Most Recent Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) Tenant Data for Nevada

Demographic information is collected each year on LIHTC tenants and compiled by HUD. The 2019 report, the most recent available, included information for 13,488 of Nevada's LIHTC units. That's about 47% of all the Nevada LIHTC units, according to the report. Information is collected on LIHTC tenants using data submitted to the compliance staff. Properties most likely to be missing from the dataset are post-15 properties because they no longer are subject to annual income certifications. In some states, small properties may not be included because they may still submit income certifications by paper, and in addition, some properties with 100% rent restricted units may not be subject to annual income certifications.

Overall, the 2019 report showed the same patterns observed in 2018 data.

Nevada reported the fourth highest proportion of senior households of any state with 48% of households reporting at least one member 62 years old or older. Nationwide, about 34% of reporting LIHTC households had at least one member 62 years old or older. Nevada had a slightly lower percentage of units with children under 18 (30%) as compared to the national average, 31%.

The data shows that Nevada's tax credit properties are housing many families from even the poorest income groups. Median annual income for Nevada's LIHTC households included in the report was $19,596. Few of Nevada's LIHTC units are targeted to be affordable to tenants with less than 30% of HUD family area median income (AMI) without assistance from either project based rental assistance or tenant based vouchers. Despite this, 36% of households in Nevada's LIHTC housing were reported to be in this lowest income category. For the United States as a whole, an even greater proportion of LIHTC households, nearly 53%, were extremely low-income renters.

An additional 40% of Nevada's LIHTC tenant households were in the income group between 30% AMI and 50% AMI. Fifteen percent of the LIHTC tenant households had incomes between 50% to 60% of AMI. An additional 7% of Nevada's LIHTC tenant households had an income greater than 60% of AMI.

However, 43% of the LIHTC households included in the report experienced moderate rent burden and an additional 15% experienced severe rent burden. Rent burden occurs when a household pays more than 30% of its income for rent and utilities and severe rent burden occurs when a household pays more than 50% of its income for rent and utilities. This means that about 58% of Nevada's households living in LIHTC properties experienced moderate to severe rent burden. For the United States as a whole, only 40% of LIHTC tenants experienced rent burden.

It is likely that a part of the difference in the levels of rent burden for the nation and Nevada is due to the larger proportion of LIHTC renters nationwide that receive rental assistance, either project-based or tenant-based. Thirty-two percent of Nevada's LIHTC households reported receiving some sort of rental assistance, whether project or tenant based. This compared to 40% of LIHTC households with rental assistance for the United States as a whole. 

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research. 2019 LIHTC Tenant Tables., https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/lihtc/tenant.html