When COVID-19 hit in 2020, the U.S. Congress allocated $46.5 million to help struggling low-income renters stay in their homes during the pandemic. The federal Emergency Rental Assistance program was designed to be a lifeline for those who fell behind on payments as work and income streams were disrupted. But most states were initially slow to disburse the funds — to the frustration of tenants, landlords and housing advocacy groups, Bloomberg News reported. After that sluggish start, there are now signs of significant progress. More than 4.3 million payments worth $20.5 billion were allocated to households nationwide through Jan. 31, the U.S. Treasury reported this month. The aid, while late, likely played a significant role in preventing hundreds of thousands of evictions, according to a new Bloomberg Eviction Lab analysis. Each state set its own ERA guidelines, but typically households with 80% of area median income or less were eligible for about 12 months of rent. Nearly two-thirds of ERA beneficiaries last year had extremely low incomes — families who make less than a third of the median income in their area. About 40% of tenants were Black and 20% were Hispanic, according to Treasury data through Dec. 31. Since each state implemented their own programs to distribute the federal money, progress has been uneven. While North Carolina, New Jersey, Virginia, and California spent more than 90% of their first round of ERA money, 15 states expended less than 30% of those early funds by end of January, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), a nonprofit advocacy group.
