The Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means committees met in joint session Monday to review a sweeping rental assistance bill.
Assemblyman Steve Yeager, D-Las Vegas, said the goal of AB486 is to ensure that every penny of federal rent assistance funding — some $360 million — gets spent reimbursing landlords for the monthly payments their tenants have been unable to make.
Quick approval of the legislation is critical since the moratorium on evictions expires June 1.
Treasurer Zach Conine told lawmakers the state has already approved more than $98 million in commercial rental assistance. He said there is another $260 million in stimulus funding available to help residential tenants but that if it isn’t sent to landlords by certain deadlines, the remaining money goes back to the federal government.
Former Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, who heads the Southern Nevada legal aid center, said the legislation is necessary to prevent a “mass wave” of evictions starting in a week.
“We have to ensure we don’t leave a single federal dollar on the table,” she said.
The legislation contains a number of protections including that the cash goes directly to the landlords so that a tenant can’t divert the money to some other use.
It would require that all evictions go through mediation to assure the rental assistance dollars get to the landlords.
But landlords would also have their feet held to the fire. The bill would provide penalties for landlords who accept rental assistance dollars but then evict tenants. Those landlords would be subject to civil penalties including having to pay costs and attorney fees for the tenant or the governmental entity that authorized the assistance. Tenants could also stay the execution of an eviction notice by showing that the landlord refused to accept rental assistance.
If tenants refuse to file for assistance, the bill authorizes the landlord to file for the money directly.
A number of organizations testified in opposition to the bill including the Nevada Realtors Association and apartment association well as several individual property managers. They argued that, since the start of the pandemic, all of the burden has been put on the landlords and that a majority of those landlords are mom and pop owners.
The committee took no action on AB486.
