Excluding administrative expenses, state and local governments disbursed about $4.8 billion over the first seven months of the year. Tribal governments spent an additional $72 million, including on administrative expenses.

The latest figures underscore the challenge the Biden administration faces in pressuring governors and mayors to accelerate the release of federal funds.

In a bid to streamline the aid application process, Treasury released guidance Wednesday clarifying that governments could rely on self-attestations of income, financial hardship and housing instability from individuals seeking aid. Treasury announced the measure after many state and local governments layered in additional application requirements not mandated by Washington, frustrating federal officials.

Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo also sent a letter to state and local governments encouraging them to enact additional eviction protections while they process applications.

The data released Wednesday revealed dramatic variations among states. Virginia spent $282 million of the aid through July and is the only state to have disbursed more than half of its funds from the first tranche of federal assistance authorized in December. Texas distributed over $616 million, about 47 percent of the money it was allocated. California had disbursed less than 20 percent of its allocation according to the latest tally, but the state significantly picked up the pace. California distributed $186 million in July, out of the $291 million it had released during the whole program.

But 16 states spent less than 5 percent of their funds as of the end of last month, including renter-heavy New York, which had distributed less than 3 percent of its allocation.

The paperwork streamlining that Treasury announced Wednesday was a "game changer" for officials responsible for distributing rental assistance, said Stockton Williams, executive director of the National Council of State Housing Agencies. Williams said that state housing officials have been urging Treasury for months to clarify the extent to which they would need to verify documentation provided by aid recipients.

Some programs currently allow self-attestation if a tenant does not have the documents requested upfront — such as a copy of their lease and payment verification — but the exception is hidden in the application form’s fine print and a tenant without documents may not read that far. Now Treasury is explicitly stating that a tenant does not need documentation of their situation.

“I hope and expect that all state programs will take full advantage of the flexibilities Treasury is providing, which we’ve been insisting on since May,” Williams said.

President Joe Biden this month justified reviving the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's eviction moratorium by pointing to the slow pace of aid, after an initial version of the ban expired July 31. The new moratorium is widely expected to be struck down in court, but Biden said Aug. 3 that “by the time it gets litigated, it will probably give some additional time” to officials working to disburse rental assistance. State and local housing programs had distributed just 6.5 percent of the aid at the end of June.

The Supreme Court could rule on the fate of the ban as early as this week. The court in June signaled that the CDC’s initial moratorium, issued last September, was likely on shaky legal footing.

More than 7.9 million people reported they were not caught up on rent in the most recent Census Bureau survey, conducted in late July and early August. Of those, about 3.6 million tenants said they were “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to face eviction in the next two months.