Child Trends, a nonprofit organization that conducts research about children, youth, and families, has published new research analyzing the impacts of federal, state, and local emergency rental assistance (ERA) programs on recipients’ levels of food insufficiency during the pandemic. The researchers define “food insufficiency” as a “severe form of food insecurity,” in which households periodically or frequently do not have enough to eat because of financial barriers to food access. The research finds that low-income renter households with children who received ERA were significantly less likely to report child food insufficiency, household food insufficiency, and rental arrears than households who were waiting to receive ERA or whose applications were denied. Read the new report here.
Low-income renters faced high levels of rent burden and housing instability during the COVID-19 pandemic. Between March 2020 and July 2023, the cost of rent increased more than 26% nationally, with some larger cities seeing rental increases in the double digits in the first quarter of 2021 alone. Simultaneously, approximately 27 million people lost their jobs. The lowest-income earners experienced the most significant declines in employment, with unemployment rates as high as 30% among those who had previously made $16,345 or less a year. Between 2020 and 2023, the number of renters spending more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities increased from 20.4 million to 22.4 million. By 2023, 50% of all tenant households were cost burdened. When renters are cost burdened, they have less money to cover basic expenses, including food. The new report notes that 38% of low-income renter households with children who responded to the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey reported experiencing food insufficiency, and 28% stated that their children did not have enough to eat.
Congress sought to address the housing crisis by passing the Consolidated Appropriations Act and American Rescue Plan Act, allocating a total of $46.55 billion for ERA and housing stability services in 2020 and 2021. Additionally, several state and local governments created their own ERA initiatives separate from the federal program to further support renters.
The Child Trends researchers aimed to assess ERA’s effect on the rate of food and housing insecurity among low-income households with children. They analyzed data from the Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey (HPS) to examine these renters’ access to food and housing during the primary period of ERA benefit distribution. Additionally, they interviewed parents in Tulsa, Oklahoma who received ERA to learn more about its direct impacts. The authors found that households that received ERA were 14% less likely to experience household food insufficiency than those denied ERA, and 5% less likely than those who were waiting on an application decision. Associations between food insufficiency and ERA application status was strongest among households that recently lost their jobs, meaning ERA might provide protection from food insufficiency when incomes decline rapidly.
Despite receiving ERA, many of the families surveyed did not feel they had achieved long term housing and food stability. Future iterations of the program should be integrated with other government assistance programs and offer housing stability services and variable lengths and levels of assistance to meet families’ complex needs. Additionally, the authors note that two-thirds of low-income families with children did not apply for ERA, potentially because of application barriers, program ineligibility, lack of knowledge about the program, inaccurate reporting of income, or landlord refusal to participate. Future ERA programs should simplify eligibility requirements to facilitate quicker and wider access to ERA resources, examine program eligibility and priorities to determine if these processes leave out specific households, and explore why households did not apply for the program.
Learn how to advocate for greater ERA resources in your community here.
Read the Child Trends report here.