Clark County outlines $500M-plus investments and noncongregate strategy to address homelessness

Clark County officials told the Nevada Assembly Committee on Government Affairs on Feb. 20 that the county has invested hundreds of millions of dollars across a suite of housing and homelessness programs — including large-scale noncongregate facilities, a community housing fund and targeted developments of permanent supportive and homeownership units.

County Manager Kevin Schiller said the county has used “noncongregate care” — private rooms leased in hotels and motels with on-site services — as a primary entry point into the homelessness response. “Noncongregate care gives four walls, separate room, privacy to those individuals that we’re serving,” Schiller said, adding that the approach reduced recidivism and allowed more intensive on-site services.

The county said it committed multiple funding streams to scale that model during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Chief Financial Officer Jessica Colvin told the committee the county’s general fund operates near $2 billion in FY2025 and that a large share of county investments for vulnerable residents are consolidated tax and property tax funded. Colvin and Schiller described several discrete investments and outcomes: county contracts and leases to create navigation centers and noncongregate units, master-leasing of apartments to move residents from short-term settings, and targeted subsidies to preserve and rehab affordable units.

Why it matters: County officials said the noncongregate model works as a stabilization and intake point but highlighted that success depends on creating follow-up housing options — master leases, affordable multifamily units and permanent supportive housing — so clients can move through the system. Without that downstream capacity, noncongregate sites remain full and length-of-stay grows.

Key details presented to the committee included: the county’s FY24 direct investment of client and supportive services described at the hearing as about $220 million; navigation and crisis services with roughly 460 shelter and 70 navigation beds; a stated noncongregate portfolio of nine facilities totalling capacity for about 2,446 units under three-year contracts; and about $177 million placed into a community housing fund to accelerate multifamily development and preservation. Jessica Colvin said the county added roughly 20 multifamily developments (about 3,000 units) and rehabbed 562 units as part of recent housing efforts.

The presentation also noted permanent supportive housing production: three developments producing about 210 units targeted at 30–50% area median income, and two single-family home developments (about 240 homes) aimed at households at 50–80% AMI with groundbreakings planned for February (county statement).

Schiller and Colvin said capacity constraints remain the biggest operational hurdle: ‘‘Most of the time, [noncongregate facilities] are completely full,’’ Schiller said. He also described efforts to expand master-leasing capacity so clients can move onward from noncongregate settings.

County officials told legislators that some noncongregate placements include families that otherwise would enter the child welfare system; the county said diversion and family-focused noncongregate placements are an explicit aim to avoid unnecessary foster care placements.

County leaders described additional barriers to scaling housing, including federal land processes and water/infrastructure limitations for new developments. Schiller noted the Bureau of Land Management’s NEPA and land conveyance timelines, and that the last proposed lands bill identified about 25,000 acres of potential availability but processing and water access constrain how quickly sites become developable.

Ending: County staff offered to provide legislators follow-up detail — including a breakdown of available developable parcels, average noncongregate length-of-stay and additional budgetary line items — and said they will return with more precise FY25-to-FY26 numbers as budget work continues.