(The Center Square) – Renewed state funds are intended to finish a drawn-out relocation effort for a historically Black neighborhood plagued by a history of segregation and problems with government oversight in North Las Vegas.
Proponents say the Windsor Park relocation law, Senate Bill 6, would finish off a decades-long job to relocate and compensate residents in what’s considered to be one of the most neglected neighborhoods in the Las Vegas area. The update includes $25 million in additional funding to kick off 2026.
“This is much more than a housing project,” said Nia Girma, affordable housing liaison for the Nevada Housing Division.
“This is a promise to repair and return the dignity to a community that made all of the right decisions, did all of the right things and were very much taken advantage of by all of the entities that they encountered,” Girma told The Center Square.
The $25 million in funding from SB6 adds to a $37 million allocation from the 2023 legislative session. That bill, SB450, was intended to relocate all 93 of Windsor Park’s current residents and property owners.
But the funding came up short, for what Sen. Dina Neal, D-Clark County, called a combination of many factors, including trade tariffs that increased construction prices. Neal, who has become a champion of the Windsor Park relocation effort, said that without the special session’s additional funding, only 59 new homes would have been completed.
The Windsor Park story goes back decades to the mid-1960s, when residents began to move into the North Las Vegas neighborhood, in what Girma said was the pursuit of the American Dream – homeownership and a hope for generational wealth.
At that time, redlining, a government-designed process that banned Black and Brown Americans from owning homes in white-segregated neighborhoods, was in operation. The practice forced Black residents into Windsor Park as one of few Las Vegas area neighborhoods where they could own a home.
“Everything seemed fine for quite a few years, but after about 20 years, the foundation began to crack,” said Girma. “You would set something down on your counter, and it would roll off. The foundation and the street had cracks in it.”
The neighborhood, which had around 400 homes at its peak, turned out to be located over geologic faults and an aquifer that was drawn from after residents moved in. As a result, the ground sank, and the houses’ foundations began to crack and crumble.
“ Of course, those families who were in financial positions to move sold their homes,” said Girma. “But those who didn’t, they were sort of stuck there.”
In 1991 the North Las Vegas City Council passed an ordinance to ban new construction in Windsor Park, including for residents to fix their own homes after damage from the sinking ground. This law would not be lifted until 2019.
Three years after the construction ordinance was approved, the city council adopted the relocation plan. Residents who accepted the offer were moved across the street to what is now nicknamed as Baby Windsor.
Forty-five homes were built in the adjacent neighborhood, but soon after residents began to have problems with these homes, too. They reported low build quality with issues of their own decay, resulting in further distrust within the Windsor Park community. Remaining residents who had not yet relocated became hesitant to move, and rather than adjust the program, it was stopped in its tracks. By 2007, no more Windsor Park residents were relocated.
Any political momentum for the relocation appeared to come to a full stop. That was until 2019, when Pastor Bill Miller, a Windsor Park resident since the 1960s, was denied a permit to rebuild a wall in his home.
But Sen. Neal pressed the North Las Vegas goverment about the construction ban ordinance, and she said the city denied its existence.
“Pastor Miller was not aware that that ordinance existed,” Neal told The Center Square. “And at the time, the city in 2019 was saying, ‘That’s not true, there is no ordinance.
“I was like, ‘Nope, here it is. It’s right here,’ ” Neal said.
Miller’s wall, and the rest of Windsor Park, was within Neal’s jurisdiction. She said the denial of Miller’s permit pushed her on a path to change the neighborhood.
“Because if you’re saying this land has been sinking but they can’t repair their houses, then you’re keeping them in a state of suspension,” said Neal. “You can’t be better, you can only be worse. You can just allow the house to fall down around them, and that, that I couldn’t understand.”
From there, Neal learned the history of Windsor Park and helped make an award winning documentary on the issue with the UNLV.
When Miller died in 2020, before he was allowed to rebuild his wall, Neal changed gears.
Neal introduced SB450 in 2023, which passed and was signed into law by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo. As the funds began to run dry, Neal introduced SB393 in 2025’s legislative session to add $25 million, but it failed to pass.
SB6 passed in this fall’s special legislative session, where Neal said the only opposition came from hesitations around whether the additional $25 million would complete the full spending for the project.
With the law’s passage in December, the project has immediately received the cash influx and will include lump sums for repairs to Baby Windsor residents. With leftover funds from an older grant, a memorial park for residents who died before compensation was received will be built in Windsor Park.
Girma said the park will “commemorate and memorialize the families who didn’t make it across the finish line with us” and benefit residents who choose to remain in Windsor Park.
The first phase of 59 homes, located within a half mile of Windsor Park, is set to be completed by the end of the year. The remaining residents will likely begin relocation in 2027, said Girma.
“We sometimes like to put dollars and number signs on this, but you really can’t quantify what has been stolen from these families,” said Girma. “The opportunity to send their children to college, to start businesses, to pull money out of their homes and build bigger homes to really provide a legacy for generations to come — that was stolen from them.”
Girma said most residents are cautiously optimistic that change has finally come. “The overall sentiment is: ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’ ”
