On Monday, Nevada lawmakers passed a bill to provide renters additional time to fight evictions outside traditional court hearings once the state’s eviction moratorium lifts on Sept. 1.
The Bill, which passed through the state Senate on Sunday and Assembly on Monday, had bipartisan support. It allows courts to grant tenants facing eviction a 30-day stay to take advantage of Nevada’s existing mediation statute.
In 2019, Nevada courts processed more than 45,000 eviction cases, almost 40,000 of which were in the Las Vegas-area Clark County.
Nevada Supreme Court Justice James Hardesty said projections suggested the numbers in 2020 could be much higher and overwhelm the court system’s capacity.
“If these numbers being projected as evictions starting after Sept. 1 are even half-correct, we would double, and if correct, we would triple the annual number of evictions, and they would all be subject to filing in the month of September,” he said.
A report written by the Guinn Center for Policy Priorities projected from 118,00 to 142,000 households could face evictions in September.
“The ramifications of eviction when we’re not in a pandemic are so consequential for a family, so it’s only heightened by the fact that we’re experiencing a public health and economic crisis,” said Nevada Coalition of Legal Service Providers Policy Director Bailey Bortolin.
In the meantime, Mesquite, NV Mayor Al Litman spoke of possible financial help for those facing eviction.
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