It’s been five years since President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), an economic stimulus package to respond to the Great Recession.

The Council of Economic Advisers recently released a report on the effects of ARRA. Here are five facts related to the $13.61 billion of ARRA funding administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

  1. HUD allocated nearly 75 percent of its ARRA funds within eight days of the president signing the act. The remaining funds were awarded through a competitive process.
  2. $2 billion was appropriated for HUD’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP), which aided some of the nation’s neighborhoods that were hardest hit by the recession through the purchase and redevelopment of foreclosed and abandoned homes. The funding was known as NSP2 and was awarded in a competition to 56 nonprofits and state and local governments. The grantees have completed almost half of the planned 27,644 projected housing units, with 3,308 structures demolished, 5,409 units rehabbed, 2,566 new units constructed, and 1,479 households provided assistance to purchase a home. NSP2 created 25,100 direct jobs, according to HUD.
  3. HUD’s Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program received $1.5 billion through ARRA and helped more than 1.3 million individuals or families to avoid homelessness or obtain housing after becoming homeless. About 87 percent of households exited the program to permanent housing.
  4. Through the $4 billion Public Housing Capital Fund, HUD helped increase energy efficiency in the nation’s public housing stock: 1,627 new energy-efficient units were built, 22,428 energy-efficient units were created, and about 53,000 energy-efficient units were completed with energy conservation measures.
  5. HUD’s Green Retrofit Program allocated $250 million in grants and low-cost loans for affordable housing owners in 37 states. More than 19,000 units at 221 developments were retrofit to be greener and more efficient. The developments participating in this program have achieved more than $5 million in annual utility costs.