The COVID-19 pandemic and the financial crisis that it gave rise to have taken a devastating toll on Americans. In order to keep Americans housed through the crisis, the federal government created the Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) program, which provides state and local governments a total of $46 billion to distribute to low-income households struggling to pay their rent.
Texas Housers’ ERA dashboard displays information regarding program expenditures and recipient characteristics for the state and local ERA programs in Texas. It is imperative that programs distribute assistance efficiently and equitably in order to prevent evictions from occurring. However, the dashboard reveals that some programs have failed to reach the households that need rental assistance the most. Others have failed to get assistance out the door at all and now face having their funds recaptured by the U.S. Treasury.
When paired with information about where the need for rental assistance persists (stay tuned for the upcoming release of our eviction data dashboard), the ERA data dashboard becomes a powerful tool for identifying the jurisdictions that should be targeted in the allocation of additional funding for rental assistance.
Learn more about ERA distribution in the state of Texas by accessing our ERA dashboard here.
