Thanks to the leadership of Senator Dina Neal and legislative Democrats, residents of the historically-Black Windsor Park neighborhood will receive housing assistance after their homes started sinking decades ago. While Governor Lombardo – who almost vetoed the bill – has been under fire for vetoing critical housing legislation, Democrats are holding the governor accountable and fighting to ensure Nevada families can stay in their homes.
Read more about Democrats’ leadership below.
Isabel Yip
June 29, 2023
Key Points:
- For Nancy Johnson, Windsor Park was like a dream when she first moved to a new home in the historically Black North Las Vegas neighborhood in 1976. But within a few years, the cracks began to show – and homes started to sink.
- “The homes, the streets started cracking, the driveways,” said Johnson, a 67-year-old mother and former blackjack dealer. “I’m legally blind and I could tell that when I hung up the curtains that they were leaning.”
- Johnson is one of dozens of residents who have lived in homes sinking under their feet for decades while seeking the city’s help to improve the area or relocate.
- The law goes into effect on July 1 and will set in motion a process to relocate residents that could take about a year to complete, according to state Sen. Dina Neal, a Democrat who represents Windsor Park and who sponsored the legislation.
- Nevada’s housing division will hire a developer to build new homes on vacant land adjacent to Windsor Park that has been studied to ensure it won’t subside, and residents would exchange their current home for a new one of at least the same amount of square footage, the law states.
- Authorities will cover moving expenses and residents or their descendants will receive $50,000 or $10,000 in restitution, based on whether their families still live in the neighborhood, according to the law.
- Neal said the neighborhood was built to be a place where Black people “could be proud and have homes to pass down to their families.”
- Johnson, who arrived in the 70s as a 21-year-old with a newborn baby, described how neighbors took care of each other, had picnics together, held Easter egg hunts for their children.
- But in the late 80s, Windsor Park began to crumble.
- Johnson and other residents told CNN that porches collapsed, sewage pipes shifted and walls inside their homes started to crack.
Read the full story here.
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