Treasury requires ERA grantees to regularly report to Treasury on their progress in implementing their ERA programs and regularly provide reports on specific data provided by the grantees to the public. In addition, Treasury is researching the impact of economic recovery programs and how to apply lessons learned to future economic crises.
Research and Evaluation
Treasury developed the Economic Recovery Learning Agenda designed to identify important research questions to better understand the impact of its programs. The key ERA program evaluation questions are:
- How equitable is the distribution of ERA funds to tenants most in need of assistance?
- How has the use of promising practices that Treasury encouraged grantees to adopt affected the equitable distribution of ERA funds and the housing stability of tenants?
- What have we learned from ERA about the development of a national eviction prevention and housing stability infrastructure?
- How did ERA change tenants’ housing stability and other measures of well-being?
The specific areas for evaluation outlined in the learning agenda can be used to guide specific research by Treasury, other federal partners, external researchers, or grantee governments.
Evaluations, Surveys, and Research Papers
Treasury has partnered with other federal agencies to conduct research on ERA to understand its impact and learn lessons for future economic recovery efforts.
Evaluations of Streamlining Applications:
- The General Service Administration’s Office of Evaluation Sciences (OES) conducted an evaluation of streamlining income verification for application processors in Kentucky and found that it increased application approval rates by at least 7 percentage points.
- OES also conducted an evaluation of the use of fact-specific proxies in the State of Virginia and found that simplifying income documentation reduced application processing times and increased application approval rates, but did not increase the number of new applications received for ERA assistance
Distribution Evaluation: OES conducted an evaluation of the demographics of ERA beneficiaries in relation to the demographics of those eligible for ERA assistance. This study found that ERA assistance went overwhelmingly to renters most vulnerable to eviction.
Housing Security Survey: Findings from the linking the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey data suggest that during the COVID-19 pandemic, HUD-assisted households faced lower rates of housing insecurity and reported higher rates of ERA uptake than did low-income renters in general.
Lessons Learned
Treasury’s Emergency Housing programs have integrated “real-time” learning into program development. 1 This includes identifying promising practices and using those learnings to support program development:
Highlighted Promising Practices:
- Culturally and Linguistically Competent Outreach
- Eviction Diversion
- Reducing Application Burden through Fact-Specific Proxies
- Landlord Engagement
- Housing Stability Infrastructure
- Program Integrity Measures
Highlighted Program and Service Design Strategies:
- Taking a Human-Centered Approach
- Making programs easy to find and understand
- Making application forms that are user-friendly, succinct, and easily understood
Ongoing Program Analysis:
- Blog on ERA Implementation: Emergency Rental Assistance: Supporting Renting Families, Driving Lasting Reform
- Economic Analysis: Equitable Recovery in the United States
- Playbook: Supporting Housing Security and Supply
- Tribal Emergency Housing: Tribal Housing Stability Report
1 Treasury recognizes that programs vary according to local circumstances; examples and research listed here are intended to help identify opportunities to enhance the effectiveness of 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.