Rental Assistance Guidance and Toolkit
Discover IFRC’s Rental Assistance Programming resources – guidelines and tools to help humanitarian teams deliver effective, timely shelter support through local rental markets in crisis situations.
Why consider rental assistance? People forced to leave their homes by a crisis would often prefer to rent a room, an apartment, or a house rather than live in a make-shift shelter or camp. Rented accommodation can be used to rest, and provides safety and protection whilst households recover and decide what to do next: move on, return, settle, or reconstruct.
The Red Cross Red Crescent Movement has been sucessfully delivering rental assistance for many years. However, it is more than just supporting the payment of rent, there may need to be support with security-of-tenure, support with housing standards, and due diligence must be undertaken to consider the different exit strategies of households (and the related support needed) for when the rental payment ends.
Explore key resources for Rental Assistance
The Rental Assistance Toolkit
The Rental Assistance Toolkit, is designed to support humanitarian actors in implementing rental assistance through cash and voucher assistance (CVA). This practical resource offers guidance, tools, and examples to help assess rental markets, design effective interventions, and ensure safe, dignified housing solutions for displaced populations. Whether you’re planning a new programme or refining an existing one, the toolkit provides procedural guidance and operational tools needed for impactful, context-driven rental support.
The toolkit is your comprehensive resource for navigating the landscape of rental assistance programs. The following 3 documents help to introduce the toolkit and different approaches that can be adopted to deliver rental assistance and the components involved:
0.0 Initial Advocacy and Coordination
This pre-step concerns advocating for the consideration of rental assistance programming as a relevant response option to be explored.
SoP 0.1 Advocacy Coordination
1.0 Context Analysis
This step guides National Societies (NS) and project managers to determine whether rental assistance programming is a feasible response option for the context, the crisis, and the target population. It suggests what information should be collected and analysed to enable selection of the most appropriate rental assistance programming components.
SoP 1.1. General Understanding of Context
SoP 1.2. Response Option Analysis
SoP 1.3. Go/No-Go Decision Making Tree
SoP 1.4A. Vulnerabilities, Needs and Capacities
SoP 1.4B. National Society Capacities for Rental Assistance
SoP 1.5. Cash and Voucher Assistance Feasibility Assessment
SoP 1.6. Rental Housing Market Assessment
SoP 1.7. Security of Tenure Assessment
SoP 1.8. Initial Risk Assessment
2.0 Design and Planning
This step guides National Societies (NS) and programme managers through two main stages; firstly, how to design the rental assistance programme and, secondly, how to plan for the implementation of the programme.
SoP 2.1.1.-2.1.3. Overall Programme Design
SoP 2.1.4. Targeting and Selection
SoP 2.1.5. CEA Strategy
SoP 2.1.6. Planning The Rental Payments
SoP 2.1.7. Housing Minimum Standards
SoP 2.1.8. Security of Tenure
SoP 2.1.9. Risk Analysis & Mitigation
SoP 2.1.10. Advocacy
SoP 2.2.1. Programme Management
SoP 2.2.2. Information Management System
SoP 2.2.3. Human Resource Planning
3.0 Implementation and Monitoring
This step guides programme managers through the implementation and monitoring of a rental assistance programme. It also considers the necessary processes for adapting and changing the programme design to the evolving context.
SoP 2.1.1.-2.1.3. Overall Programme Design
SoP 3.1.1. Targeting and Selection
SoP 3.1.2. Programme Agreements
SoP 3.1.3. Occupancy and Eviction Monitoring
SoP 3.2. Monitoring & Indicators
SoP 3.3. Mitigating Risks
SoP 3.4. Integration and Exit Support
SoP 3.5. Information Support
SoP 3.6. Rent Guarantees
SoP 3.7. Technical Advice
4.0 Reporting and Evaluation
This step provides an overview of evaluation, reporting, and learning responsibilities and activities. Most of the advice described here is not specific to rental housing programmes but good practices for all programmes.
SoP 4.1.-4.3. Reporting, Evaluation & Case Studies
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