The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, including disruptions to employment and public health challenges, created instability for many low-income households and made it difficult for these households to continue paying their rent. In 2020 and 2021, Congress appropriated nearly $50 billion for two rounds of Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) programs to provide rental assistance to support housing stability for renter households. The program was limited to residents with incomes less than 80 percent of the area median income. The US Treasury Department distributed the funding to state and local government grantees to implement these programs in partnership with community-based organizations and housing providers.

Why This Matters

ERA programs ultimately provided more than 3 million renters with money for rent, utilities, and other housing-related expenses. This enormous scale, along with ERA program design and implementation features, offers lessons for future direct assistance programs for renters and for other types of assistance programs. To distribute the ERA funding, grantees needed to rapidly identify an implementation approach, hire staff, and set up systems with application and processing capabilities.

What We Found

Some ERA programs took longer than others to build capacity and distribute funding, but we found that the programs were intentional about reaching renters with the most need for assistance. More than 80 percent of those who received emergency assistance had incomes below 50 percent of the area median income where they lived. This report is designed to highlight and memorialize the lessons learned from the implementation process for future emergency relief programs.

Lessons learned include the following:

• Funding allocations should match program demand.
• Uniformity (i.e., standardization) is critical.
• Limit program requirements that are unrelated to payments such as rent freezes and eviction moratoriums, and coordinate timelines for housing provider and renter clarity.
• Think carefully about the trade-off between the cost of additional documentation and the take-up and effectiveness of the program.
• Federal government guidance at the outset of the program is essential.
• Handling entity and overlap requires more standardization and guidance. Payments should be sent to the housing and utility providers on behalf of residents unless there is a lack of cooperation on the part of the providers. .
• User-friendly systems are essential.
• Productive outreach to both housing providers and residents helps program awareness. A program that is not known will not get used.

How We Did It

First, we summarized existing research on ERA program design and implementation. Second, we compiled program data from the Treasury’s website to track spending progress and program services for state and local programs from Q1 2021 to Q3 2024. We also used the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey to estimate the housing characteristics of ERA applicants and recipients. Third, we interviewed state program administrators and housing providers to provide additional context on designing, implementing, and navigating ERA programs. We synthesized these results to provide coherent lessons for future programs.