Press Releases

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Rep. French Hill (AR-02), Ranking Member of the Housing Community Development, and Insurance Subcommittee on the House Financial Services Committee, introduced the “Protecting Rural Renters Act” to prohibit the Treasury Department from taking Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) funds away from rural America and redirecting them to big cities.

“Today, the Biden Administration will begin taking ERA 2 funding promised to rural communities in states like Arkansas, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Alabama, to give more money to big cities in places like New York, California, and New Jersey which have already received their own ERA funding. This reallocation of ERA money is unfair and turns a blind eye to the needs of renters who have not yet received any rental assistance simply because they live in rural areas of our country.

“That’s why I introduced the ‘Protecting Rural Renters Act,’ which prohibits ERA grants to rural areas from being reallocated out of those communities and requires that any unspent money that has already been clawed back to be returned to the original grantee. This will ensure that ERA money is not ripped away from our rural communities right when they need it the most.”

Further Information:

In 2020 and 2021, Congress enacted two programs, ERA 1 and ERA 2, to help low-income COVID-impacted renters get current on their debts.  Under those two laws, ERA funds went to two groups: to cities and counties with populations over 200,000 to stand up their own individualized programs, as well as to states to administer general assistance to every other place with populations under 200,000. By statute, slow spenders in both groups are subject to a clawback of unused ERA funds starting March 31, 2022, which will be awarded to jurisdictions that are more quickly spending their funds, even if those jurisdictions are in other states.

Given the substantial challenges rural states have in identifying and reaching out to eligible rural households, many state programs have slower spend-out rates than their more compact urban counterparts.  This bill would simply remove the state allocations from the statutory clawback provision, which will effectively prevent ERA funds from being taken away from rural communities and given to big cities and other urban areas.