The U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) released on June 3 Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) spending data through April 2022. ERA grantees spent approximately $1.1 billion of ERA2 and $563 million of ERA1 in April alone, compared to $1.4 billion of ERA2 and $714 million of ERA1 spent in March. Overall, $28.5 billion of ERA1 and ERA2 have been spent on household assistance, administrative expenses, and housing stability services. The ERA program has made nearly 5.6 million payments to households since January 2021.
Nearly $1.1 billion of ERA2 funds were spent on assistance to households in April, down from $1.4 billion of ERA2 funds spent in March and $1.2 billion in February. Grantees spent more than $563 million of ERA1 in April, down from $714 million spent in March and $660 million spent in February. April was the fourth consecutive month that grantees spent less than $1 billion of ERA1.
ERA1 Trends: States have spent $12.5 billion in ERA1 funds, or 74% of the $16.9 billion of revised state allocations, and localities have spent more than $4.9 billion, or 73% of the $6.8 billion of revised allocations. By the end of April, 18 state grantees and the District of Columbia had expended over 75% of their revised ERA1 allocations on assistance to households. California, Connecticut, North Carolina, and Virginia had spent more than 90% of their revised ERA1 allocations. Because grantees are allowed to spend 10% of their allocations on administrative expenses, it is likely that these grantees have exhausted their entire ERA1 allocations. Conversely, 11 state grantees had expended less than 45% of their revised ERA1 allocations by the end of March 2022, despite having reallocated portions of their initial ERA1 funds.
ERA2 Trends: State grantees had spent $6.4 billion of ERA2 funds by the end of April – approximately 39% of the $15.9 billion allocated to states. Similarly, localities have spent approximately 41% of their allocations, or $2.2 billion of the $5.3 billion allocated to localities. Eleven state grantees and the District of Columbia had spent over 80% of their ERA2 allocations by the end of April. Four state grantees have yet to spend any of their ERA2 funds, and 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.