Las Vegas Tops Nation as Eviction Crisis Spreads Across America

On a Tuesday afternoon in March, Holly Harris slid onto a long wooden bench inside a downtown Las Vegas courtroom. Cradling a colorful stack of papers, she braced for what seemed inevitable.

A hearing officer would soon decide whether to evict the 31-year-old and her four children from their apartment. Outside, in the family's silver minivan, her mother watched two of her babies as Harris flipped through the pages of eviction notices, maintenance requests and paystubs documenting the most recent months of her tenancy.

Things had started falling apart in October, when, overwhelmed by anxiety and depression, Harris found simple tasks, like combing her hair, to be insurmountable. Feeling broken, she took three months of unpaid leave from her job as a cardiovascular technician.

But it wasn't until December that the local housing authority increased her monthly rental assistance to cover the loss of income, and Harris soon found an eviction notice taped to her door, demanding the $458 she missed in November.

Even after returning to work that January, Harris was unable to come up with what she owed. Cash-strapped after paying for groceries and other bills, particularly as inflation drove up the cost of almost everything, she instead spent the following months researching eviction laws and preparing for the worst. "I feel like the system is failing me right now," she told Newsweek.

Following two years of temporary bans and rental assistance programs prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, evictions skyrocketed across the United States in 2022. Court filings rose by double- or triple-digit percentages in 32 metro areas tracked by Eviction Lab, a research group at Princeton University. Overall, 14 cities saw more filings than would have been normal before the pandemic, with Las Vegas leading the pack.

More than 57,000 cases flooded Las Vegas eviction dockets last year, compared to the area's historic annual average of 36,500 filings. Southern Nevada's busiest court reported decade-high filings again this January and February, although court officials said many tenants face multiple cases.

In Minneapolis and Austin, Texas, eviction filings increased fivefold between 2021 and 2022. They more than doubled in Houston, Philadelphia and New York—although only Houston has passed pre-pandemic levels. Legal aid organizations in some states told Newsweek the numbers show no signs of slowing this year. "I keep thinking each month is going to be lower, but the last couple of months are actually higher," said Mary Kaczorek, managing attorney for Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid.

The surge could spell disaster for tenants. Beyond the immediate threat of homelessness, many landlords won't rent to people with an eviction on their record, limiting housing options for years to come. Once they find a new place to live, displaced families often enroll their children in new schools and travel further to work. Rent across the nation is, on average, more than $400 a month higher than it was in early 2020. "We're seeing an even more difficult situation than we were in before the pandemic," Eviction Lab research specialist Daniel Grubbs-Donovan said.

Americans are feeling the financial squeeze elsewhere. Historic inflation has sent fuel and grocery prices soaring, while utility companies are upping their rates. LendingClub reports more than half the country was living paycheck to paycheck as of January. Following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March, a monthly survey of economists by Bloomberg found that nearly two-thirds believed a recession would occur within the next year.

The economic uncertainty has tenant rights groups urging government officials to ramp up rental assistance programs, rather than wind them down. The need, they argue, is clear. Look no further than the Texas Rent Relief Program, which last month offered $96 million to tenants still experiencing pandemic-related hardships. The state planned to accept applications for two weeks—but within 24 hours, more arrived than it could hope to fulfill. "There's got to be some real thought about how we as a society keep people housed," Austin-based tenant advocate Mincho Jacob said.

Eviction Lab reports that almost 970,000 eviction cases were filed in the cities it tracked last year, compared with about 540,000 in 2021. By December, monthly filings had largely returned to pre-pandemic levels. It's not the eviction "tsunami" that housing experts feared COVID-19 would cause, but it seems the levee has finally broken.

Renter Protections Ending

Housing experts blame several factors. Enhanced unemployment benefits were long gone in 2022. Statewide eviction bans continued to end, while emergency rental aid began running dry. Property owners who spent months, and sometimes years, barred from ousting nonpaying tenants could finally reclaim their property in a red-hot housing market. In Texas, Jacob said he's seen a recent shift in companies "evicting people as soon as they can because they know they can just fill the unit."

But landlords have also suffered, trade associations contend. Federal rental aid totaling more than $46 billion was slow to reach rental owners, even as they continued paying for mortgages, maintenance and property management. Some have yet to be made whole, spurring them to take legal action. "No housing provider wants to evict a tenant—it is always a last resort and reserved for the rarest cases," the National Association of Realtors wrote in a statement to Newsweek.

In Las Vegas, escalating caseloads have forced the region's busiest eviction court to convene twice as often each week since summer 2021. Harris's case was one of nearly three dozen called in a single afternoon, each tenant receiving a few minutes to plead their case.

One said moving would threaten her scheduled back surgery. Another had waited months for a caseworker to rule on his rental assistance application. Several failed to show up at all, despite owing thousands in overdue rent, guaranteeing an eviction unless they had a pending assistance application.

Like nearly every tenant present, Harris did not have an attorney. She argued that her apartment complex had not completed repairs in her unit but was told the issue could not be considered unless she deposited her arrears with the court.

Ready to grant the eviction, the hearing officer threw out one last lifeline: He'd quash the case if she immediately surrendered her apartment. Harris handed over her keys; worried about finding new housing with a blemished record, she had withheld March's rent and signed a new lease at a complex across town only days earlier. The eviction case had forced her to move, but the dismissal meant it would be sealed and not appear on background checks. "Overall, it's been hell," she said. "I just had to uproot my whole family."

Affordability Crisis

The nation's affordable housing shortage hit a five-year high in 2021, a burden shouldered by its poorest residents, according to a new report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition. For every 10 "extremely low-income" renter households in the U.S., there were fewer than four affordable units available to lease. It would take some 7.3 million homes and apartments to fill the gap, which has disproportionately impacted people of color.

Evictions are inseparable from affordability. Tenants who rent beyond their means—often out of necessity—are at greater risk of falling behind. A single emergency expense can snowball into a loss of housing.

Even before the pandemic, no major U.S. city had enough affordable rental housing for its lowest earners. Then came staggering rent increases in 2021, driven by record-high home sales and prices. "There just wasn't enough housing on the for-sale or rental market due to a decade of sluggish residential construction," Zillow senior economist Orphe Divounguy said.

As of this February, Zillow estimates the national average rent has ballooned some 26 percent since the start of 2020, far outpacing income growth. Miami, Phoenix and Atlanta have seen some of the steepest hikes. So has Las Vegas, which the NLIHC reports has the worst affordable housing shortage for extremely low-income renters among the nation's largest metro areas.

Long-time residents like Harris now compete with remote workers enticed by the desert metropolis's year-round sunshine, lack of state income tax and relatively low cost of living. The average rent rose from about $1,350 per month in early 2020 to almost $1,800 as of this February, a shift that has undoubtedly impacted Sin City's housekeepers and card dealers more than relocated Silicon Valley tech workers. "When rent increases that fast, many families get priced out," said Divounguy, who predicts prices will rise again before the end of the year, despite a dip in recent months.

A Bittersweet New Start

Less than 48 hours after her court hearing, Harris steered into a parking spot outside her old apartment.

Once again, she was missing work to deal with the eviction, this time to empty and clean the three-bedroom unit. Under scrutiny for the frequent absences, Harris said this week would be her last on the job.

The day was a flurry of activity. Harris's mom scrubbed the floors and walls with a flat mop soaked in Pine-Sol, while her daughter hauled load after load of the family's belongings downstairs in cardboard boxes. Exhausted, Harris sent some of the final items—garbage bags filled with clothes—tumbling down the steps.

In the early afternoon, she drove to the new apartment, leaving behind her mom to watch the remaining belongings and her oldest children, Omar and Jesemoni, who had just finished elementary school. She raced to unpack as rain clouds gathered overhead. Her 4-year-old daughter, Talia, a talkative ball of energy, carried the lightest items, while 1-year-old Jacobi watched from the top of the stairs, each of his hands preoccupied with a bright pink sucker. Harris imagined what the move would be like for a single mom who didn't have any help. "That would be it for her," she said.

The fresh start felt bittersweet. Her new home was in good condition, but it cost more for less space. The four children now shared a single bedroom, already a whirlwind of Barbie dolls and unfolded clothes. Worst of all, her rental assistance did not carry over. Harris would need two jobs to make ends meet. "I can't afford to do this," she said.

Sin City's Fragile Economy

If the U.S. enters another recession, it stands to be disastrous for Las Vegas and its close to 1 million renters. In sharp juxtaposition to its trademark glitz and glamor, the city was dubbed "ground zero" for the last two financial disasters to hit American soil.

In 2008, the Great Recession crippled construction projects across Southern Nevada and sent foreclosures soaring. Large corporate investors from outside the state amassed thousands of distressed houses in the years that followed, converting them into rentals. Such companies have proven more likely to evict tenants than smaller operators, academic research has shown.

The COVID-19 pandemic marked another calamity, shuttering casino floors, convention centers and live entertainment venues for months and halting the lucrative international tourism sector until late 2021. In a bleak twist of irony, the Las Vegas Raiders played their much-anticipated inaugural NFL season to an empty stadium, a $1.9 billion endeavor heavily bankrolled by public tax dollars.

Sin City's economy is fragile, driven by tourists willing to loosen their purse strings. In April 2020, almost one-third of Las Vegas workers were unemployed, more than double the national rate and the worst among major U.S. metro areas. The gambling Mecca still has not recovered 23,000 jobs lost during the pandemic. "We've been a one-horse town for a long time in terms of leisure and hospitality," said Stephen Miller, an economics professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

By summer 2020, the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada was receiving thousands of calls each day from frightened renters waiting on slow-moving unemployment benefits. The nonprofit law firm has long criticized Nevada's eviction laws as lightning fast and procedurally backwards. Unlike other states, tenants must initiate their own court case within days of receiving an eviction notice; they risk losing by default if their landlord files first. "It's clear that the deck is stacked for landlords in Nevada," said Aaron MacDonald, lead attorney for the Legal Aid Center's Housing Justice Program.

Fearing an imminent crisis, then-Gov. Steve Sisolak enacted a statewide eviction ban that was soon matched nationwide by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Clark County, home to Las Vegas, began funneling over $375 million in federal assistance into the pockets of unpaid landlords and utility companies.

Other states and cities employed their own bans, assistance programs and additional initiatives to keep tenants housed during the public health emergency. Eviction Lab's Grubbs-Donovan estimates those sweeping efforts, along with federal interventions, prevented more 1.3 million cases in 2021 alone. When Nevada's ban expired that year, monthly filings in Las Vegas courts doubled. "The pandemic really showed us what a good housing social safety net can do," he said.

The state's final major protection for renters—signed into law as the eviction ban ended—will sunset this June. Landlords have criticized the law, which shields anyone seeking pandemic-related rental assistance, as allowing bad actors to skirt eviction laws, even when they know they don't qualify for aid. Applications can take months to process, leaving property owners without income. "They're just bleeding out of their pocket and waiting for potentially nothing," Nevada State Apartment Association executive director Robin Lee said.

The law has also caused Southern Nevada's sky-high filings, according to one top court official. Tenants waiting for assistance are receiving monthly eviction notices, leading them to start multiple cases to avoid an automatic loss in court. "The total number of unique tenants subject to eviction proceedings would be more in line with pre-pandemic numbers," Las Vegas Justice Court administrator Jessica Gurley told Newsweek, although she could not provide exact figures.

Eviction Lab and the Legal Aid Center dispute whether duplicate filings are the sole culprit. Grubbs-Donovan said the practice was common in many cities, including Las Vegas, before the pandemic. Adds MacDonald, "the court's reasoning makes some sense, but we would have seen higher eviction case numbers for 2021 as well if that were the only explanation."

If anything, the pandemic has heightened Americans' focus on eviction and housing affordability. State and local governments have enacted more than 180 renter protections since January 2021, the NLIHC reports. A wave of ballot measures during the 2022 midterm elections put choices directly in the hands of voters. Cities like Philadelphia have launched eviction diversion programs, offering mediators to help settle landlord-tenant disputes before they go to court.

Texas cities are also passing reforms. As of November, Austin tenants have a minimum of seven days to pay overdue rent before their landlord can begin the eviction process. Harris County is spending millions to offer free legal counsel to renters in Houston and beyond. However, state lawmakers are considering whether to reverse some changes by barring cities from governing the eviction process.

In Nevada, the state legislature's Democratic majority has submitted housing-related bills ranging from rent control to overhauling eviction processes—proposals meant to bolster a statewide, $500 million affordable housing initiative launched last year. Some legislation will no doubt prove controversial in the decidedly purple state, but MacDonald said too much is at stake to not broach the subject. "The biggest crisis in Clark County this year is going to be the eviction crisis," he said.

Michael Scott Davidson can be reached at m.davidson@newsweek.com or find him on Twitter at @ByMSDavidson.