Las Vegas is expected to become one of the focal points of the eviction crisis as nearly a quarter-million people could be removed from their homes in the coming weeks, reported AP News.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports a perfect storm of factors in Clark County including high unemployment, a high percentage of renters, collapsed travel and tourism industry, expiration of the state’s eviction mortarium, and the end of federal unemployment benefits could result in an eviction wave beginning as early as next month.
Las Vegas research group Guinn Center and the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project in Denver estimates about 250,000 people in Clark County, or approximately 10% of the population, are at risk of eviction in September.
Nancy Brune, Guinn Center executive director, called the situation “a bad confluence of events.”
Brune said the virus-induced downturn had severely damaged Las Vegas as fewer people are coming to gamble at casinos. Brune said 47% of households in the county are renters, of the renters, about 38% are currently unemployed.
The bust cycle of Las Vegas could linger for a couple of years as the city must shrink to survive.
Las Vegas economic analyst Jeremy Aguero recently warned, an economic recovery in the town could take upward of three years.
“Our economy is in recession,” Aguero said, warning that the velocity of job loss today was much higher than the economic crash a decade ago.
We noted, in late April, certain casinos were transformed into food banks, with thousands of residents lined up outside.
As for the rest of the country, at least 40 million people are at risk of eviction, according to Aspen Institute think tank. President Trump signed an executive order a week ago to stop evictions, though that doesn’t appear to solve the looming crisis among renters at risk of losing their homes.