Where is the leadership, the urgency, the alarm on the continued lack of overall local affordable housing? Shouldn’t it be an all hands on deck all the time at all levels situation?
There are meetings and initiatives here and there, COVID-related budget allocations, but it usually seems piecemeal, one project here, two Motel 6s purchased there, one community land trust over here (of which there could be more, but every one of them seems like a slow mission to Mars), one failed negotiation to take over the Sundowner and an RHA / City of Reno feud over the Bonanza Inn.
At the state level, the governor’s recent veto spree ended hopes of legislation to help tenants, including pauses on eviction proceedings if a rental assistance application was pending, and more regulations against onerous rental applications and fees.
Senate Bill 371 which would have expressly given cities and counties the authority to “enact any ordinance or measure relating to affordable housing” was also vetoed. But the city of Reno and Sparks and Washoe County could already do so if it was their absolute main priority.
Here are three ideas, which could be pursued at the local level, whatever the governor signs or doesn’t sign.
1) A Displacement Prevention Navigator Program
Like in Austin Texas, we could have a displacement prevention navigator pilot program. Here, the focus of this pilot program is on preventing homelessness just as it’s about to begin.
Here is their own writeup: “The Displacement Prevention Navigator pilot program aims to help people stay in their homes with assistance from paid Navigators, people recruited from local communities. Acting as a bridge between communities and resource providers, Navigators will help renters and homeowners to learn about and access housing resources from the City and other organizations. Navigators will be paid $25 per hour for the year-long program. Training in summer 2023 will take approximately 6 hours/week. Outreach and assistance will take 10-15 hours/week from fall 2023 through May 2024.”
2) A Right to Counsel Program for those Facing Evictions
On the legal side, Reno, and perhaps all of Nevada, could join 15 other cities and three states including Seattle and Washington, with public programs offering legal representation to people facing eviction.
Well funded right to counsel programs can help hire more lawyers and increase their pay as many new lawyers have a tendency to avoid practicing in tenant law, due to low remuneration there.
“To some extent in eviction we are in the business of mitigating harm,” Pat Wrona, director of Legal Services at the legal aid nonprofit CARPLS, which is helping administer a right to counsel pilot in Chicago, was quoted as saying in a Bloomberg article. “If we can get you more time in the apartment, if we can minimize the money that is owed, if we can keep this off your record by somehow getting the court case sealed … these are all victories.”
3) Helping the RHA Buy More Existing Properties
In terms of preservation, the City of Reno needs to keep being aggressive in buying more buildings and working with the Reno Housing Authority to convert them into affordable housing.
“If we really want to solve the housing problem in this country, we have to get as much of the private housing stock as we can out of the hands of for-profit owners and turn it over to nonprofit owners and public owners,” James Stockard, a lecturer with the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University and former commissioner of the Cambridge Housing Authority has been quoted as saying.
Dallas and Missoula have done it recently with a 347-unit apartment building, and a 96-unit apartment complex. Gary Indiana’s housing authority recently bought an old elementary school.
On that front though, the purchase of the two Motel 6s to be converted into “workforce housing” was recently curtailed by annihilation of another similar project.
Media reports from earlier this year quoted an email from RHA Director Hillary Lopez furious that the Reno City Manager abruptly pulled out of a deal to help purchase the Bonanza Inn at West Fort and West streets and its 58 units.
In his own email, the City Manager Doug Thornley, who just got another bonus of $20,000, on top of previous raises, and last being listed on Transparent Nevada at $247 K in regular pay and $348K in total pay and benefits, was quoted as writing: “The city council has invested quite a bit in housing affordability over the last few cycles, and the RHA received a tremendous amount of funding from the state – which gives the city an opportunity to consider other strategic investments.”
Sadly, in addition to the governor’s recent vetoes that doesn’t sound like urgency at the Reno level. Perhaps, ideas such as these can plant some of the seeds for potential future candidates to be more caring and big picture results oriented in terms of having much more affordable housing in northern Nevada.