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Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA 1) and Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA 2)
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The funding provided by Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) will among other things, assist eligible households that have difficulty making timely payments of rent and utilities due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Division N, Title V, Section 501 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, CAA Pub. L. No. 116-260, (December 27, 2020) established the Emergency Rental Assistance (“ERA 1”) and provided $25 billion for the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) to make payments to States (defined to include the District of Columbia), U.S. Territories (Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa), Indian Tribes or their Tribally designated housing entities, as applicable, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL), and certain local governments with more than 200,000 residents (collectively the “eligible grantees”) to provide financial assistance including payment of rent, rental arrears, utilities and home energy costs, utilities and home energy costs arrears, other costs related to housing, and housing stability services to eligible households. The authorizing statute instructed Treasury to make direct payments to the eligible grantees no later than 30 days after December 27, 2020. ERA1 ended in December 2022 as the period of performance for the initial allocation of ERA1 awards expired on September 30, 2022, and for reallocated funds expired on December 29, 2022. Title III, Subtitle B, Section 3201 of the American Rescue Plan Act, 2021, (ARPA), Pub. L. No. 117-2, (March 11, 2021) authorized the Emergency Rental Assistance (“ERA 2”) and provides $21.55 billion for Treasury to make payments to States (defined to include the District of Columbia), U.S. Territories (Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa), and certain local governments with more than 200,000 residents (collectively the “eligible grantees”) to provide financial assistance including payment of rent, rental arrears, utilities and home energy costs, utilities and home energy costs arrears, other costs related to housing, and housing stability services to eligible households, as well as to cover the cost of other affordable rental housing and eviction prevention activities, as defined by the Secretary, serving very low-income families. ERA 2’s authorizing statute provided for Treasury to pay all ERA 2 eligible grantees at least 40% of each grantee’s total allocations within 60 days after March 11, 2021, pursuant to section 3201(c) (1) of ARPA. ERA2 is ongoing as the period of performance on ERA2 awards end on September 30, 2025. No new awards are being made but existing projects are still active.
This chart shows obligations for the program by fiscal year. All data for this chart was provided by the
administering agency and sourced from SAM.gov, USASpending.gov, and Treasury.gov.
For more information on each of these data sources, please see the
About the data page.
ERA 1: Payments were made directly to States, certain eligible local governments, U.S. Territories, DHHL, and Indian tribes to provide financial assistance including payment of rent, rental arrears, utilities and home energy costs, utilities and home energy costs arrears, other costs related to housing, and housing stability services for eligible households. ERA 2: Payments were made directly to States, certain eligible local governments, and U.S. Territories to provide financial assistance including payment of rent, rental arrears, utilities and home energy costs, utilities and home energy costs arrears, other costs related to housing, housing stability services for eligible households, and to cover the costs for other affordable rental housing and eviction prevention activities for eligible households.
ERA 2 grantees have continued to provide financial assistance for services listed above. Through March 2024, ERA 1 and ERA 2 grantees made over 13.9 million payments to eligible households and spent or obligated more than $41.9 billion in ERA funds. The majority of ERA-funded rental assistance has gone to keeping the lowest-income families in their homes. Over 80 percent of ERA assistance has been delivered to assist very low-income households—defined as those earning 50 percent of area median income and below. More than 60 percent of those who received assistance identified as Black or Latino. Single mothers and other female-headed households make up close to two thirds of ERA beneficiaries. In addition to providing direct support to hundreds of thousands of eligible households, ERA funding has been an important catalyst for the development of hundreds of new state- and local-level programs and initiatives that are now providing eviction diversion services, access to legal counsel, and other housing stability services for eligible individuals and families. Research shows that as a result, low-income and majority Black neighborhoods that typically see a disproportionate share of eviction cases have experienced the largest absolute reduction in eviction filings. ERA, in combination with other pandemic response initiatives, kept millions of families in their homes and averted what many predicted would be a wave of evictions during the pandemic. For more information about ERA see: https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/coronavirus/assistance-for-state-local-and-tribal-governments/emergency-rental-assistance-program.
Single Audit Applies (2 CFR Part 200 Subpart F):
For additional information on single audit requirements for this program, review the current Compliance Supplement.
OMB is working with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) and agency offices of inspectors general to include links to relevant oversight reports. This section will be updated once this information is made available.
