The funding for 200 units will be approved in the first round, with additional project announcements to follow. (Photo: Michael Lyle/Nevada Current)
The Nevada Housing Division is on track to approve nearly $12 million in funding to develop roughly 200 units of permanent supportive housing throughout the state to help people experiencing homelessness.
Assembly Bill 310, which was passed by state lawmakers in 2023 and went into effect in January 2024, appropriated $30 million to the division to be allocated toward permanent supportive housing projects.
Permanent supportive housing is subsidized for populations with significantly low or no income, such as folks experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness, and comes with case management and wrap-around support services.
Juawana Grant, the deputy administrator of programs at the Nevada Housing Division, said the division will finalize awards and will make an announcement for the first round of funding later this month.
At a December presentation to the Nevada Interagency Council on Homelessness, the division laid out the five applicants – four from Northern Nevada and one from Southern Nevada – that scored the highest.
The division will work to address geographically disparities in the next round of funding. More Northern Nevada projects sought funding in the first round.
Among those with the highest scores include the Cares Campus, a massive emergency shelter in Washoe County. The campus is seeking to create 50 units of permanent supportive housing for those people experiencing homelessness chronically.
Other projects listed seek to convert existing motels to housing for people experiencing homelessness with severe mental illness and construct new units for medically vulnerable unhouse people.
Dollars provided by the grant funding help with operational support and tenant services.
The projects are estimated to create about 182 housing units for those experiencing homelessness, though there is no timeline for when units would be available.
Projects requested $11.8 million in combined funding.
Nevada, like most of the nation, is contending with a severe housing shortage that was exacerbated by the pandemic.
While the state lacks affordable housing for various income levels, there is an extreme deficit for housing for individuals living below 30% area median income.
An estimated 10,106 experienced homelessness in Nevada in 2024, according to data released by the U.S. Housing and Urban Development in December.
The numbers are based on the point-in-time count, an annual snapshot of those experiencing homelessness on one given night, and likely an undercount.
The state saw a 17% increase in homelessness according to HUD.
In order to help people exit homelessness, or prevent long stints of homelessness among at-risk populations, more housing is needed that address specific challenges they face when seeking a place to live.
“Many of those folks might be coming in with very limited income or no income even,” Grant said.
The units could also help unhoused folks who often face barriers to getting housed because of criminal records, eviction history, credit scores or substance use and mental health needs, Grant said.
“The target populations are really chronically homeless people with co-occurring disorders, maybe substance use disorder and mental health, chronic mental illness,” she said.
Unlike transitional housing programs, which are used temporarily to house folks but have set time limits for how long people can stay, permanent supportive housing doesn’t have set timeframes. Those approved would also sign a lease, Grant added.
The division closed the application process in November 2024. There were 12 applications for the first grant round of funding, seven from Northern Nevada, 4 from southern Nevada and one from rural Nevada.
Christine Hess, the chief financial officer for the division, said another application process will open up in the spring. She expects the division to allocate the remaining dollars this year.
Another component of AB 310 allocated $2 million to the division for staffing assistance to do an assessment of how many permanent supportive housing units are needed statewide and track the progress of the dollars allocated.
Grant said they are in the process of hiring consultants to run the assessment.