A 71-year-old retiree, Catherine Singer can’t say enough good things about her home at Capriccio Senior Apartments. It’s a little slice of post-work paradise.
The grounds are something straight out of a resort-style villa, all open floor plans and lush lawns. The resident services coordinator who orchestrates fun activities for tenants onsite is “fantastic.” The shuttle that pops in every Monday to transport residents to do their shopping is invaluable. And the food that’s delivered to her doorstep by Three Square’s Golden Groceries program is a major bonus.
“It’s way better than living in a regular apartment, or a home,” says Singer, a Las Vegan for more than 20 years. “It’s a totally different environment.”
It’s also a far cry from her previous condo, where she forked over extra money every month to cover utilities on top of rent. At the Ovation-owned Capriccio, electricity, water and trash are included expenses, and that alone has been a godsend for Singer, who’s on a fixed income.
For family members, this style of living is a portrait of leisure. For the seniors in their lives, it’s a portrait of independence.
A rendering of an Ovation tiny home.
“It means a lot,” Singer said. “I mean, what would you do if you didn’t have it? You’d have to live with your kids. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but you feel like a burden. … It gives you that freedom and you feel good about yourself.”
Not every senior’s housing hunt has been as successful. Depending on the Ovation property, an interested tenant could be put on a wait list for two years or more. Singer lucked out by putting her name in before Capriccio opened, but spots fill up fast. Wait lists can range from 100 to 200 people per project.
Compound that issue with the fact that Nevada has the worst affordable housing shortage in the nation, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The Silver State is experiencing a shortage of more than 78,000 affordable housing units, and that’s cause for serious concern.
“When we’re looking at a housing shortage of around 65,000 just in Southern Nevada, 80,000 in all of Nevada, how do we get enough units built? Affordable units are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Jess Molasky, chief operating officer of Ovation Development Corporation. “We really need to bring in lots more supply in general and really get that in the ground ASAP.”
In a 2024 report, the National Low Income Housing Coalition revealed that Nevada had 14 affordable units available for every 100 extremely low-income households. Seniors make up 31% of extremely low-income household renters in the U.S. And with long wait lists, limited income and shrinking housing inventory, they’re at risk of being left behind.
Several grants have been issued to address the general need, including a $50 million grant by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to restore the Marble Manor Apartments in the Historic Westside. In May, Clark County Commissioners approved $66 million for nine applicants to build low-income housing. Among those applicants were Coordinated Living of Southern Nevada (CLSN) and its partner Ovation, which has six new projects in the pipeline, according to Molasky, including a 194-unit senior housing community by South Las Vegas Boulevard and Bruner Avenue.
For more than 40 years, Ovation has become an integral part of the housing solution with 15 affordable housing communities. Last month, the company broke ground on a new $78 million senior housing project in the northwest, adding to its ever-growing inventory of senior-focused developments that provide care and dignity to its residents.
“Every week, we’re feeding a lot of the residents. We take them to doctor’s appointments or there’s a doctor’s office onsite,” Molasky said of the wraparound services that Ovation and CLSN provide. “Then beyond that, we do fun stuff. We have a gardening club. We have a walking club. We play bingo. We’re trying to build community. We’re not just trying to build apartments.”
Ovation’s Decatur Rome Senior Apartments, expected to be completed by 2025, will feature 38 tiny homes and 238 apartments, of which 180 will be marketed to seniors raking in less than 49% of the Area Median Income (AMI) and 96 units for those making less than 59% of AMI. The project, partially funded by the Clark County Community Housing Fund and the state’s $500 million Home Means Nevada Initiative, also sits on land formerly owned by the federal government.
Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo has been vocal about the need for more affordable housing, specifically in letters to President Joe Biden where he’s called for a more streamlined approach to making federally owned land available for affordable housing development. Around 85% of Nevada is federally owned, but getting to the point of actually building on it can take years.
At the groundbreaking for Decatur Rome, the governor acknowledged Ovation’s project as a positive step forward, but more is still needed.
“This issuance of federal land, in partnership with Clark County and the State of Nevada, is locally undervalued. It’s locally short of what we need to achieve as a community within the state,” Lombardo said. “I think it’s important for people to realize the lift that is needed to ensure that we have housing for people in need. We’re doing everything we can, with our efforts and our ability, to ensure that we increase upon the inventory, and this is all a part of it.”
More solutions are imminent. Lombardo said the state has “more than 4,000 affordable rental homes in the Nevada Housing Division pipeline, which will increase our overall affordable inventory by 10%.”
Nevada State Treasurer Zach Conine also said the Board of Finance is putting “more money into affordable housing than ever before.”
“It’s my pleasure to see another almost 300 units in our inventory,” Conine said. “God knows we need it, and we need it now.”
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