The U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) has released emergency rental assistance (ERA) spending data through May 2022. ERA grantees spent over $948 million of ERA2 and $681 million of ERA1 for a total of $1.63 billion of ERA disbursed to households in May alone. This amount is slightly lower than the $1.65 billion of ERA spent in April and $1.86 billion spent in March. Overall, $30.2 billion of ERA1 and ERA2 have been spent on assistance to households, administrative expenses, and housing stability services. The ERA program has made more than six million payments to households since January 2021.
Over $948 million of ERA2 funds were spent on assistance to households in May, down from $1.08 billion of ERA2 funds spent in April and $1.14 billion in March. Grantees spent more than $681 million of ERA1 in May, a slight increase from the $565 million spent in April, but down from the $714 million spent in March. This is the fifth consecutive month that less than $1 billion in ERA1 funds has been spent. Grantees are statutorily required to obligate all ERA1 funds by September 2022.
ERA1 Trends: States have spent more than $12.9 billion in ERA1 funds, or 77% of $16.9 billion of revised state allocations, and localities have spent more than $5.1 billion, or 76% of $6.8 billion of revised allocations. By the end of May, 19 state grantees and the District of Columbia had expended over 75% of their revised ERA1 allocations on assistance to households. California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Virginia spent more than 90% of their revised ERA1 allocations. Because grantees are allowed to spend 10% of their allocation on administrative expenses, it is likely that these grantees have exhausted their entire ERA1 allocations. Conversely, 12 state grantees had expended less than 50% of their revised ERA1 allocation by the end of May 2022, despite having reallocated a portion of their initial ERA1 funds in late 2021. Treasury is expected to reallocate a portion of unobligated ERA1 funds based on spending through March 31, 2022. Treasury has not released data on these reallocations.
ERA2 Trends: State grantees had spent nearly $7.0 billion of ERA2 funds by the end of May, approximately 44% of the $15.9 billion allocated to states. Similarly, localities have spent approximately 45% of their allocations, or $2.4 billion of the $5.3 billion allocated to localities. Twelve state grantees and the District of Columbia had spent over 50% of their ERA2 allocations by the end of May. Three state grantees – Idaho, Iowa, and Ohio – have yet to spend any of their ERA2 funds. Two state grantees – Arkansas and Nebraska – have not accepted ERA2 funds.
NLIHC tracks ERA spending on the ERA Dashboard and Spending Tracker. Our tracking integrates Treasury data with real-time data from program dashboards and program administrators to provide a closer estimate of how much ERA funding has been obligated to date.