into their 30s and 40s, or staying in unhappy or even abusive relationships in order to pay rent. For single parents, the problem is catastrophic. A single mom has to earn $70,000 a year to barely get by. This is an income in the top 20% of incomes, nearly impossible for the majority of people to reach. The classic response is that these people should apply for assistance, but assistance is not available. During my work to help displaced residents, I have found that there are no affordable housing units available for them. There is no public housing. The "affordable housing" run by the housing authority often still has burdensome move in costs and the income limits mean that people earning less than the needed income to live alone but *more* than poverty are left out. People earning significantly *below* the guidelines are also left out, unable to afford 30% of the income guidelines. For those who can use this housing, we already have a huge shortage due to a tax plan that allows affordable units to reset to market rate units before the state has caught up.