Treasury Announces Seven Additional Policies to Encourage State and Local Governments to 

Expedite Emergency Rental Assistance 

Latest Treasury Data Shows Continued Progress; About 1 Million Payments Made by State and 

Localities as of July 31 

New data on program performance demonstrates steady improvement in delivering Emergency Rental 

Assistance (ERA) to eligible households – particularly among state and local agencies that adopted the 

recommendations in Treasury’s prior guidance. Even with these improvements, many grantees need to do 

more to urgently accelerate efforts to prevent harmful evictions of vulnerable families. To help grantees 

continue to expedite assistance, today Treasury is announcing additional policies – including measures to 

reduce processing delays by providing even more explicit permission for grantees to rely on applicant’s 

self-attestations without further documentation.

State and local programs have spent more than $5.1 billion to support the housing stability of vulnerable 

renters out of the $25 billion allocated under the first round of ERA (ERA1). Since January, state and 

local programs have made about 1 million payments benefitting households at risk of eviction. In July

alone, more than 340,000 households received nearly $1.7 billion in rental and utilities assistance, a 

roughly 15% increase in households served compared to June, and more than double the number of 

households served in May. The latest data also demonstrates that ERA funds reached the lowest income 

tenants, with more than 60 percent of households served falling at or below 30 percent of area median 

income. Many programs have shown an ability to aid vulnerable households quickly, with 70 state and 

local agencies having expended more than half of their ERA1 allocation assistance to eligible households

by the end of July. However, too many grantees have yet to demonstrate sufficient progress in getting 

assistance to struggling tenants and landlords. After September, programs that are unwilling or unable to 

deliver assistance quickly will be at risk of having their rental assistance funding reallocated to effective 

programs in other high-need areas. 

Treasury continues to use every lever at its disposal to urge states to distribute assistance to renters and 

landlords swiftly. From the first weeks of the Administration, Treasury actions have allowed for the 

accelerated delivery of ERA and encouraged grantees to avoid or reduce unduly burdensome 

documentation requirements for verifying income, provide assistance directly to tenants when landlords 

are not cooperative, and protect renters from eviction after payments are made on their behalf. Based on 

identified challenges and feedback from stakeholders and practitioners, Treasury issued guidance in 

February, May, and June; and again today.

One of the biggest challenges many state and local government programs continue to face in getting 

assistance to renters and landlords is application processing delays. According to public dashboards, 

hundreds of thousands of applications are in the pipeline beyond those that have already been paid. 

Today, based on feedback collected through site-visits and meetings with rental assistance administrators, 

tenant advocates, landlords and other stakeholders, Treasury is providing further policy clarity and 

recommendations meant to accelerate assistance to those in the pipeline in addition to those who have yet 

to apply, including clarifying that:

1. Self-attestation can be used in documenting each aspect of a household’s eligibility for 

ERA, including with respect to: a) financial hardship, b) the risk of homelessness or 

housing instability, and c) income. The use of self-attestation for documenting household 

eligibility clearly speeds up the processing of applications for rental assistance. Treasury is 

providing even greater clarity and specificity regarding the use of self-attestation and is 

encouraging grantees to simplify application processes to use self-attestation when other 

forms of documentation are not immediately available. 
2. During the public health emergency, state and local ERA programs may rely on selfattestation alone to document household income eligibility when documentation is not 

available. During the public health emergency, in order to rapidly provide assistance, 

Treasury is clarifying that grantees may rely solely on a self-attestation of income when 

applicants are unable to provide other documentation of their income.

3. State and local grantees may advance assistance to landlords and utility providers based 

on estimated eligible arears. To speed assistance, Treasury is establishing guidelines for 

providing a portion of estimated bulk payments to landlords and utility providers in 

anticipation of the full satisfaction of application and documentation requirements. These 

changes balance the need to assist households served by larger landlords and utilities with the 

need to protect taxpayers. 

4. State and local grantees may enter into partnership with nonprofits to deliver advance 

assistance to households at risk of eviction while their applications are still being 

processed. Where an expedited payment could reasonably be viewed as necessary to prevent 

an eviction that may occur under a grantee’s standard application process, Treasury is 

establishing guidelines for state and local programs to engage with non-profit organizations 

able and willing to take on the financial risk of advancing assistance prior to an application 

being fully processed to speed aid to at-risk households.

5. Grantees may make additional rent payments to landlords that take on tenants facing

major barriers to securing a lease, including those who have been evicted or 

experienced homelessness in the past year. State and local ERA programs may make an 

additional payment required as a condition for entering into a lease with a “hard-to-house” 

household that would not otherwise qualify under a pre-existing and lawful screening or 

occupancy policy. 

6. Past arrears at previous addresses may be covered. To remove barriers a household may 

face in accessing new housing if they have outstanding debt in collection, Treasury’s 

guidance makes clear that state and local grantees may—at an eligible tenant’s request—

provide assistance to cover remaining rental or utility arrears at a previous address. 

7. A tenant’s costs associated with obtaining a hearing or appealing an order of eviction 

may be covered with ERA funds as an eligible “other expense.” Many states and 

localities require tenant payments of rent to a court on behalf of the landlord (often referred to 

as “rent bonds”) as a condition for a tenant to have the opportunity to defend herself in court 

before being evicted. New guidance makes clear that rent bonds are an eligible ERA expense.

Treasury recognizes that early on, many state and local governments faced a difficult task in building the 

assistance infrastructure needed to get ERA funds quickly to eligible households from scratch. However, 

July data shows many have done this successfully and several communities have reported fully spending 

their ERA 1 resources, demonstrating that there are effective pathways to getting relief quickly to those 

who need it. 

Today, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo communicated in a letter to all grantees the 

following:

• Treasury, in line with communications from the Department of Justice, strongly encourages

jurisdictions to follow the lead of states and cities that are putting in place added protections 

against evictions, including for renters who have applied for assistance but have not yet had their 

applications processed. 

• Treasury, in coordination with our partners, is prepared to send out a next round of technical 

assistance providers to help ERA grantees strengthen their programs. 

• If grantees are unable or unwilling to deliver ERA1 resources, Treasury is prepared to reallocate 

funds. Beginning September 30, 2021, the ERA1 statute requires Treasury to recapture excess 
funds that have not been obligated by a state or other grantee and reallocate those resources to 

high-performing jurisdictions that have obligated at least 65% of their original allocation. 

Key Findings from the Second Interim Report and July Monthly Report

1. Early top spenders are seeing monthly assistance level-off, while programs who were slow

to distribute funds have seen a ramp up in assistance to households and landlords

In July, some of the programs that distributed the most assistance in May and June saw spending level off 

for a variety of reasons. Many programs, including Texas, attribute the leveling off to having fully 

addressed existing application backlogs. Other grantees are using the last of their ERA1 funds and 

transitioning to the use of ERA2 funds, which are not included in this reporting data. Grantees have had 

access to 40 percent of their allotted ERA2 funds since May and have access to additional allotments as 

they spend the currently available funds. 

At the same time, many programs that were slower to distribute assistance in prior months saw notable 

increases this month as the investments they made in developing infrastructure paid off. For example, 

administrators of North Carolina’s program say their earlier efforts to build program infrastructure that

takes advantage of self-attestation flexibilities has led to increased spending in past few months. This 

program infrastructure allowed North Carolina to conduct statewide outreach efforts that they say has led 

to an increase in distribution of rental assistance to households. 
II. Programs following Treasury’s guidance deliver more assistance, faster

Many of the best performing state and local government programs attribute their ability to scale their 

programs and meet the need in their communities to their adoption of Treasury’s recommendations and 

guidance. These programs are delivering more assistance, faster. For example, though the state of 

Kentucky was able to demonstrate some early successes in providing rental assistance within the state, the 

program has shown consistent grown, most recently assisting 65% more households in July than in 

June. Program administrators attribute the recent growth to implementing income-based proxies in 

combination with self-attestation into their application process, which cut their processing time in half.

The state’s program is also highly coordinated with the direct grantees in Lexington and Louisville, and 

program administrators have noted that implementing this strategy has helped to accelerate application 

processing, reducing backlogs, and promising much quicker application turn-around in the future. 

0

500

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$0

$2,000,000

$4,000,000

$6,000,000

$8,000,000

$10,000,000

$12,000,000

$14,000,000

Q1 April May June July

ERA1 Assistance Provided 

Commonwealth of Kentucky

ERA Assistance ($) ERA Assisted Households