Rep. Horsford sits in on North Las Vegas eviction proceedings as growing Nevada crisis looms

LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — After pandemic-era tenant protection laws and the federal eviction moratorium ended, a growing eviction crisis has been unfolding in Nevada. 

The state's laws had a sunset in June and the legislative efforts to extend them were vetoed by Governor Joe Lombardo. 

In a North Las Vegas courtroom on Tuesday, Congressman Steven Horsford sat in on eviction court proceedings to see firsthand what the community is experiencing. 

"Ultimately, if people are responsible for paying rent and they can't pay it, they're not going to be able to live there indefinitely," Horsford said. "But we can't throw people out in four hours. That's unconscionable. Particularly when you've got children involved, when you've got seniors involved, when we have a high percentage of veterans who are impacted." 

Horsford said evictions in Las Vegas are up 170% compared to the same month before the pandemic began, citing numbers from Princeton University's Eviction Lab. 

During court, landlords said tenants they were evicting owed anywhere from a couple of thousand dollars to well over ten thousand dollars. Judge Belinda T. Harris oversaw the proceedings. Unlike her peers in other Clark County courts, Harris was issuing her eviction rulings "with a conscience," Rep. Horsford said. 

Harris ruled tenants had to be evicted by law, but would give them a week or so to leave the property and not place an eviction on their records. It's leniency that Horsford said should be exhibited by other judges during these trying times. 

"At a time when we're all recovering from the pandemic, the economy's getting back on track, people are trying to get back on their feet. And I just think we need a little bit more flexibility," he said. 

Horsford called the eviction crisis a complex without an easy solution, and asked for local, state, and federal lawmakers to come together. 

Federally, Horsford said he had 400 vacancies for Section 8 and veteran housing vouchers, but said he needs landlords to accept them. 

Judge Harris openly invites elected officials like Horsford into her courtroom to see these evictions unfold. 

"I think that when they're [elected officials] making the laws, what they have for their intentions of the law to be and be implemented, sometimes it's not what's happening or it's not what they think it is," said Judge Harris. "So I think it's very important that you come and see it in action." 

Jonathan Norman is the policy director for the Nevada Coalition of Legal Service Providers. He said Judge Harris issues her evictions in a way that's "conscious of humanity." 

It stood in stark contrast to what Norman saw at the Las Vegas Justice Court Tuesday morning, where tenants were being given 48 hours to evict with those evictions appearing on their records. 

Norman works for agencies that help the growing number of Nevadans handle their eviction notices. 

"We used to say a busy day is when you get over 300. Now, a busy day is when you're getting 500 people coming in," said Norman. "Because they have an eviction notice, or the constable has put the notice on their door to vacate. And they're coming in looking for whatever help there is." 

Besides calling on other judges to rule with empathy like Judge Harris, Norman said Clark County can help address what he considers to be "avoidable evictions." 

Norman said those are people applying for the CARES Housing Assistance Program (CHAP) with the County, which is a program to assist residents to pay for rental costs and utilities. 

"The reality is those people are getting evicted. And those are what I think of as avoidable evictions," said Norman. "There's a certain group of evictions that we're not going to avoid, right? People are in over their head. But when we have rental assistance, we have to get it here in time."