Gov. Steve Sisolak emphasized that tenants need to take action to access rental assistance funds and begin preparing for the lifting of the CDC eviction moratorium on Saturday.

Frustration over an ineffective ban on short-term rental properties in unincorporated Clark County and a patchwork of rules across municipalities prompted state lawmakers this spring to pass a bill aimed at standardizing rules and holding hosting platforms such as Airbnb or Vrbo liable for noncompliance with local regulations.

Nevada housing advocates claimed a victory this week after the Biden administration declared a 30-day extension of a nationwide eviction moratorium, but also warned that at-risk tenants will continue to fall through the cracks if they are unaware of their rights or the legal protocols they need to follow to get assistance.

Members of the Interim Finance Committee met Tuesday to authorize the governor’s office to accept the full ARP allotment and designate allocations of more than $76 million in federal aid programs, including $39.5 million in rental assistance, $12.1 million in homeowner assistance and $13.9 million for the Department of Education to ensure federal relief funds are properly administered.

In their amicus brief, the attorneys general argued that the moratorium should remain in place because eliminating the ban would “irreparably harm the states,” Ford’s office said. The attorneys general added in the brief that with roughly half of U.S. adults still unvaccinated and children under the age of 12 still ineligible to receive the vaccine, removing the ban could cause cases to surge across the country.

Trade groups representing property owners came out in strong opposition against the measure. Their opposition was summed up by Southern Nevada property manager Molly Hamrick, who said the bill would only serve to “keep landlords from providing a product in the marketplace that tenants desperately need.”

A major provision of the bill allows tenants to use a landlord’s refusal to accept rental assistance money as an affirmative defense in an eviction proceeding.

Every year, former prisoners participate in state-sponsored reentry programs and receive aid to help them transition into life outside of incarceration, but that help is all for naught if they cannot find housing, Sen. Dina Neal (D-Las Vegas) said.

In many cases, tenants approved for the program — including Catala — have found their landlords decline to accept the money, sometimes because of a condition that landlords must not immediately evict the tenant after receiving the funds.

From the infamous waves of demolitions of the Moulin Rouge Hotel and Casino, the first racially integrated casino in Las Vegas, to the quiet removal of less flashy community landmarks, seeing buildings that hold historic and emotional value to residents get reduced to dust have left many with feelings of resentment and skepticism toward the city.

Though a majority of the bills surrounding tenants’ rights and evictions survived the first legislative deadline in early April, a cluster of affordable housing measures that supporters emphasized would give local governments more tools to address the housing crisis ended up on the cutting room floor.

Against a backdrop of increasingly unaffordable housing options, two measures heard at the Legislature on Tuesday highlighted the deep divide between developers and affordable housing advocates.

She likened the summary eviction process to tenants having to sue for the right to defend themselves, and said by the best estimates of process servers, only 10 percent of tenants served such notices fight back.

But on Monday, both housing advocates and landlords said they support proposed legislation that would give renters more of a heads up on rent increases, even as there was a less warm reception for a bill that would create a statewide landlord database and registry.

Developers looking to build affordable housing have to layer federal funding with other financing solutions, Ratti said, explaining that SB284 — heard Tuesday in the Senate Revenue and Economic Development committee — would provide another layer of support to the proverbial lasagna that is Nevada's affordable housing market.

The Nevada Association of Counties (NACO) brought forward SB10, heard Tuesday in the Senate Revenue and Economic Development committee, to address local government shortfalls stemming from unexpected dips in property tax revenues.

Sisolak announced the move in a virtual press conference on Tuesday. He framed it as a way to allow time for backlogged rental assistance programs to disburse federal funds allocated to help tenants rather than sending unused money back to Washington D.C.

SB218 comes on the heels of a previous tenants’ rights measure Ratti sponsored in 2019 — SB151 — that capped late fees landlords could charge. That stirred up a hornet’s nest of opposition from groups including the Nevada Association of REALTORS, and Ratti said it prompted some landlords to retaliate by eliminating grace periods for late payments and inventing new fees.

Two weeks before the expiration of a statewide eviction moratorium, Clark County says it has more than 17,000 applications for rental assistance money still waiting to be processed.

Advocates, real estate agents and developers have turned their eyes to Carson City, with representatives for each group saying that lawmakers’ decisions this session will have long-term implications for the future of Nevada’s housing market.