E.R.A.S.E. Project

The longstanding housing affordability crisis in the United States entered a new stage of urgency in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic led to widescale job losses and increased housing instability. To protect renters from eviction, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a nationwide eviction moratorium in September 2020. This federal moratorium lasted until July 31, 2021 and helped prevent evictions for 1.55 million renter households across the country. 

Action was not limited to the federal government. State and local jurisdictions did their part to protect renters as well. Recognizing the crucial role tenant protections play in preventing evictions and ensuring housing stability, since 2021, states and localities have passed or implemented a variety of new tenant protections to prevent evictions and keep tenants stably housed.

NLIHC has been tracking the passage of tenant protections in jurisdictions across the country. In January 2022, the ERASE team released a report on its findings, Tenant Protections and Emergency Rental Assistant during and beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic. The team also created the two digital resources featured on this page: a State and Local Tenant Protections Map and a corresponding database. The resources compile and present easy-to-access information about tenant protections around the country to inform the advocacy efforts of local, state, and federal housing champions.

Note: Many states and local jurisdictions had tenant protections in place prior to January 2021 that are not included in the database below. NLIHC began tracking tenant protections in January 2021 in an effort to identify those protections passed in conjunction with the implementation of the federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program. For a comprehensive database of tenant protections existing before January 2021, please see the LSC Eviction Laws Database at: https://bit.ly/3KpK7yu. For more information, email [email protected]

Resources	Description
	Promoting Housing Stability through Just Cause Eviction Legislation released in May 2022,  provides an overview of the goals of just cause legislation, shares examples of existing just cause protections, and offers recommendations about ways to advance just cause legislation at the local, state, and federal levels. Just cause – also known as “good cause” or “for cause” – eviction laws are legal protections that make the lease renewal process more predictable, empower tenants to advocate for better living conditions without fear of retaliation, provide limits on exorbitant rental increases to prevent renters from becoming extremely rent-burdened or experiencing displacement, and promote long-term housing stability for low-income and marginalized renters.
	Tenant Protections and Emergency Rental Assistance During and Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic, released in January 2022, provides a descriptive analysis of new tenant protections and emergency rental assistance (ERA)-related policies enacted or implemented by states and local governments in 2021.  The report includes more than 130 state and local tenant protections including state and local eviction moratoriums, pauses on the eviction process to allow for ERA processing, mandates to increase access to information and limit tenant fees, increases to tenant representation during the eviction process, and protections that reduce discrimination, as well as recommendations to advance protections moving forward.

ERASE Tenant Protections State and Local Maps

Instructions

Click on the magnifying glass to make the search bar appear. Type your state, county, city, or zip code and hit 'enter' to zoom to the location. The buttons below the search box provide options to 'pan', 'zoom', and return to the original extent on the map.

*Households may receive multiple rounds of assistance, resulting in some double counting of households served. States with a number of households served greater than the estimated number of cost-burdened, low-income renter households are coded as 100%.

ERASE State and Local Tenant Protections Database

Overview of Tenant Protections since January 2021

The ERASE State and Local Tenant Protections Database provides information about protections passed or implemented beginning January 2021 that have assisted in preventing evictions and keeping renters stably housed during the COVID-19 pandemic. This database includes the jurisdiction, implementing authority, status, a brief description of each protection, and a link to more information on both short-term protections directly related to emergency rental assistance and long-term tenant protections that will outlast the pandemic.

Are you aware of a tenant protection that is NOT currently on NLIHC's State and Local Tenant Protections database? Please complete this form (https://forms.gle/8zx2PU5QaxsrEoLP9) to submit a new protection into our database. With your help, we can make it easier for tenants and advocates to learn what protections low-income renters have in their states and localities to keep them stably housed.

Since January 2021...

Click here to download the table. Please note you will be taken to Google Sheets where you can download the spreadsheet. You can also use the searchable tool below to look up state, territory, tribe, or locality for the city or county you reside in.