Nevada interim committee hears a day of testimony on housing affordability, funding gaps and rent-stability ideas

Carson City — Members of the Joint Interim Standing Committee on Commerce and Labor spent a full day on May 20 hearing broad testimony on Nevada’s housing affordability crunch and potential policy responses.

The committee opened the session with a two-hour public-comment block in Las Vegas during which renters, tenant organizers and workers described steep rent increases and housing instability. “Nevada has the opportunity to lead the West,” said Terry Chi, who described workplace harm and urged protections tied to a proposed workplace psychological safety law. Multiple tenants gave detailed examples of rents rising from the low hundreds to more than double in a few years.

Advocates and researchers said the state faces a structural shortfall of affordable units. Maurice Paige, executive director of the Nevada Housing Coalition, told members the state is short roughly 124,000 units overall and about 78,000 units affordable to households at 30% of area median income (AMI). He urged the legislature to extend the state low-income housing tax credit and to create more permanent state housing revenue. “If we don’t extend the tax credits, housing production could slow or stall,” Paige said.

Tenant and advocacy groups pressed for near-term tenant protections. Speakers from the Nevada Housing Justice Alliance argued that relying on market-rate supply alone will not quickly reach lowest-income renters and recommended “rent stability” measures that limit year-to-year increases and protect tenants from eviction-driven displacement. “Supply solutions can take decades to filter down,” testimony from the alliance said, urging policy tools that prevent immediate hardship.

Local housing authorities and developers described different pieces of the delivery system. Bill Brewer of the Nevada Rural Housing Authority outlined voucher and preservation programs for rural counties and stressed donor land, impact-fee waivers and tax increment tools to bring projects online. Kathy Thomas of the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority said voucher wait lists exceed 30,000 households and that federal funding levels and formula limits prevent quick expansion of that capacity.

Developers and industry groups emphasized supply-side fixes and cost drivers. Representatives of the Nevada Realtors and homebuilders linked high prices to constrained land supplies, construction cost inflation and permitting delays. Dan Morgan of the Builders Association of Northern Nevada highlighted federal land ownership limits — roughly 80% of Nevada is federally managed — and called for coordinated federal-state-local land and infrastructure solutions. Builders and multifamily owners also described sharp increases in per-unit construction costs (presenters cited building costs roughly doubling versus a decade ago) and long development timelines for projects that rely on low-income housing tax credits.

Housing finance and data groups outlined information tools available to policymakers. The Housing Division and the Gwyn Center presented three statutorily required reports — the annual Housing Progress Report, AB213 housing-element reports and the Low-Income Housing Database — and demonstrated envyous.org, the state’s low-income housing locator. Academics from UNLV’s LEAD center urged better centralization of assessor, GIS and incorporation data so the state can more precisely track investor purchases, property conversions and supply needs.

Committee members questioned presenters about investor purchases of single-family homes (presenters gave a ballpark 2024 estimate of ~15% investor share in single-family purchases), regional differences in rent pressure (Clark vs. Washoe vs. Carson City) and trade-offs linked to tenant protections. The committee voted to approve the minutes from the January 22 meeting during the session but took no final votes on policy at the May 20 hearing.

What’s next: several presenters said they will bring policy proposals, data follow-ups and model ordinances to the membership this summer; the Nevada Housing Coalition and other groups flagged July policy forums as venues to refine draft bill ideas. The committee will continue hearings and may use the reports and additional data to shape BDRs for the upcoming legislative session.

Sources: Testimony to the Joint Interim Standing Committee on Commerce and Labor, May 20, 2026 (presenters included Maurice Paige, Nevada Housing Coalition; Nevada Housing Justice Alliance; Bill Brewer, Nevada Rural Housing Authority; Kathy Thomas, Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority; developers and industry groups).