Mapping the Need for Pandemic Assistance. The Urban Institute has created a database where users can search the U.S. by county or Continuum of Care (CoC) to view the needs of local residents based on indices related to housing instability prevalence, COVID-19 impacts, and racial and economic equity concerns. This tool is designed to be useful to local stakeholders invested in finding the most equitable ways to distribute COVID-19 relief funding such as the Emergency Rental Assistance Program.
Surveying COVID-19 Impacts. The latest data from the Household Pulse Survey, a survey initiated in 2020 by the Census Bureau to capture pandemic impacts, finds that 15% of renters reported that they were not current on rent payments and had slight or no confidence that they could pay their next month’s rent on time. Other types of material hardship were also common among renter households, with 4 in 10 children living in renter households experiencing food and/or housing hardship. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has additional analysis of the latest Pulse findings.