Assistance program
Emergency Solutions Grant Program
$6.5 Billion committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development, Housing and Urban Development, Department of
- Assistance
- Formula Grants
- CFDA number
- 14.231
- What it does
- The ESG program provides funding to: (1) engage homeless individuals and families living on the street; (2) improve the number and quality of emergency shelters for homeless individuals and families; (3) help operate these shelters; (4) provide essential services to shelter residents, (5) rapidly re-house homeless individuals and families, and (6) prevent families and individuals from becoming homeless.
- Who benefits
- The minimum eligibility criteria for ESG beneficiaries are as follows: For essential services related to street outreach, beneficiaries must meet the criteria under paragraph (1)(i) of the “homeless†definition under § 576.2. For emergency shelter, beneficiaries must meet the “homeless†definition in 24 CFR 576.2. For essential services related to emergency shelter, beneficiaries must be “homeless†and staying in an emergency shelter (which could include a day shelter). For homelessness prevention assistance, beneficiaries must meet the requirements described in 24 CFR 576.103. For rapid re-housing assistance, beneficiaries must meet requirements described in 24 CFR 576.104. Further eligibility criteria may be established at the local level in accordance with 24 CFR 576.400(e).
- Who applies
- Eligible recipients generally consist of metropolitan cities, urban counties, territories, and states, as defined in 24 CFR 576.2. Metropolitan cities, urban counties and territories may subgrant ESG funds to private nonprofit organizations. Local governments may also subgrant ESG funds to public housing agencies or local redevelopment authorities. States must subgrant all of their ESG funds (except for funds for administrative costs and, under certain conditions, HMIS costs) to units of general purpose local government and/or private nonprofit organizations. Each recipient must consult with the Continuum(s) of Care operating within the jurisdiction in determining how to allocate ESG funds.
- Authorized by
- McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987, Title IV, as amended, 42 U.S.C. 11371-78
- Program site
- http://www.hudexchange.info/esg ↗
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments