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5/3/2022

In Los Angeles, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo Calls on State and Local Governments to Use America…

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
In Los Angeles, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo
Calls on State and Local Governments to Use American Rescue
Plan Funds to Boost Affordable Housing Supply
May 2, 2022

Treasury Releases New Fact Sheet on SLFRF Housing Investments, Latest ERA Monthly Data
through March, and State-Level Demographic Data on ERA Recipients
LOS ANGELES — Today Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo visited an a ordable
housing services center in the City of Compton in Los Angeles County where he highlighted
how California is using American Rescue Plan funds to keep families in their homes and build
more a ordable housing. The State of California has budgeted over $7.4 billion of its State
and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) for housing, which includes over $5 billion toward
expanding a ordable housing and meeting the needs of individuals experiencing
homelessness. With communities nationwide facing longstanding a ordable housing
shortages that have been exacerbated by the pandemic and its e ects – particularly for lowincome renters and households of color, the Deputy Secretary encouraged state and local
governments to dedicate more of their SLFRF funds toward boosting the supply of a ordable
housing.
“The pandemic dramatically underscored the severity and consequences of the shortage of
a ordable housing across the country – particularly for low-income renters and communities
of color,” said Deputy Secretary Adeyemo. “Treasury is urging state, local, and Tribal
governments to follow the lead of states like California in dedicating more of their American
Rescue Plan funds to build additional a ordable housing and lower costs for families.”
Over the course of the year since President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan into law,
meeting housing needs has increasingly emerged as one of the most common priorities and
largest uses of these funds for states, localities, and Tribes. In 2021, nearly 570 state, local,
and Tribal governments committed $11.7 billion in SLFRF funds to meet housing needs –
including preventing evictions and foreclosures, helping individuals experiencing
homelessness become stably housed, and expanding the supply of a ordable housing to

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5/3/2022

In Los Angeles, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo Calls on State and Local Governments to Use America…

address the root cause of housing insecurity. Such investments are critical to addressing what
researchers estimate is a shortage of 3.8 million

housing units in the United States.

Even before the pandemic, more than half of all California renters and over one-third of
homeowners with mortgages faced high housing cost burdens with over 28 percent of renters
and over 16 percent of homeowners spending more than half of their incomes on housing.
According to an estimate from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, there is a
shortage of over 1 million homes for extremely low-income residents of the state — those
with incomes below 30% of the area median income.
The Deputy Secretary also highlighted Californiaʼs Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA)
programs – among the largest in the nation – and shared the latest national spending and
demographic recipient data for the program. To date, California and its cities and counties
have delivered over 500,000 emergency rental assistance payments to households totaling
over $4.1 billion. Given Californiaʼs ability to e ectively deliver ERA funds and its significant
low-income renter population, the state has received more than $211 million in additional
funds through Treasuryʼs reallocation process. As of March 31, State and local government
grantees have spent or obligated well over $30 billion in ERA assistance and made nearly 5.3
million payments to households. Treasury expects the vast majority of the remaining funds to
be deployed to households or paid to grantees by the middle of 2022.
California was among the many states to make use of Treasuryʼs administrative flexibilities to
reduce burdensome documentation requirements – a key barrier to access. The state also
developed an easy-to-navigate online application and partnered with multi-lingual nonprofits
to boost applications in communities that had lower than expected participation rates. Based
on the data reported to Treasury, 88% of the households served by grantees reporting 2021
demographic information in the state of California were very low income, 17% were Black,
38% Latino, and 63% female-headed. Nationally, over 80% of ERA assistance has gone to very
low-income households with more than 40% self-identifying as Black, 20% as Latino, and
nearly two thirds as female-headed. More details on actions taken by Treasury and the Biden
Administration to ensure an equitable distribution of funds by state and local ERA grantees
can be found here.
March 2022 ERA Monthly Data
ERA1 Demographic Percentage by State CY 2021
SLFRF Housing Investments Factsheet

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