The Emergency Shelter Grants program provides homeless persons with basic shelter and essential supportive services. It can assist with the operational costs of the shelter facility, and for the administration of the grant. ESG also provides short-term homeless prevention assistance to persons at imminent risk of losing their own housing due to eviction, foreclosure, or utility shutoffs.

Grantees, which are state governments, large cities, urban counties, and U.S. territories, receive ESG grants and make these funds available to eligible recipients, which can be either local government agencies or private nonprofit organizations. The recipient agencies and organizations, which actually run the homeless assistance projects, apply for ESG funds to the governmental grantee, and not directly to HUD.  ESG funds are available for the rehabilitation or remodeling of a building used as a new shelter, operations and maintenance of the facility, essential supportive services (i.e., case management, physical and mental health treatment, substance abuse counseling, childcare, etc.), homeless prevention, and grant administration.