NLIHC’s State and Local Innovation (SLI) project supports state and local partners in advancing, implementing, and enforcing state and local tenant protections, sustaining emergency rental assistance (ERA) programs, preventing the criminalization of homelessness, and advancing other innovations that keep eviction rates down and prevent homelessness. The SLI project shapes and informs federal policies addressing the needs of the lowest-income and most marginalized renters in the U.S. by hosting webinars, releasing resources, and gathering data about state and local tenant protections. Learn more by visiting the SLI webpage! Learn more about the SLI Project.
The SLI project builds on the success of NLIHC’s ERASE project, which ran from January 2021 to December 2023. ERASE worked alongside state and local partners to ensure that the historic $46.5 billion in ERA passed by Congress during the pandemic reached the lowest-income and most marginalized renters. By informing and improving ERA program design, the ERASE project helped create more visible, accessible, and preventative ERA programs that ultimately helped keep millions of renters housed. ERASE also supported state and local partners’ efforts to pass, implement, and enforce tenant protections that ensured renters were able to stay housed once they received rental assistance.
However, rents have continued to rise, wages have remained stagnant, and the affordable housing crisis is worsening, making the need for action at the state and local levels more pronounced than ever. To meet this need, NLIHC’s State and Local Innovation project helps state and local partners advance, implement, and enforce state and local tenant protections, sustain ERA programs, oppose the criminalization of homelessness, and develop other innovations.
Last year, the SLI project released a range of new resources, including a series of tenant protections tools and resources – including draft language, frequently asked questions, and briefs – to support the state and local passage and implementation of key tenant protections like “just cause” eviction standards, rent stabilization ordinances, laws that strengthen code enforcement and habitability standards, and laws that limit “junk fees.” The SLI project also maintains efforts to track state and local tenant protections through NLIHC’s State and Local Tenant Protections Database , as well as tracking permanent state and local emergency rental assistance programs.
Visit the SLI project webpage here to learn more!