More than 1,200 people came together in-person and online on October 17 for “Emergency Rental Assistance: The Path to a Permanent Program,” a national convening held by NLIHC’s ERASE project at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Focusing on the implementation of emergency rental assistance (ERA) and the prospects for making ERA permanent, the hybrid event included five panels, 23 guest speakers, two messages from members of Congress, and more than 100 ERASE cohort members. The convening brought together state, local, and research partners, officials from the Biden administration and Congress, and people impacted by housing instability to share lessons learned from the implementation of emergency rental assistance and explore the programmatic, policy, and systems changes needed at all levels to establish a permanent rental assistance program that meets the needs of low-income renters.
End Rental Arrears to Stop Evictions (ERASE) is NLIHC’s national effort to ensure that the historic $46.6 billion in emergency rental assistance (ERA) enacted by Congress reaches the lowest-income and most marginalized renters it is intended to help. Over the last 18 months, NLIHC has identified, analyzed, and researched more than 500 emergency rental assistance programs created or extended by states and local jurisdictions. During the same time, the project has tracked more than 150 new federal, state, and local tenant protections advanced by state and local partners. Early research indicates that the unprecedented investment in rental assistance, coupled with new local, state, and federal tenant protections, have resulted in increased housing stability for millions of renter households.
The convening’s morning sessions included opening remarks delivered by NLIHC President and CEO Diane Yentel and by Gene Sperling, Senior Advisor to the President of the United States; a session on successful ERA implementation strategies that brought together ERA administrators and directors; a session on the latest ERA research, with NLIHC researchers and researchers from the Housing Initiative at Penn and Portland State University; and a session focused on tenant experiences of ERA, with tenants from around the country, NLIHC staff, and program administrators.
Afternoon sessions included panels on innovative ways community-based organizations have supported ERA, with representatives from state and local ERA programs, and a panel on federal policy and the future of ERA, which involved officials including Beth Cooper (U.S. Senate Banking Committee); Erika Poethig (Special Assistant to the President for Housing and Urban Policy, White House Domestic Policy Council); Solomon Greene (Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research at HUD); and Veronica Soto (Director of the Office of Recovery Programs at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.)
Video messages from Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) were also delivered, as were remarks from Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis.
A recording of the full convening will be available soon via NLIHC’s webpage.