Editorial: Home is where the work isn’t

Monday, April 10, 2006 | 7:05 a.m.

A little-known federal program offers some hope to residents who cannot afford the $314,000 median purchase price of a Las Vegas Valley home, but it also lures these new homeowners to live miles outside the urban area.

According to a recent story by the Las Vegas Sun, the financial assistance is offered through the U.S. Agriculture Department and is limited to purchases of housing in rural areas.

The program does offer relief to such residents as Ramona Ward, a 32-year-old Clark County School District employee and single mother of two. Ward told the Sun that with her annual income of about $35,000, ownership of a single-family home in Las Vegas was little more than an unattainable dream. Through the federal program, however, she was able to build a brand-new home in Pahrump.

While we applaud anything that can make home ownership attainable for residents who offer important services such as working in our school district, we wish it could provide those advantages closer to the places people actually work.

The gains that Pahrump offers in terms of price and square footage are lost in daily work commutes of at least 45 miles each way that result in increased gasoline consumption, sprawl and traffic congestion.

State Route 160, the highway that carries thousands of commuters daily between Pahrump and the Las Vegas Valley, has become Nevada's poster child for traffic fatalities and the problems caused by urban sprawl.

In response to an alarming increase in crashes and fatalities, the Nevada Department of Transportation lowered the road's speed limit along the highway's urban sections in March and paid for extra enforcement by the Nevada Highway Patrol.

It is necessary to help people receive the assistance they need to purchase homes in the Las Vegas Valley. But perhaps it would be better for the Agriculture Department to focus on boosting rural economies by making housing grants available to those who actually intend to work in these rural areas, rather than subsidize the kind of commute-dependent lifestyle that, in other aspects of urban planning, government has been trying to discourage.