Nevada
Nevada governor proposes $250M fund to develop housing
Gov. Joe Lombardo’s proposal for addressing Nevada’s affordable housing crisis includes down payment and rental assistance for working families and incentives for homebuilders, the Republican governor said Monday.
His legislation, called the Nevada Housing Access and Attainability Act, would create the Nevada Attainable Housing Fund and put forward $250 million in state resources to support more than $1 billion in housing through grants, loans and rebates.
In an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Lombardo said the first of his five priority pieces of legislation came out of the concerns constituents have about the future of Nevada’s housing market.
“I think it is the governor’s role to engage in that,” he said in his office near Harry Reid International Airport. “If we have the ability to incentivize or abate or provide, we need to be in the business. That’s what the intent of that act is.”
The governor’s bill text was not available Monday evening but is expected to be published soon. Other bills on education, health, crime and economic development are also pending. The bills received exemptions that allow them to be introduced after Monday’s deadline for most other legislation considered this legislative session.
Lombardo proposes expanding affordable housing eligibility to households earning up to 150 percent of the area median income. He said another incentive program would address low-income earners making 60 percent of the area median income.
Clark County’s median household income is $73,845, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The 150-percent ceiling is intended to help Nevada’s workforce, including teachers and first responders, and the fund will help families cover down payments or rent, Lombardo said.
Lombardo’s bill would also create a council to provide oversight of the Nevada Attainable Housing Fund.
Local agencies to ID recipients
Under the legislation, the state would match local grant funds from local agencies, according to Lombardo.
“It’s a little bit easier to identify the people in need at the local level versus the state level, and so they could do all that due diligence, and we can provide matching funds to address that,” the governor said.
His bill also aims to provide incentives to homebuilders through the Nevada State Infrastructure Bank and low-interest loans, he said.
Attainable housing projects funded through the Nevada Attainable Housing Fund would be exempt from prevailing wage requirements, which are the minimum hourly rate that workers must be paid in public works projects.
The prevailing wage varies by region in Nevada and job. A cement mason in Clark County, for instance, receives a prevailing hourly wage of $68.81, according to a report from the State of Nevada Department of Business & Industry Office of the Labor Commissioner.
Lombardo’s bill includes a preference but not a requirement for paying prevailing wages, in an effort to encourage fair labor practices while maintaining cost efficiency and give flexibility for developers, according to the governor’s office.
It also calls for expedited review and permitting processes for attainable housing projects, as well as streamlining the approval of contractors’ licenses in rural areas, according to the governor’s office.
His proposal is just one of the housing-related bills on the table this session, as legislators try to find solutions to a longstanding housing crisis that has plagued the Silver State.
Las Vegas Valley residents face an affordable housing crisis caused by elevated interest rates, a slowdown in building, a lack of buildable land and increased construction and labor costs.
Nevada is short more than 78,000 affordable rental units, and the urban area is landlocked with 88 percent of Clark County controlled by the federal government.
Legislative Democrats have re-introduced bills the governor vetoed last session, including authorizing rent control for seniors and those with disabilities, and putting limits on land purchases by out-of-state corporations.
“Under Joe Lombardo, Nevada has the highest unemployment rate in the nation and its ongoing housing crisis is leading to skyrocketing eviction rates and homelessness,” Tai Sims, communications director for the Nevada State Democratic Party, said in a statement. “Despite this, Joe Lombardo still refuses to offer a plan that holds large corporate investors accountable and limits their ability to buy up housing stock and artificially increase costs, leaving everyday Nevadans with little to no affordable options. The cost to buy a home is now at record highs in Nevada, but when Joe Lombardo had the opportunity to sign legislation that would lower rent costs and keep more Nevadans in their homes, he vetoed the bills. He owns Nevada’s housing crisis.”
Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com and McKenna Ross at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah and @mckenna_ross_ on X.
LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — Nevada’s unemployment rate for December remains unchanged at 5.2%, according to the Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation.
The figures show no improvement from the previous month.
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In a breakdown of the state’s cities, Las Vegas also reported a 5.2% unemployment rate, while Reno and Carson City both recorded a rate of 4%.
Supposed sightings of alien aircraft and extraterrestrial life are synonymous with the state of Nevada. A new group in Southern Nevada hopes to offer a glimpse into the unsolved mysteries of the universe with its first event this weekend.
“I spend a lot of hours out there videotaping and to see that so many people want to come out and join me, it’s like a party,” said local ufologist Joseph De La Torre, better known as the Pahrump Alien Guy.
The Southern Nevada Ufology Group will host its first meeting on Saturday, Jan. 31, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. During the event, attendees will learn how to take photos of UFOs from the Pahrump Alien Guy himself. The meeting will take place at the Pahrump Nugget Hotel and Casino in the building’s gravel lot near the bowling parking area. Attendees will park in the bowling parking lot.
“I ended up learning to look into the skies here over Pahrump and I read an article where it said that Pahrump is in the Area 51 excursion zone,” the Pahrump Alien Guy told the Pahrump Valley Times.
Participants are encouraged to arrive with a tripod for their phone in order to properly take photos. Food, beverages and camping chairs are also welcome, but the Southern Nevada Ufology Group asks guests to please clean up after themselves once the event is over. If you’re interested in joining Saturday’s meeting, you must RSVP by contacting southernnevadaufologygroup@gmail.com to confirm your attendance and to receive more information. Children are not allowed at the event.
“I think that it’s going to be very successful,” the Pahrump Alien Guy enthused.
The Pahrump Alien Guy hosted the inaugural Pahrump Alien Conference in October 2025, a gathering that saw a large turnout of locals, visitors from Las Vegas, and other tourists passing through Nye County.
“We didn’t think it was going to be that successful,” the Pahrump Alien Guy shared.
During that event, UFO photos from the Pahrump Alien Guy’s database were showcased, local vendors sold alien-themed goods and featured guests spoke about their work in ufology.
Two of the event’s featured speakers were Mike Bara, a New York Times best-selling author and frequent guest on the History Channel’s long-standing series “Ancient Aliens,” and Marysol Rezanov of the Nevada chapter of Citizens for Disclosure, a UFO information disclosure advocacy organization.
The Pahrump Alien Guy, his girlfriend Brid’Jette Whaley, Bara and Rezanov then founded the Southern Nevada Ufology Group. The group plans to host future meetings in other locations around Southern Nevada.
The Pahrump Alien Guy further explained that it was Bara and Rezanov’s idea to create a new skywatching group in Southern Nevada. Bara and Rezanov will be at Saturday’s meeting.
“We call it ‘Southern Nevada’ Ufology Group because it’s not just Pahrump,” the Pahrump Alien Guy said. “It’s all over southern Nevada.”
The Pahrump Alien Guy has a YouTube channel where he shows videos and photos he’s taken of UFOs. Watch the Pahrump Alien Guy’s videos on YouTube at youtube.com/@pahrumpalienguy.
Contact reporter Elijah Dulay at edulay@pvtimes.com
Southern Nevada Ufology Group’s first meeting
■ Saturday, Jan. 31, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
■ Pahrump Nugget Hotel and Casino located at 681 South Highway 160
■ Attendees will learn how to take photos of UFOs. Guests are are encouraged to bring a tripod for their phone.
■ To attend you must RSVP by contacting southernnevadaufologygroup@gmail.com
■ No children allowed
■ Park in the bowling parking lot, meeting will be held in neighboring gravel lot
Nevada’s population growth slowed dramatically last year, according to new statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau.
New figures from the government agency showed Nevada grew 0.9 percent, which put it in the top 10 states for percentage growth (9th) from July 2024 to July 2025. However, this is down from July 2023 to July 2024 when the state grew by 1.7 percent.
In July 2024, Nevada had 3,253,543 residents, and in July of last year it had 3,282,188. From July 2023 to July 2024, Nevada was the sixth fastest-growing state in the country, which meant it dropped three spots for the time period of July 2024 to July 2025.
Nevada expanded from 3,214,363 residents in July 2023 to 3,267,467 in July 2024, which turned out to be the fastest year-over-year growth rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, since before the pandemic in 2019. However, all of these growth rates are below the time frame of 2015 to 2018 when the state saw unprecedented population growth.
Overall, U.S. population growth slowed “significantly” from July 2024 to July of last year with an increase of only 1.8 million people, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau. This was the lowest population growth for the country since the early days of the pandemic when the population grew only 0.2 percent in 2021 year-over-year.
This population slowdown across the country follows a “sizeable” uptick in the growth rate in 2024 when the U.S. added 3.2 million people and grew 1 percent, the fastest annual population growth rate since all the way back in 2006.
“The slowdown in U.S. population growth is largely due to a historic decline in net international migration, which dropped from 2.7 million to 1.3 million in the period from July 2024 through June 2025,” said Christine Hartley, the assistant division chief for Estimates and Projections at the U.S. Census Bureau. “With births and deaths remaining relatively stable compared to the prior year, the sharp decline in net international migration is the main reason for the slower growth rate we see today.”
The population growth drop was felt across the country as all four census regions (West, Midwest, Northeast and the South) and every state except Montana and West Virginia saw growth slow or a decline in acceleration.
Five U.S. states experienced population decline from July 2024 to July 2025: California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Vermont and West Virginia.
Contact Patrick Blennerhassett at pblennerhassett@reviewjournal.com.
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