Biden-era emergency housing voucher program, lauded by local officials, slated to end in 2026

By Michael Lyle

Nevada Current

When Kelly Burrows was told two years ago that she qualified for an Emergency Housing Voucher, funded by federal recovery dollars, she assumed she would be added to another waiting list and wouldn’t exit homelessness for another year or two.

But four months later, a case worker in Reno handed her a key to her apartment in ending her 15 years of on and off homelessness in 2023. She has been stably housed ever since.

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, signed into law by former President Joe Biden, included $5 billion in investments to create 70,000 emergency vouchers nationwide.

More than 600 emergency vouchers are currently in use across Nevada according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development data.

“Normally each year, we’re able to move about 10 people into permanent supportive housing,” said Catrina Peters, the homelessness services coordinator for Washoe County.

The emergency housing vouchers “allowed us to make 137 referrals” to get people off the streets, she said.

The specialized vouchers were supposed to be funded through 2030, but jurisdictions around the country, including in Reno, were informed by HUD in March that they would receive a final allotment this year to cover ”those remaining amounts will be available to cover (EVA Housing Assistance Program) costs in 2026.”

“We did always kind of have that (2030) end date in mind,” Peters said, adding that “the more recent correspondence to potentially end in the program in 2026 was quite a surprise.”

“We have extremely limited resources and extremely limited opportunities to serve these folks through other programs,” she said. “Any reduction in a program impacts our ability to get people housed and out of homelessness.”

Homelessness has steadily been on the rise in the state, as in most of the country.

More than 10,100 people experienced homelessness in Nevada in 2024 — a 17 percent increase statewide — according to data released by HUD in December.

“We’re seeing rents not increasing as dramatically as they have been in the previous years, but still continuing to rise,” Peters said. “We have a lot of folks on fixed incomes who don’t see a corresponding increase to their income.”

The end strategy for those emergency housing vouchers, Peters said, is to at some point have “them moved into the existing housing authority pool, or kind of absorbed into that existing voucher pool,” which is the Housing Choice Vouchers program, formerly known as Section 8.

More than 15,000 people receive standard housing vouchers statewide, with thousands on the waitlist hoping to qualify for a voucher.

The regular housing voucher program is likely to face cuts as well.

President Donald Trump 2026 fiscal budget proposed steep cuts across various agencies, including slashing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development budget by more than 40 percent.

“I think if folks want to see a meaningful decrease in the number of people experiencing homelessness, people on the street, people living in cars, then we need to maintain these programs and not see any cuts,” Peters said.

‘A golden ticket’

Burrows, 47, moved from California to Carson City about 15 years ago to live with her mom when she needed a place to stay while she was unemployed.

Her mother died a few months later, and her stepfather asked her to move out. Burrows relocated to Reno, got a job as a housekeeper, and moved into a new apartment.

But she lost her job and could no longer afford rent. That was her first time experiencing homelessness.

Burrows bounced around to Georgia and Texas, but eventually came back to Reno for good in 2018.

“I barely slept. That’s when the drugs came in. I barely could sleep because I had to stay up and keep my dog warm and keep burning fires, and I had to keep hand warmers up under the blankets.”

Burrows briefly stayed at Reno’s Cares Campus Emergency Shelter in 2023 and was eventually connected with Michael Adragna, a case manager.

During that time, she qualified for an emergency housing voucher. Knowing there is a long wait list for unhoused people to get housing assistance, Burrows figured it was too good to be true

“When they told me that I was approved, I was like, ‘Yeah, okay, I’m approved, but it’s gonna take two, three years to get it,’ “ Burrows said.

But a few months later, she was in her new place. It’s the first time in her life that she has ever “felt planted,” she said.

“I quit doing drugs,” she said. “I quit doing all this craziness.”

Even after Burrow’s first landlord decided not to renew the lease, she was able to secure another apartment using the same voucher.

Adragna likened the emergency voucher to “a golden ticket.”

“The alternative programs with the housing authority were kind of like being on a wait list to nowhere,” he said.

Once people are on typical wait lists for various types of housing assistance, such as a housing choice voucher, Adragna said they could be on there “for maybe two to three years.”

What made these emergency vouchers more successful is they came with less stringent requirements from HUD, said Brenda Barnes, the social services manager for Clark County.

“These (vouchers) were more unique in regards to less deniability,” she said. “There are background checks and various other types of requirements for different vouchers. Some require a disability. These were a little bit more flexible, which made them more accessible.”

For the first time, the door to housing was open to people who typically don’t qualify for housing assistance, such as people with criminal backgrounds who can’t access traditional housing vouchers.

“It was exciting and amazing to see how quickly we utilized these vouchers” to help people “who were falling through the gaps in other resources in the community,” Barnes said.

Peters said that in Washoe County roughly 90 percent of those who qualified for the emergency vouchers received case management, and have remained stably housed.

The vouchers, and the household stability they enable, allows the county “to reduce community wide costs” associated with “people who were previously using the emergency room heavily and previously had a lot of interactions with law enforcement.”

The emergency voucher program is “the last thing that should be cut,” Peters said.

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Michael Lyle (MJ to some) is an award-winning journalist with Nevada Current. In addition to covering state and local policy and politics, Michael reports extensively on homelessness and housing policy. He graduated from UNLV with B.A. in Journalism and Media Studies and later earned an M.S. in Communications at Syracuse University.