New York Housing Conference sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer pointing to concerns with the formula used to allocate Emergency Rental Assistance funding in December’s Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, which included Covid-relief.
The formula allocated $25 billion in emergency rental assistance to states and local jurisdictions based on population. However, the funding will go to aid renters, and states like New York have a greater share of the nation’s renters than our share of the nation’s overall population. The formula also set a minimum funding allocation for small states.
These two factors meant big states with more renters got less funding per renter than smaller states. For example, according to USA Today’s analysis, Wyoming received $2,900 per renter and Vermont received $2,600 per renter, while New York received $378 per renter, the lowest rate of any U.S. state.
We asked Sen. Schumer to address the formula to better target renters. He has been a strong ally in the past and in our conversations with his office they are looking at solutions. Read the letter here.