After a drawn-out struggle, the remaining 90 homeowners in the sinking and predominantly Black neighborhood of Windsor Park in North Las Vegas will be relocated to new homes - now that Gov. Joe Lombardo has agreed to sign Senate Bill 450.
The bill will provide qualified homeowners with a new house of the same size in North Las Vegas, pay off their mortgages, and allocate $50,000 each in restitution to cover various expenses.
The bill's primary sponsor is state Sen. Dina Neal. The Las Vegas Democrat said the bill liberates a total of $37 million, which will be used to construct the new properties.
Neal said passage of the bill is not about payback, but rather justice.
"The governor signing the bill was nothing short of a miracle," said Neal. "He vetoed 75 bills, and he was going to veto this one."
Neal said she is thankful to Gov. Lombardo for changing his mind.
She added that Lombardo decided to approve the measure after learning about the research environmentalists and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas William Boyd School of Law worked on for years.
She said the first part of the program is seeking a developer through a request for proposals process that will begin Saturday.
The relocation process of the 90 residents will likely take a year to complete.
Coordinator for the Nevada Environmental Justice Coalition Cinthia Moore said residents sharing their personal stories really put a face to the issue, which Moore said was crucial for the bill's passage - especially as lawmakers are used to hearing from lobbyists on a daily basis.
Moore said she is pleased SB 450 secured the necessary support from legislators, and ultimately the support of the governor.
"The suffering that these families have endured for years is proof that environmental injustice has been impacting communities of color a lot more than other communities," said Moore, "and it is only now that something is being done to save them."
For decades Windsor Park residents have lived in homes that have been damaged by the sinking ground because the community was built over geological faults and an aquifer.
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Advocates for affordable housing are still grappling with a U.S. Supreme Court decision they say could criminalize homelessness. Justices voted 6-3 in favor of Grants Pass, Ore., which passed an ordinance allowing fines for people sleeping in public, even if they have nowhere else to go.
Rachael Myers, executive director of the Washington Low-Income Housing Alliance, said the decision comes as many people in Washington state struggle to stay housed.
"The affordable housing crisis that we're experiencing right now is part of what makes this decision so painful. We're saying that it's okay to punish people for not having a place to live, when at the same time, the cost of housing is so astronomical," she said.
Critics of the decision say it opens the doors to cities implementing their own policies to punish people for sleeping outdoors. Supporters of Grants Pass say cities have had few options for responding to homelessness.
In ruling the anti-camping ban did not violate the Eighth Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the high court should not "dictate this nation's homelessness policy."
Myers noted Washingtonians needed to make more than $36 per hour at a full time job in 2023 to afford to rent the average two-bedroom apartment.
"It's especially a slap in the face when housing costs are so out of control, and when we know what to do about it. We know that providing people with housing and services is what is going to actually reduce homelessness and addressing the individuals' homelessness. Fines and tickets and arrests won't do that," she explained.
Myers added enforcing bans on sleeping outdoors could also divert resources.
"It costs a lot of money to incarcerate people, and we could be devoting any resources that go into arresting people or fining and ticketing people - we could be putting those resources into housing, into services, into shelter," she continued.
Myers said Washington state lawmakers could look at this issue and potentially take anti-camping bans off the table during their next legislative session.
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Connecticut advocates are distressed about the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Grants Pass v. Gloria Johnson.
The ruling said public camping bans are not "cruel and unusual punishment" as defined by the Eighth Amendment. It means municipalities can fine homeless people for making encampments in public parks.
Sarah Fox, CEO of the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, said criminalizing homelessness never works.
"People who are arrested are then returned to our community without resources," Fox pointed out. "So those that are engaged in the criminal justice system rarely come back to the community with the resources they need to thrive."
She added expenses such as court fees can stall a person's efforts to get housing. States such as California, Texas and Utah have bans similar to Grants Pass. Other states are either considering bans or saw legislation fail when it was introduced. The ruling comes as the last two annual point-in-time snapshots showed homelessness in Connecticut is rising after an 8-year decline.
Nationwide, homelessness has only grown since 2017. A 2022 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development point-in-time snapshot shows more than 582,000 people were homeless on a single 2022 night.
Fox argued a multipronged approach can reduce homelessness and developing affordable housing is a primary concern.
"We need to take a deep look at zoning," Fox contended. "What other models of housing are available in the near term, and how do we actually build deeply affordable units in the long term to meet the need?"
Recent estimates showed Connecticut is short 100,000 affordable housing units and current housing is too expensive even for higher-paying jobs in the state. The National Low-Income Housing Coalition finds Connecticut rental prices far exceed the pay of most if not all jobs the state has to offer.
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A group formed to fight for the rights of Bozeman's lower-income renters is pushing for mandatory legal assistance for people facing eviction. Opponents say it's unfair to landlords.
Bozeman Tenants United calls itself a multiracial, intergovernmental movement to win safe, dignified and affordable housing for working-class renters.
Benjamin Finegan, director of the group, said rising rents and less availability are proving to be "death by a thousand cuts" for renters, who he pointed out are forced to spend as much as half of their income on housing, if they can afford it at all. He called evictions "acts of violence," and claimed they are at the heart of Bozeman's housing crisis.
"Where an eviction, in a lot of ways, is a death sentence," Finegan argued. "It means that you are out on the street with nowhere to go, possibly with kids. It means that you have a red stamp on your rental record, and it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to find new housing."
Finegan is working to get financial support from Bozeman to pay for legal representation for low-income households facing eviction. The state landlord's association is among the groups pushing back on the idea, saying rent prices are simply driven by market conditions and supply and demand.
Finegan noted Bozeman would join more than a dozen other towns and cities around the country that have instituted some form of legal assistance for people facing eviction. In Bozeman, Finegan said at least two-thirds of residents are low-income renters and as the number continues to grow, his group will push for the funding to pay for legal help.
"Fighting for approximately $670,000 per year in order to actually fund enough attorneys to give people full legal representation through eviction court filings, as well as illegal, dangerous living conditions," Finegan outlined.
Finegan added mandatory, city-funded legal representation for low-income people has sharply reduced the eviction rate in other places across the country that have adopted it, including a dramatic drop in evictions in Kansas City.
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