New Emergency Rental Assistance Data and Information from Treasury
Last week, the U.S. Treasury’s Emergency Rental Assistance program released new data showing that more than 510,000 households received rental assistance in September (up from 459,000 in August). The $2.8 billion distributed by state, local, and tribal governments last month means that the program has made over two million payments to households and distributed over $10 billion. In addition, September data suggests that there has been no major national spike in evictions after the federal moratorium came down, with evictions filings remaining below historical averages.
Treasury will soon begin the process of recapturing excess funds that exceed a jurisdiction’s needs or administrative capacity and reallocate them to jurisdictions with demonstrated needs for this assistance. To that end, Treasury also released the forms the grantees will need to use to certify they have met the threshold to avoid reallocation and the program improvement plan template that must use if they have not reached the expenditure threshold. These forms require grantees to confirm whether they are using Treasury’s recommended best practices including allowing for applications on mobile devices, providing materials in multiple languages, partnering with community organizations, prioritizing households at high risk of eviction, and allowing applicants to self-attest for a number of eligibility factors.
Late next month, Treasury will begin making decisions about reallocating Emergency Rental Assistance funds between jurisdictions; during this process Treasury will be guided by its commitment to ensure the funds available to each grantee are as closely aligned as possible with the needs of the families living in its jurisdiction. Of note, reallocation is not the only additional source of funding available to state and local grantees as last month, Treasury began distributing the remaining funds available under the second wave of ERA funding authorized by the American Rescue Plan (ERA2). Treasury is also reminding grantees that they may use their Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery program funds toward rental assistance initiatives.
Treasury will soon begin the process of recapturing excess funds that exceed a jurisdiction’s needs or administrative capacity and reallocate them to jurisdictions with demonstrated needs for this assistance. To that end, Treasury also released the forms the grantees will need to use to certify they have met the threshold to avoid reallocation and the program improvement plan template that must use if they have not reached the expenditure threshold. These forms require grantees to confirm whether they are using Treasury’s recommended best practices including allowing for applications on mobile devices, providing materials in multiple languages, partnering with community organizations, prioritizing households at high risk of eviction, and allowing applicants to self-attest for a number of eligibility factors.
Late next month, Treasury will begin making decisions about reallocating Emergency Rental Assistance funds between jurisdictions; during this process Treasury will be guided by its commitment to ensure the funds available to each grantee are as closely aligned as possible with the needs of the families living in its jurisdiction. Of note, reallocation is not the only additional source of funding available to state and local grantees as last month, Treasury began distributing the remaining funds available under the second wave of ERA funding authorized by the American Rescue Plan (ERA2). Treasury is also reminding grantees that they may use their Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery program funds toward rental assistance initiatives.