In 2021, during the Biden administration, Congress created the Emergency Rental Assistance program to prevent evictions among low-income renters during the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the period of performance for the program ended in September 2025, the federal government had provided over $46 billion to support housing stability for eligible renters during the four-year period, especially to renters of color.
While the most immediate benefit of the program was the reduction in housing insecurity, a new study reveals that it also improved the mental health of low-income renters.
Wei Kang, an assistant professor in UC Riverside’s School of Public Policy, led the study, which was published this week in the journal “Health Affairs.”
“Using a national dataset, we found that housing assistance helped low-income renters — who are among the most vulnerable populations — feel better and get mental health treatment when needed,” Kang said in a statement.
“This demonstrates the importance of government programs in a time of crisis.”
The analysis was drawn from the United States Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey data, which had been collected between 2021 and 2023. The survey includes questions about respondents’ mental health status and whether they had recently sought care.
Comparing survey responses from two groups — those who had received rental assistance and those who had applied but not yet received it — Kang found that rental assistance recipients experienced a noticeable drop in symptoms of anxiety and depression.
They were also more likely to seek mental health services when experiencing symptoms.
About 46% of assistance recipients reported symptoms of anxiety within the two weeks prior to being surveyed, 9.1% lower than those who had not yet received rental assistance. And 38% of aid recipients reported feeling depressed, which was an 8.1% improvement over those who were without government help.
As for those who sought mental health treatment, an increase was modest but still meaningful.
Among people awaiting rental assistance, 16.2% had reported recently seeing a mental health professional, but those who had already received assistance were 6.5 to 7.9% more likely to seek out counseling.
“The research found that the ERA program reduced mental distress in two ways: first, by directly alleviating the fear of eviction, and second, by freeing up financial resources for health-related needs,” a statement from UC Riverside explained.
Those who received rental assistance first saw improved housing security, but then that stability led to a decreased threat of eviction, and therefore relieved a major source of stress.
Anxiety symptoms were especially improved, the study concluded, since renters no longer had to worry about losing their homes.
Additionally, researchers saw that households that had rent covered were able to redirect funds toward other essentials like co-pays for doctor visits, prescription medications, and transportation that helped them reach mental health services.
“For those struggling to make ends meet, this shift in financial priorities proved crucial,” the statement said.
Kang added that the findings “offer strong evidence that housing aid is also a form of health care intervention,” and argued that economic relief programs like the ERA program should not only be seen as fiscal policies but also tools for public health.
“What’s really interesting is that people in our field often worry about the unintended consequences of government programs — and that they’ll be bad, such as fraud or waste,” Bruce Link, another researcher on the study and a professor of public policy and sociology, said.
“But to the contrary, here are what might be deemed ‘unintended positive consequences’ that went beyond the intended effect of helping people stay securely housed.”
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