More than 3.2 Million Households Received ERA Assistance in 2021; Nearly Two-Thirds Had Extremely Low Incomes

The U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) has released updated Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) program spending data through December 31, 2021. An additional $1.1 billion in ERA1 and $1.3 billion in ERA2 was spent in December – a decrease in both cases from November spending levels. Overall, $18.5 billion from ERA1 and ERA2 has been spent, providing assistance to more than 3.2 million unique households. Treasury also released demographic data for the first year of ERA, revealing that nearly two-thirds of households served had extremely low incomes.

Between January 2021 and December 2021, grantees expended $16.3 billion of ERA1, including funds for assistance to households, administrative costs, and housing stability services, representing 65% of the $25 billion ERA1 allocation. Grantees have also spent $3.74 billion of ERA2 funds, amounting to 17% of the $21.55 billion allocated through ERA2.

ERA1 spending continued to decrease in December 2021, reaching the lowest amount spent since May 2021. ERA2 spending also dropped to $1.33 billion in December, down from $1.38 billion in November. The new data highlight the still-uneven performances across grantees. Thirteen states have spent at least 75% of their ERA1 funds, and three of these states – New Jersey, the District of Columbia, and Texas – have also spent more than 70% of their ERA2 funds. However, 14 states have spent no more than 25% of their ERA1 allocations. Several of these slow-spending states – including Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio, and Arizona – house high numbers of low-income renter households.

Newly released demographic data provide insight about whom ERA is reaching. Nearly two of every three households served by ERA1 and ERA2 funds had extremely low incomes (64% and 63%, respectively). ERA also reached a high proportion of households of color: around four in ten households that received ERA1 or ERA2 funds identified as Black (41% and 46%, respectively), and approximately two in ten households that received ERA1 or ERA2 funds identified as Hispanic (19% and 23%, respectively).

NLIHC tracks ERA spending through 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.

Download Treasury’s December ERA data at: https://bit.ly/36FqLWD (Note: NLIHC’s analysis corrects for a presumed ERA2 Quarter 1 data reporting error in the state of Texas.)

Download ERA demographic data at: https://bit.ly/3JLYBay