NLIHC Announces 2022-2023 End Rental Arrears to Stop Evictions (ERASE) and Opportunity Starts at Home Grantees
The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) is pleased to announce the 2022-2023 End Rental Arrears to Stop Evictions (ERASE) and Opportunity Starts at Home cohorts. The cohorts consist of state and local non-profit organizations collaborating in unique ways to advance housing solutions for the lowest income households.
The following 24 organizations were chosen to participate in the ERASE Cohort:
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Over the last two years, more than 500 state and local jurisdictions have established U.S. Department of the Treasury emergency rental assistance programs using federal dollars, many of them starting from scratch. At the same time, NLIHC’s partners have successfully advocated for more than 150 new federal, state, and local tenant protections to be passed or implemented. ERA program administrators have made over 7 million payments to households since January 2021.
As federal funding for ERA is depleted, this newly created and critically important ERA infrastructure is increasingly at risk. Through End Rental Arrears to Stop Evictions (ERASE), NLIHC and our cohort partners will work to leverage the success of the federal emergency rental assistance program and ensure the gains made setting up systems to provide emergency assistance and to prevent evictions are sustained.
NLIHC selected 24 grantees to work together between October 2022 and September 2023 to leverage the continued success of ERA in preventing evictions, stand up permanent state and local emergency rental assistance programs, and strengthen and enforce local, state, and federal tenant protections to ensure that the lowest-income households and people experiencing homelessness have access to assistance in time to prevent eviction and promote housing stability. To assist cohort members with their work, NLIHC is providing each member with a grant, and will provide opportunities for learning, peer support, and technical assistance through the cohort process.
The following 11 organizations were chosen to participate in the OSAH cohort:
- Colorado Coalition for the Homeless
- Empower Missouri
- Housing Action Illinois
- Idaho Asset Building Network
- Minnesota Chapter of Opportunity Starts at Home
- Mississippi Center for Justice
- North Carolina Housing Coalition
- Partnership for Strong Communities
- Prosperity Indiana
- Texas Homeless Network
- Wisconsin Community Action Program Association
The Opportunity Starts at Home campaign awarded regrants to 11 state-based organizations to continue advancing the national campaign’s policy solutions to expand rental assistance, increase the supply of affordable housing, and create a permanent emergency assistance program. The funding supports each organization as it continues to connect its state’s housing coalition with other sectors, such as the health, education, civil rights, food security, climate, faith, and anti-poverty sectors. The multi-sector partnerships are leveraged to engage federal elected officials who represent the state to enact policies that correct longstanding racial inequities and expand affordable housing for the nation’s lowest-income people. Over the past several years, the campaign has provided support to organizations in 12 other states: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, and West Virginia.
The national campaign continues to build a movement with stakeholders from many sectors to generate widespread support for federal policies through members of its Steering Committee, Roundtable, and State Campaigns. The national campaign has built a movement with over 100 organizations that supported COVID-19 pandemic housing relief and core campaign legislative efforts including two bipartisan bills: the “Eviction Crisis Act” and the “Family Stability and Opportunity Vouchers Act.” Campaign partners are key to shifting conversations around affordable housing and through the campaign have contributed to research, fact sheets, podcasts, and more.
For more information, visit NLIHC’s ERASE webpage at https://nlihc.org/erase-project and Opportunity Starts at Home webpage at https://opportunityhome.org/state-campaigns/