By Taylor Dixon

Taylor Dixon is pursuing her Master of Social Work degree at UNR and works on housing issues for the ACLU of Nevada. This article originally ran in the Nevada Current.

In my position at the ACLU of Nevada in Reno, I sometimes walk along the river or around 4th Street, and see campsites with unsheltered community members. They almost always say they could not get into a temporary shelter and had to resort to staying outside. 

It’s clear to me and anyone paying attention that our resources for the unsheltered are already overwhelmed. Now imagine adding thousands more Nevadans to the unsheltered population when eviction protections expire March 31. 

It is no secret that Nevada has a housing crisis that has perpetuated for over a decade. This housing crisis, at its core, is a racial justice issue. According to a Guinn Center report on the impact of COVID-19 in communities of color, as many as 500,000 Nevadans are at risk of eviction, of which two-thirds are people of color. This is just one of many examples of how the pandemic has exacerbated systemic racial injustices.

Assembly Bill 141 creates a sealing of evictions for those who have been evicted during the COVID-19 pandemic because they could not pay their rent. It also extends the time some tenants have to find new housing when they are being evicted for no cause. 

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many people of color were already struggling in Nevada. Data from the US Census Bureau shows us that poverty in these communities has continued to increase from the years 2007 to 2018, with 2018 rates higher than during the Great Recession. While poverty in white communities has steadily decreased, Black communities maintain poverty rates greater than 20 percent. Already at an economic deficit, faced with higher COVID mortality rates, and now experiencing a risk of eviction that may tarnish new opportunities for housing, this is a racial justice issue that cannot be ignored.

Nevada’s Black and Brown communities are among the hardest hit by COVID-19 across infection, hospitalization, and death rates. Black and Brown people have been nearly twice as likely to die from the virus as white people. This disparity is further amplified at the intersection of race and housing. 

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Black renters received a disproportionate share of all eviction filings, and they continue to be over-represented during the pandemic, according to the Eviction Lab. This population to eviction discrepancy highlights the nature of the racial barriers in housing in Nevada.

During Thursday’s hearing on AB141, real estate industry lobbyists and opponents of the bill implied this legislation would end up taking food off of the table for Nevada landlords. That simply isn’t true. 

What AB141 will do is lessen the burdens that our struggling communities have to take on during this already traumatic time. AB141 seals eviction records for all Nevadans that were evicted for not being able to make rent during the COVID-19 emergency and increases the timeline to a more fair length for those being evicted for “no cause.” 

Without the passage of AB141, vulnerable Nevadans will have an eviction on their record which will jeopardize their chances of securing new housing. This will create new barriers to good housing by pushing families out of their areas with established resources. The domino effect can extend to where kids go to school, the ability to secure technology during a still heavily remote time, and create a cycle of poverty and homelessness that can punish people for years to come.

Opponents say a provision meant to extend the timeline for those who have been served a “no-cause eviction” will give tenants a window in which they do not have to pay rent. Again, this is not true. For no-cause evictions — those in which the tenant has done nothing wrong and the property owner simply wants them out — AB141 only extends the notice given to the renter to find another place to live, to 60 days for those who have lived in the home for 1 to 3 years and 90 days for those who were in the home for 3 or more years.

Nevada leaders have declared racism is a public health crisis, and this is absolutely true when it comes to housing. As they say, housing is health care. The ACLU of Nevada believes housing is a human right. Therefore, the intersection between systemic racism and housing justice should be a major priority for the Nevada Legislature.

The passage of AB141 is essential to help tenants during this unprecedented time. I urge the people of Nevada to contact their legislators and tell them to support this bill and other policies that will bring greater housing security to Black and Brown Nevadans and everyone.

We have an opportunity this session to end our costly and ineffective death penalty. Contact your legislators to call for a hearing on this important legislation.

It's time for Nevada to abolish capital punishment.

The practice is rooted in racism, ineffective as a deterrent, and its the ultimate denial of civil rights. There are so many reasons for the state of Nevada to take this step now. Let's break down a few of the reasons.

The death penalty in Nevada is racially biased

Forty percent of the people on Nevada's death row are Black, despite only accounting for roughly 9 percent of the total state population. That is glaring statistic, but it doesn't stop there. In 96 percent of states where there have been reviews of race and the death penalty, there was a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-defendant discrimination, or both.

There other issues releated to equal justice too: Every person on Nevada’s death row (literally 100%) is indigent and unable to afford legal representation of their own choice. And at least a quarter of the people on death row have severe mental illness, diagnosed brain damage, past trauma and abuse.

The death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent, and there is always the risk an innocent person landing on death row

At least three individuals in Nevada have been released from Death Row based on evidence of their innocence. Paul Browning spent more than two decades on death row in Nevada for a crime he didn’t commit. There are questions of severe prosecutorial misconduct in just under half of Nevada's death row cases.

On top of all that, academics who study crime reject the notion that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder: Eighty-eight percent of the top U.S. academic criminological society presidents have said as much.

Nevada can't carry out executions and can't afford to burn money on death penalty litigation

The state cannot obtain the drugs necessary for a lethal injection and lacks the ability to carry out an execution. The last time Nevada purchased drugs to use for an execution, the drug manufacturers sued to get them back because they prohibit the use of their medications in executions. The state handed over its entire supply.

And that's not the only litigation that taxpayers have funded. After reviewing the costs of maintaining the death penalty in Nevada, the State Legislative Auditor found that prosecuting death penalty cases costs more than half a million dollars more per case than prosecuting cases that don’t seek the death penalty. The legislative audit determined that litigation costs, including the trial and appeal phase, averaged about three times more for death penalty versus non-death penalty cases. And expenses are similar for all death penalty cases, regardless of whether a death sentence is given or not.  Simply filing a death penalty case results in these costs.

Capital punishment cases are costing Nevada taxpayers millions of dollars every year, and its a false promise for victims. Prolonged litigation arising from death row cases can last decades, harming victims’ family members by re-traumatizing them and depriving them of any sense of legal finality. 

While Nevada is experiencing a severe budget crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic, repealing the death penalty will save the state and its counties millions of dollars. And it's the right thing to do.

Lawmakers need to hear from Nevadans about how our death penalty is exorbitantly expensive, always presents the risk of taking innocent lives, and often prolongs trauma and fails to deliver closure for family members and loved ones of homicide victims.

CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATOR NOW TO CALL FOR A HEARING

In Nevada and across the nation, Black and Brown people are are disproportionately affected by law enforcement and are overrepresented in traffic stops, citations, and frisks.

And under our current state laws, a single traffic ticket can lead to license suspension, warrants, arrests and even jail, because Nevada is one of only 13 states that prosecutes minor traffic violations as criminal offenses, rather than as civil infractions. As a result, a traffic ticket often escalates into a warrant, leading to Nevadans being arrested and jailed simply because they can’t afford to pay the fines, fees, and administrative assessment imposed. 

At a time when so many Nevada residents are losing their jobs or homes and unable to meet their basic needs, this criminalization of poverty is adding fuel to the fire.

And the racial disparities are stark. According to data from the Fines and Fees Justice Center and UNLV, Black residents make up about 12% of the City of Las Vegas and 46% of the city’s traffic warrants. The numbers aren't much better for residents identified as Hispanic or Latinx — together Black and Brown people make up two-thirds of the city's traffic warrants.

It's a poverty penalty and a vicious cycle. Once a person is trapped in it, it's hard to break free. And it's not even good economic policy. Punishing people because they don’t have money is one of the least efficient ways to raise revenue.

Warrants are a counterproductive and expensive method of coercing people to pay a traffic ticket. In Clark County, the average person arrested on a traffic warrant spends almost three days in jail at a cost to taxpayers of more than $400. Three days in jail often costs a person their job, their housing, and even their children, making it far more difficult to earn the money to pay their court debt or to care for themselves or their families. 

But the tide may be turning in Nevada. Consider for example, Carson City, which stopped issuing warrants in traffic cases in 2019. The city’s collection rate increased by 8.5% following implementation.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS ISSUE

%3Ciframe%20class%3D%22media-youtube-player%22%20width%3D%22580%22%20height%3D%22324%22%20title%3D%22Traffic%20Warrants%20and%20Racial%20Justice%20in%20Nevada%22%20src%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube-nocookie.com%2Fembed%2F8nCHetZ8Ch0%3Fwmode%3Dopaque%26amp%3Bcontrols%3D1%26amp%3Bmodestbranding%3D1%26amp%3Brel%3D0%26amp%3Bshowinfo%3D0%26amp%3Bcolor%3Dwhite%26autoplay%3D1%26version%3D3%26playsinline%3D1%22%20name%3D%22Traffic%20Warrants%20and%20Racial%20Justice%20in%20Nevada%22%20frameborder%3D%220%22%20allowfullscreen%3D%22%22%20id%3D%22Traffic%20Warrants%20and%20Racial%20Justice%20in%20Nevada%22%20allow%3D%22autoplay%22%3EVideo%20of%20Traffic%20Warrants%20and%20Racial%20Justice%20in%20Nevada%3C%2Fiframe%3E

Privacy statement. This embed will serve content from youtube-nocookie.com.