Through the clinic, students research and come up with possible solutions on any topic that may intersect with poverty, including housing, food security and mental health.

The residents are locked in a legal battle with the colony council. Colony leaders say the moves are necessary to clean up the neighborhood. Residents call it a thinly-veiled effort to remove them from their homes.

Across Nevada, an estimated 46,000 households — or about 9 percent of renter households in the state — are behind on rent. Their futures play out every week in virtual and in-person courtrooms.

Summary evictions in the Silver State are a uniquely expedited and murky process, leaving tenants with the burden to defend themselves.

Though the high court's late Thursday decision places hundreds of thousands of tenants across the country at risk of eviction, Nevada tenants are still protect by AB486.

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.

Experts estimate about 10 to 13 percent of renters, or more than 100,000 households, are behind on rent. Gov. Steve Sisolak announced Thursday a gradual lift of the eviction moratorium at a time when thousands are facing potential eviction notices and the state's unemployment rate, which peaked at more than 28 percent in April, is estimated to be worse than that seen in the Great Depression.

The colony's lands, including a 20-acre settlement of a few dozen people just outside Winnemucca, are at the heart of a decades-long fight involving the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the tribal council and colony residents.

The ruling, issued Wednesday in Lyon County Justice Court in favor of the tenant and against the Extended Stay Suites in Fernley, appears to be one of the first instances in which a Nevada court has enforced the order Sisolak issued on March 29. In addition to the statutory damages, the judge ordered the motel to pay $299.13 in actual damages to the tenant and immediately allow him back in his room.

More than 20 organizations signed on to a letter last week calling on Sisolak to issue a statewide moratorium on evictions to provide peace of mind to renters, who comprise 45 percent of Nevada households, and replace a confusing patchwork of orders from individual local courts offering varied levels of relief to tenants.