Can Emergency Rental Assistance Be Designed to Prevent Homelessness? Learning from Emergency Rental Assistance Programs

Homelessness prevention efforts face an overarching challenge: how to target limited resources far enough downstream to capture those at greatest risk of homelessness, but far enough upstream to stabilize households before they experience a cascade of negative outcomes. How did the COVID-19 emergency rental assistance programs launched in hundreds of localities across the United States respond to this challenge? This paper draws on two waves of a national survey of emergency rental assistance program administrators, as well as in-depth interviews with 15 administrators, to answer this question. Results show that although the vast majority of program administrators considered homelessness prevention to be a key program goal, their programs tended to target rental assistance far upstream of tenants at immediate risk.

Automated summary

Homelessness prevention efforts face the challenge of stabilizing housing situations before negative outcomes cascade. Research shows that although program administrators consider prevention important, rental assistance programs tend to target tenants upstream of immediate risk.