Treasury report shows thousands of homes protected from foreclosure by Rescue Plan
The legislation created and funded the Homeowner Assistance Fund, which provided over $9.4 billion to states to assist homeowners with mortgage payments, homeowner’s insurance costs, and utility bills.
A report released on March 19 by the Treasury Department shows that over 500,000 families received financial assistance that helped them avoid home foreclosures through a program created by the American Rescue Plan.
The Rescue Plan was signed into law in 2021 by President Joe Biden in his first year in office and was a major component of the administration’s response to the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. The legislation created and funded the Homeowner Assistance Fund, which provided over $9.4 billion to states to assist homeowners with mortgage payments, homeowner’s insurance costs, and utility bills.
The fund became necessary after a moratorium on foreclosures and options for temporarily suspending mortgage payments put in place by another piece of federal legislation, the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, were set to expire in July 2021.
“The Biden-Harris Administration helped to prevent foreclosures and increased housing stability nationwide by keeping half a million families in their homes,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in a statement accompanying the release of the report.
The Treasury report tabulated data collected through December 2023 and determined that 77% of the original funds have been used by recipients and that 22 states and two U.S. territories used all of the funds made available to them.
In Pennsylvania, 15,584 homeowners received more than $350 million in assistance from the federal government. The funds were administered locally by the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency in an initiative launched by then-Gov. Tom Wolf.
The Rescue Plan faced unified opposition from Republicans in Congress and only passed with Democratic votes. Vice President Kamala Harris provided the tiebreaking vote in the Senate. All of the Democrats in Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation supported passage.
“This historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone of this country and giving people in this nation — working people and middle-class folks, the people who built the country — a fighting chance. That’s what the essence of it is,” Biden said at the March 2021 White House event at which he signed the bill.
In his State of the Union speech delivered on March 7, Biden further advocated for help for homeowners and called on Congress to pass legislation that would provide tax credits for first-time homeowners and give assistance with down payments to first-generation homebuyers. The legislation would also fund the renovation of over 2 million homes in a bid to increase the housing supply and lower housing costs for buyers and renters.
