News Brief
The Nevada Rural Housing Authority will start for Housing Choice Vouchers Thursday, Jan. 20. Due to high demand, qualified applicants will be put on a waitlist and it could be a year or more before they get help.
The program is better known as Section 8. It sends money to landlords every month to cover part of their tenant鈥檚 rent.
Bill Brewer, who鈥檚 executive director of the housing authority, says the program needs to be updated as housing prices in Nevada reach new highs.
鈥淚 think there鈥檚 a much greater demand now simply because rental values have gone up so dramatically in the last two to three years,鈥� he said.
Section 8 is separate from the federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program enacted to prevent evictions during the pandemic 鈥� which is also .
The number of Section 8 vouchers each state receives hasn鈥檛 changed in decades. It鈥檚 a big problem in Nevada, which has around 3 million residents but less than 20,000 vouchers.
President Biden鈥檚 social spending and climate package, known as 鈥淏uild Back Better,鈥� includes billions of dollars to expand Section 8 assistance, but the legislation remains stalled in Congress.
Meanwhile, people keep moving to the Mountain West. According to recent , Idaho was the fastest growing state in the nation, while Utah, Montana and Arizona ranked in the top ten.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West in Montana, 萝莉少女 in Colorado, KUNM in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Copyright 2022
