Sisolak extends moratorium on evictions in Nevada

Gov. Steve Sisolak on Monday announced he is extending the moratorium on residential evictions and pumping $10 million more into the rental assistance program.

The moratorium was scheduled to expire Tuesday at 5 p.m. and officials were predicting a wave of eviction notices would start arriving at people’s rental homes and apartments within days.

Sisolak his administration has moved an additional $10 million into the residential rental assistance program to help those who have lost work pay their rent. The money goes directly to the landlord. The original program was funded with $30 million in federal CARES Act money.

“It’s extremely important to me that for the landlords’ sake, the money goes directly to the landlords,” Sisolak said.

In addition, he said the moratorium will be extended for 45 days to allow counties to pay out short-term rental assistance to landlords and give the courts more time to implement the eviction mediation program.

They want to add electronic filing options to the mediation program.

Sisolak said the extension will also give the Employment Security Division more time to reduce the backlog of claims by unemployment benefits. He said it’s the simple truth that the existing unemployment system is in no way able to handle the volume of claims resulting from the economic shutdown. But, he said the division has signed on about 200 new workers to process claims and is bringing on another 200.

Sisolak said the counties need more time to implement the rental assistance program.

In addition, the courts need more time to set up and implement the mediation program designed to get landlords and tenants together to work out a payment plan.

In addition, Sisolak said the administration is looking into ideas such as allowing a landlord to apply for rent assistance on behalf of multiple tenants instead of making the tenants each apply on their own for payments.