New Study Examines ERA Program-Design Features and Spending Outcomes

New research from NLIHC and the Housing Initiative at Penn provides a preliminary analysis of key program-design features and outcomes, primarily spending outcomes, of emergency rental assistance (ERA) programs. The report finds that self-attestation and other tools to reduce documentation burdens, like categorical eligibility and fact-specific proxy, are important to a program’s ability to distribute assistance to households in need.

Researchers analyzed differences in spending across programs using data from the NLIHC ERA Database, surveys of 105 program administrators, and expenditure data from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Programs implementing categorical eligibility or fact-specific proxy in which programs use eligibility for other income-based programs or other facts to determine a household’s eligibility for ERA spent a higher share of their allocation by September 30, 2021 than programs that do not. Self-attestation also appears to be positively related to a program’s ability to spend.

The researchers examined changes in program features between the end of June and end of September and found programs that adopted self-attestation for at least one eligibility criterion during the summer spent a greater share of their allocation than programs that never adopted self-attestation (34% to 25%). Programs that adopted self-attestation for both income and COVID-related hardship during the summer spent a greater share of their allocation than programs that adopted neither (39% vs. 26%). Notably, programs that adopted any type of self-attestation were more likely to have had above average spending between June and September and were more likely to be in the top quartile of spending during those months.

While programs that made adaptations and allowed greater program flexibilities seemed to have better spending outcomes, the evidence is mixed regarding direct-to-tenant assistance. Programs that provided direct-to-tenant assistance when the landlord refused to participate or was non-responsive spent a greater share of their allocation by July 31, 2021 than those that did not (33% vs. 28%). Interestingly, programs that added direct-to-tenant assistance as a new design feature during the summer, however, did not necessarily see better performance on overall spending than programs that never provided direct-to-tenant assistance.

Nonprofit partnerships were another important factor to spending. Surveyed programs that partnered with non-profit organizations for some aspect of implementation spent on average a greater share of their allocation by the end of July 2021 than those that did not (38% vs. 20%). 

Researchers also examined applicant uptake among surveyed programs. Administrators who responded to the survey typically expected demand for assistance to exceed the number of households they could serve. Due to funding constraints, the median program expected to serve 62% of completed applications it expected to receive. By the end of July, most surveyed programs had not yet served nearly the number of households they expected to serve over the life of the program.

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