This article examines the factors shaping longitudinal patterns of housing insecurity in the wake of the Great Recession, with a focus on whether housing assistance helped renters who received it. We use data from the first two waves (2009-10 and 2011) of the Michigan Recession and Recovery Study, a population-representative sample of working-age adults from Southeast Michigan. We use detailed reports from renters and other nonhomeowners to construct measures of instability and cost-related housing problems at both waves, and we compare the changes in these over follow up between housing assistance recipients and their income-eligible but nonrecipient counterparts. Our findings suggest that receiving housing assistance reduced the chance of experiencing housing insecurity problems over follow up regardless of baseline housing insecurity.