“We’re really grateful that our delegation and others were able to get a bill package together that I would describe as short-term relief,” said Gregory Russ, the chairman of the New York City Housing Authority. “But,” he added, “we are under no illusions that there will not be a need for more.”

The economic crisis precipitated by the coronavirus has hit hard in high-cost urban areas where many residents were already struggling to afford homes. About 11 million of the nation’s roughly 44 million renters were paying half their incomes in rent before the pandemic, said Mary Cunningham, the vice president for metropolitan housing at the Urban Institute. With 3.3 million people filing for unemployment compensation last week, many of them have no income at all.

The funding in the package is considerable. But administering it will be a challenge. Doug Guthrie, the president of the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, said the agency’s employees, like many others still at work, were struggling with school closings and underlying health issues and advanced ages that put them at risk of infection.

“We are trying to get as many as possible set up for telecommuting, but there are great gaps in the services we can provide,” Mr. Guthrie said.

Likewise, homeless shelters, which were overcrowded before the pandemic, are scrambling to increase the space between beds to comply with quarantine guidelines put out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.