Housing vouchers, already scarce, would be even harder to get under Trump's budget bill
An estimated 15,300 people in Nevada rely on housing choice vouchers, formerly known as section 8 vouchers, which provide rental assistance subsidies provided for low-income people, seniors and people with disabilities. (Photo: Ronda Churchill/Nevada Current)
More than 15,000 households in Nevada rely on federal funded housing vouchers with thousands more waiting years to access vital rental assistance.
Representatives from the local housing authorities worry many would be locked out of vouchers and other assistance under President Donald Trump's proposed budget, which calls for billions of dollars in cuts to housing programs.
'Based on our current average monthly subsidy in our Housing Choice Voucher Program, we've estimated that for every million-dollar reduction in housing assistance, it would be approximately 93 fewer households that we would be able to serve,' said Dr. Hilary Lopez, the executive director for the Reno Housing Authority.
An estimated 15,300 people in Nevada rely on housing choice vouchers, formerly known as section 8 vouchers, which provide rental assistance subsidies provided for low-income people, seniors and people with disabilities, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The number doesn't include other types of specialized vouchers, such as emergency solutions housing vouchers designed to pay rent for people and families at risk or experiencing homelessness.
Another 2,500 people live in public housing throughout the state according to the data from the CBPP.
Trump's budget requests, which have been formed into the 'One Big Beautiful Bill,' were passed overwhelmingly by House Republicans in late May and are currently being debated in the Senate.
The proposal, which aims to slash Medicaid and food assistance programs, would reduce the Department of Housing and Urban Development's budget by more than 40% amid a national housing and homeless crisis.
The cuts to homeless assistance dollars include a $27 billion reduction in funding to the State Rental Assistance Block Grant, which funds housing vouchers.
The recommendations released by the White House in May said the proposed cuts 'would encourage States to provide funding to share in the responsibility to ensure that similar levels of recipients can benefit from the block grant.'
If these proposed cuts are approved it 'would be staggering in both scale and impact,' Renee Willis, the president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said in a press call last week.
'Rather than preserving and strengthening the federal rental assistance program that serves as a lifeline for these communities, the budget proposed consolidating HUD's five largest rental assistance programs into a single state-run block grant,' Willis said. 'It also imposed a two-year time limit on assistance.'
She added that the budget proposal is not only 'misguided but fundamentally unjust' but that it 'abdicates the government's responsibility to address poverty and housing stability.'
While the full scope of these cuts, or the state and local impact of reductions, has yet to be determined, social service providers and local governments fear any cuts to HUD funding would reduce Nevada's already fragile social safety net to tatters.
The Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority declined to answer questions about the proposed budget cuts as well as how it currently used federal funding dollars.
'While federal funding changes are uncertain at this time, we remain laser focused on our mission to provide safe, sanitary and affordable housing to eligible residents within our jurisdictions – housing that will provide an environment that fosters independence, self-sufficiency and community pride,' Lewis Jordan, executive director of the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority said in a statement.
Bill Brewer, the executive director for the Nevada Rural Housing Authority, said he is still waiting to see what the final budget will look like.
Any amount would mean less people in rural areas being served.
'Worst case scenario, if we took a 40% cut to our vouchers, then we would be looking at cutting about 500 households off of assistance out of our approximately 1,275 voucher holders,' he said. 'If it was just 12% or 10%, then we're still looking at losing 120 to 130 households'
The Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority currently oversees the lion's share of housing assistance, around 12,000 vouchers for low income residents.
Reno Housing Authority, which provides assistance throughout Washoe County, allocated around 2,094 housing choice vouchers last year. Nevada Rural Housing Authority oversaw about 1,100 vouchers, not including specialized housing assistance.
Reno Housing Authority relies on two main federal funding sources: $32 million from the federal government to provide housing vouchers along with $3 million to administer public housing.
'It does fluctuate on an annual basis and really depends upon federal appropriations,' Lopez said.
Of the more than 2,000 households – roughly 3,600 people – that rely on housing choice vouchers in the Reno area, Lopez said close to three-quarters of clients who receive housing choice vouchers are seniors or disabled households. The breakdown is similar for the 600 households living in a public housing unit.
Average income for those relying on housing vouchers is roughly $18,000, according to the authority's 2025 annual report.
Nevada's housing shortage and skyrocketing rent prices have made it difficult for the authority to meet the demand for services, Lopez said.
'Over the last several years, we've seen those rents consistently rise,' Lopez said. 'What that means is that the average rental subsidy that we're providing has also been increasing over time and that also impacts the number of clients that we can assist.'
The rural authority gets about $12 million for its housing choice vouchers, which funds its 1,077 vouchers throughout the rural areas. Additionally it received last year $786,340 for Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Vouchers, which provides assistance for 76 veterans experiencing homelessness.
Similar to the Reno authority, Brewer said roughly two-thirds of housing voucher recipients are elderly or disabled.
'They're not the kind of folks that can go out and get a job and take care of themselves,' he said. 'They're already living on Social Security or supplemental Social Security, and they simply can't afford a $1,500 a month rent payment. That's all the money they get in most cases.'
Demand for housing assistance is growing.
Reno's authority has about 4,000 people waiting to apply for housing vouchers while the rural authorities have 2,248 applicants waiting.
'What we try to do for households on our wait list, we try to serve them within anywhere from about 18 to 36 months,' Lopez said.
The waitlist in rural Nevada opened last year and 'within a week's time, we had about 5,000 applicants on there,' according to Brewer. 'We had to close the list.'
'It will take us at least two years, if not longer, to work through that list,' he added. 'I think we still have a couple thousand names on there that we will work through.'
Nevadans wait an average of 38 months, more than three years, to receive housing vouchers, according to 2021 data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
In addition to housing choice vouchers, communities across the country, including those in Nevada, also began receiving funding for emergency housing vouchers through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 signed by President Joe Biden.
Funding for that is expected to be depleted by the end of 2026.
Willis from the National Low Income Housing Coalition said Trump's current budget request doesn't provide additional funding for these emergency vouchers and could 'put more than 60,000 households at risk of losing their assistance and being pushed into homelessness.'
The rural authority received $455,616 for Emergency Housing Vouchers, which support 36 people. Washoe County previously told the Current 137 people rely on emergency housing vouchers in the county.
In a 'normal year,' Brewer said the rural authority would just roll people relying on emergency housing voucher holders 'onto a regular Section 8 voucher.'
He doesn't know if that would be possible if the proposed cuts are passed.
'If our voucher program overall is cut, we won't have any room to bring those people on to the (housing choice) vouchers,' he said. 'They'll simply lose their support.'
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