A decision by the Clark County council will allow the county to go further to help veterans who have come home stay in their homes.
The Clark County council unanimously voted to allow veterans whose household income is up to twice the federal poverty line access to emergency housing assistance. That’s up from the 150 percent threshold in a previous version of the ordinance.
“We’ve come upon a problem within the county of affordable housing for our needy and homeless veterans,” said Robert Nichols, chair of the Clark County Veterans Advisory Board. “We think that by increasing the amount of money we get … we’ll help alleviate that problem by making more housing available to those families.”
That means a family of four whose income is $48,600 or lower can now qualify for emergency grants for rent, security deposit or other housing costs from the Clark County Veterans Assistance Fund.
“This just expands eligibility so that more people who are affected by the lack of affordable housing in this community can be assisted,” said Michael Torres, program director of Clark County’s Housing Preservation Program.
Clark County’s Community Services Department, which manages the Veterans Assistance Program, gave out $81,839.71 in housing assistance last year, according to an annual report. The county is on track to give another $86,000 in assistance this year, according to a staff report given to the council at Tuesday’s meeting.
Lifting the income limit will better allow Clark County to respond to the challenges of a tough housing market, said Samantha Whitley, a program coordinator at Clark County Community Services.
The average monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Clark County is about $1,208, according to Fair Market Rents set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“Even people that are making 200 percent of poverty are not able to find housing or maintain their current level of housing,” she said.
The Community Services Department also signaled that it will be asking for a $236,936 increase in its veterans fund, which supplies funding to the assistance grants, in the 2017-2018 biennium to help cover the increase.
Clark County taxpayers’ contribution to the general fund is small. A Clark County tax revenue report estimates that the Veterans Assistance Fund received about $1 million from Clark County’s overall $117.3 million general fund levy for the 2015-2016 biennium. Increasing it would not directly increase taxpayers’ property tax bills, only what percentage of their property taxes go toward the fund.
But the potential increase to the veterans fund still gave Council Chair Marc Boldt pause.
“I’m not going to not approve it,” said Boldt, no party preference.
He noted, however, that he has some concerns about potential budget impacts as the county goes into a biennium when officials are predicting a $20 million deficit. He said he wanted to further discuss funding for the Veterans Assistance Fund in a future work session.
Clark County Councilor Tom Mielke, a Republican, called the amount Clark County sets aside for veterans “pocket change.”
“I think as we go down the pike here and we take a look at this stuff, that we do something beside give lip service, and this is a good direction,” he said.
