U.S. Department of the Treasury

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has made funding available to assist households that are unable to pay rent or utilities. The funds are provided directly to states, U.S. territories, local governments, and Indian tribes. As a result, these grantees across the United States have been working hard to stand up their Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) programs in order to address the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on millions of American renters. Each ERA grantee has some flexibility to develop their rental assistance program to suit the needs of their local community, while complying with requirements outlined in their ERA financial assistance agreement, the ERA statute, and Treasury’s guidance.

Treasury has engaged with ERA grantees across the country to identify program strategies that promise to speed up program implementation, more efficiently deliver program benefits, enhance program integrity, and improve tenant and landlord access to programs—particularly for vulnerable and harder to reach populations. As grantees across the country build program infrastructure designed to meet the specific needs of their communities, many have reported that early successes have relied on leveraging local resources, data-driven operational analyses, and incorporating continuous operational improvement strategies into their regular practices. Specific promising practices include: ¹

Last updated: 12/17/2021

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  View example self-attestation forms currently used by ERA grantees.

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Across the country, local grantee administrators are working hard to implement programs to provide rental assistance to their constituents. While this is not an exhaustive list of promising practices, these insights may be useful to ERA grantees as they build out programs to help households maintain their housing, despite the financial uncertainty experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

^{1 Treasury recognizes that programs vary according to local circumstances; these examples are intended to help programs identify opportunities to enhance the effectiveness of their own programs but may not be universally applicable to all grantees. The program information provided herein is intended solely to illuminate “promising practices” that grantees might consider when developing their jurisdiction’s program policies and infrastructure. All such policy development must proceed in accordance with the governing legal authorities and published policy guidance. Nothing herein should be construed as (i) altering these requirements or (ii) confirming that any specific grantee’s program policies or administrative practices have been fully reviewed and found compliant.}