Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) — federal program has ENDED

What this actually is

Read this one before you spend a day on it. The federal Emergency Rental Assistance program is over. Treasury states that the period of performance for ERA2 awards ended on September 30, 2025, that grantees may no longer use ERA2 funds to assist renters, and that final reports were due in January 2026. There is no federal ERA application open. This entry exists because the program is still advertised everywhere — old articles, dormant county pages, and lead-generation sites that harvest desperate people's details for a program that no longer pays anyone. If a site offers to file your ERA application for a fee, it is selling you nothing. What is real: some states, counties and cities still run their own rental assistance with their own money, and Treasury itself now points renters to the interagency portal hosted by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and to 211. Those are the live routes.

Who qualifies, and what trips people up

No federal eligibility exists because the federal program is closed. Where local programs still operate, they set their own rules, funds are small and they open and close without notice — which is why 211 (call 211, free, 24 hours) is the practical way to find what is actually funded in your county this week rather than a list compiled last year. CFPB's own guidance notes that even after applying it can take several weeks for rental assistance to arrive, so if you are facing eviction, pursue the eviction-specific steps and a free HUD-approved housing counselor in parallel rather than waiting on an application.