NLIHC President and CEO Diane Yentel joined a panel discussion at the White House on May 25 for an event celebrating the release of a new report by the Biden administration, “Advancing Equity through the American Rescue Plan.” The event brought together Biden administration officials, key partners, and others for wide-ranging discussions about the administration’s approach to ensuring an equitable recovery in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic. The panel on which Diane appeared featured leaders from non-governmental organizations who had worked with the administration to make critical changes to ensure that programs created in response to the pandemic would serve people with the lowest incomes and people of color.
In her remarks, Diane discussed NLIHC’s successful effort to persuade Congress to pass legislation making $46.5 billion in emergency rental assistance available to the lowest-income renters at high risk of eviction during the pandemic. Thanks to actions taken by the administration at the behest of NLIHC and thousands of advocates and the on-the-ground work of many of those advocates, Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) programs have now made more than 5.3 million rental assistance payments, mostly to the lowest-income people and to people of color. Diane shared how NLIHC collaborated with state and local partners, program administrators, impacted people, and the White House to build a national infrastructure to distribute these vital resources to the tenants most in need. She also explained how NLIHC worked to develop robust tracking systems for monitoring ERA disbursal and conducted research about best practices for program design and implementation that influenced Treasury to issue new guidance to improve program performance.
Diane concluded by calling for the creation of a permanent ERA program using the infrastructure built during the pandemic. People facing emergencies or sudden economic shocks will continue to need the kind of immediate assistance that could be provided by a permanent ERA fund, she said, and Congress should act now to ensure that the lowest-income renters have access to emergency rental assistance beyond the pandemic.