Nearly every issue influencing Nevada’s June 9 primary election and beyond can be traced back to housing. From diversifying the state’s economy to bolstering its teaching and healthcare workforces, everything starts with a safe and affordable place to live.

It’s a crisis hiding in plain sight. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s 2026 Gap Report, only 16 affordable rental homes are available for every 100 extremely low-income households in Nevada. Statewide, there is a shortage of more than 100,000 units for those who make 50% or less of area median income.

As the executive director of the Nevada Housing Coalition nonprofit, Maurice Page is all too familiar with the data. 

“Men lie, women lie, but numbers don’t,” Page says. “These are your seniors and your low-income workers who are struggling to survive day-to-day. On top of that, our population continues to grow, and we’re not able to just build our way out of it. We need new solutions.”

Here is how your vote for candidates at each rung of the ladder can help move the needle.

CITY

Formed in 2010 with a board of representatives from each city in the region, the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority is tasked with administering local public programs like the federally-funded housing choice voucher system (formerly known as Section 8). 

With public housing considerations under the entity’s purview, Las Vegas City Councilmember and Housing Authority board chair Nancy Brune says the arrangement lets cities focus on the fundamentals—providing land, financial incentives and adjusting zoning regulations to encourage affordable development.

She points to the Heirloom at Rome affordable housing project, for which the Las Vegas City Council contributed land at no cost in conjunction with county and state funds. More than half of the complex’s 276 units—catered to senior renters making 60% of area median income or less—are already occupied.

North Las Vegas Planning Commission member and developer Xavone Charles touts his city’s “fast track” permitting process as a model for removing much of the red tape that often stalls development. North & Valley, a 105-unit development geared toward tenants making 50% to 60% of AMI, is one project that benefited from quicker approvals for “funding, drawing and permits.” 

“I’ve seen projects moving forward within 60 days,” Charles says. 

COUNTY

The majority of affordable housing funds funnel through the Clark County Board of Commissioners. Since 2022, its Welcome Home Community Housing Fund has notably leveraged more than $250 million to help develop 5,800 new units across 45 projects—including both Heirloom at Rome and North & Valley.

“We partner with private developers to try and patch the gap in the lasagna of funding that is affordable housing,” Clark County Commission chair Michael Naft says of the Community Housing Fund. “The funding formulas can be incredibly complex on these projects and sometimes ensuring that we can step in on the gap funding is what it takes to really get them through.”

Clark County is also pioneering the state’s first Community Land Trust, in which the county retains ownership of land and sells the homes on top of it at below-market prices to keep them affordable for future buyers while helping current owners build equity.

“How do we get people into home ownership and not just into subsidized housing? That has been something that the Community Land Trust will allow us to do in a really meaningful way,” Naft says. 

However, the future of both programs depends on the county’s annual budget allocations, meaning the winners of the three commissioner races on this year’s ballot will influence their long-term impact on the affordable housing landscape. 

STATE

“Everything goes from the state and trickles down,” Page explains. “And in the last six years, Nevada has put roughly a billion dollars of investment into housing.” 

About half of that came when the Legislature applied $500 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to the 2022 Home Means Nevada initiative—helping build new units and renovate existing ones. But with that one-time allocation already spent, Page says Nevada officials need creative solutions to keep that momentum going with the state’s own resources. 

Housing continues to be a flagship issue for both parties. Last year, legislators passed Gov. Joe Lombardo’s Nevada Housing Access and Attainability Act, appropriating $133 million to build more “attainable housing” units and a down payment assistance program. But with only 61 of the 1,566 initial units it funded serving extremely low-income renters, it may only add a fraction of the housing Nevada needs most. 

Meanwhile, according to a March report from the UNLV Lied Center for Real Estate, business entities bought more than 17% of all single-family homes in Clark County between 2015 and 2025. While the Nevada Legislature has sought to curb this trend’s impact on an already strained housing supply, a bipartisan bill that would limit corporate homebuying fell one vote short of passing in November’s special session. Depending on who is elected this year, the bill could return to the Legislature.

For Page, the Nevada Transferable Housing Tax Credit, which provides up to $10 million annually to help developers finance affordable projects, is another key component. State legislators expanded it in 2025 by raising its lifetime cap from $40 million to $100 million, but he’d like to see it go even further in 2027. 

These efforts will hinge on the incoming members of the Nevada Legislature, who will need to make up for the loss of several “housing champions” who have either termed out or are pursuing another role, Page says.

FEDERAL

Nearly every affordable housing project in Nevada relies on some combination of federal tools, including Low Income Housing Tax Credits, housing choice vouchers, Community Development Block Grant funds and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) assistance programs. 

“Developers talk about that as a capital stack, where you can stack them up so that you can essentially buy down the cost of housing,” says Marissa Brown, vice chair of the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority board.

The problem is that the stack is getting shorter. Some federal voucher programs have already been phased out under the Trump administration, which has also proposed at least $3.8 billion in HUD budget cuts—a vital component of most affordable housing project capital stacks. 

But Nevada’s congressional delegation hasn’t folded in the wake of that adversity. In April, U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., announced that she helped secure $695,000 in federal funding to help bolster the state’s affordable housing pipeline through a pair of local nonprofits—Neighborhood Housing Services of Southern Nevada and Nevada HAND. 

Nevada representatives have also been keen on opening some of the 88% of Clark County land that’s currently federally owned and managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for development. One successful effort, led by U.S. Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev., is the Accelerating Appraisals and Conservation Efforts Act. Signed into law in early 2025, it cuts federal red tape by accelerating the process of selling public land for housing development. Lee and fellow U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., have also pushed to use the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act to further expedite that process.

In February, the House passed the Housing for the 21st Century Act. If the House approves the Senate alterations, it could impact Nevada by expanding private bank capital available for Low Income Housing Tax Credit projects, streamlining the federal inspection process that often delays voucher holders from getting into housing and restricting large investors from buying single family properties. 

From city council members to federal Congressional representatives, Brown says equitable affordable housing reform starts at the ballot box. 

“This is where people’s votes matter,” Brown says. “It’s important that voters elect policymakers who support the use of those kinds of tools.”