The 1996 file made more of an attempt to give one summary for each agency with multiple numeric codes, such as some state agencies. These are now reported as separate agencies, because some of their projects are being re-assigned to local agencies, and processing the current totals was too complex. Where we do still summarize several codes into one agency (as in Puerto Rico and the Navajo agency), we no longer also have partial summaries for each code. Any project whose agency is not shown in the beginning of the project number has a note in the name (e.g. RQ001001 is noted as being @RQ005).

This report does not cover other types of subsidy, such as Rehabilitation grants, Homesteading, the Farmers Home Administration, etc.

Only a few topics are mentioned here. More discussion was given in the 1996 report, and the data here update those figures, and provide somewhat more complete geographic information. No changes are made in Tax Credits, since we have no newer data than last year. Detailed definitions of all the items are on pages 12-16.

Note: Blank means data not available

Note:*only includes Section 8 spending (Loan Management), averaged over units receiving it, not spending from Section 236 and other programs.

Percent Occupied

Occupancy rates are only collected for Public Housing. We assume plausible levels of occupancy in other programs for purposes of calculating the completeness of reporting (see page 13).

Percent Reported

Overall reporting is 80% of occupied units (so we have 20% missing data). Public Housing, Certificates+Vouchers, Section 8 New, and Section 236 have the highest reporting, from 76 84%. The smaller programs range from 48% to 71% complete. In Tax Credits no reporting is required. When households take certificates or vouchers to a new area (portability), they are reported by the local agency there, but are still billed to and in this file are counted against the original agency that issued them a certificate or voucher. In previous files they were wrongly counted against the agency that reported them.

Some of the households counted above in Section 236 projects have incomes high enough to pay full rent, without subsidy. These households are not reported to HUD and their characteristics are not included in this report.

Average Months since Report

Households should be reported annually, on a flow basis, so for good recent data the average should be about 6 months. Larger averages mean recent data have not been received, or errors have been made so that some of the recent records have not yet been accepted into the system.

Average People per Unit

There is variation from 1.6 to 3.7 people per household. You can also multiply these figures by the number of housing units to find the Total Number of People Served by the programs: about 11 million.

Rent per Month

Average rents paid by households range very narrowly from $159 per month in Moderate Rehabilitation projects to $255 per month in Section 236. These rents include estimates by each housing agency of tenant-paid utilities. Rents in Indian Housing do not mirror their relatively higher incomes, since most Indian Housing is Mutual Ownership, with a distinct calculation for household cost.

Spending per Month

This is a new item on this file. This spending does not reflect what it would cost to expand any particular program. For example Public Housing costs appear low, since HUD paid off the construction costs several years ago. New Public Housing would cost much more than the average current spending, since construction costs would have to be paid. Also low spending can reflect high incomes of occupants, as in Indian housing, not necessarily management efficiency.

For Section 8, total spending is calculated for each household (from the rent calculation form) and averaged, so averages do vary in each tract and agency. In Certificates+Vouchers and Moderate Rehabilitation our estimate also includes the 8% administrative fee. We are not able to estimate or include the spending on vacant units.

For Public & Indian housing, we only include 1996 operating and modernization spending, since the construction costs have already been paid (the long term bonds were paid off a few years ago), and opportunity cost is not available. Drug Elimination Grants and other smaller grant programs are not covered.

Operating subsidy to all agencies, and modernization funding to large agencies (generally over 250 units), is distributed every year by formula so we use the actual funding obligations.

For smaller agencies modernization funding is competitive, and they do not receive it every year, so the actual funding for any agency in one year would not reflect average long term spending. As an approximation we found the average modernization funding per unit, and multiplied this average by the units in each agency to estimate the long term expected value of modernization spending. A higher fraction of Indian agencies receive modernization than of other agencies, so we calculated the average separately for Indian and non-Indian agencies.

Then in each agency, for this summary, total spending in Public and Indian Housing was averaged per occupied unit per month, without differentiating among projects. In fact some receive more or less than average each year.

In other programs spending is not yet available.

Income per Year

Incomes range from $7,400 per year in Moderate Rehabilitation to $16,000 per year in Indian Housing. This is total income, without subtracting the adjustments that are used in calculating rent. However some types of income are not counted at all by HUD and are not included here, such as scholarships and earnings of minors.

Income as Percent of Local Median

Some agencies reported zero in some items, rather than their actual data. We have removed most of the bias, generally by treating zero as missing data. Virtually all zero rents and zero incomes are indeed missing data, since the only households with truly zero gross income and zero gross rent are formerly homeless households who for some reason do not expect any income assistance in the coming year. Zero bedrooms are meaningful (efficiency apartments), and we try to minimize bias by treating units with no bedrooms reported and more than 2 people as missing data. We did not process households with invalid project numbers, or with no people reported, since we would not have been able to categorize them properly.

Note:* For a few agencies, HUD erroneously shows more units in projects than the total for the agency. We reflect that fact here, since we do not know where the error is.

Note:** No tract record lacks geography, but 16% of Certificate+Voucher units are not shown on tract records, and thus these 16% lack geography, even after weighting. The Percent Reported in a previous table shows the missing data overall, before weighting.

This table shows the number of subsidized units where agency or project records have no tenant data or geographic data (because of non-reporting of either, or suppression of tenant data to protect confidentiality). Agencies have less suppression of tenant data than projects, since they are larger. Agencies also have less missing geographic data, since we can have geographic codes for an agency if any of its projects are geographically coded. Specifically this table is based on the absence of data on bedrooms and latitude from the records. Other items may be more or less complete.

Incomplete Data are shown by the column headed "% Reported," the column in the middle of the even-numbered pages. The summaries are weighted to adjust for partial reporting in any project: households reported are assumed representative of other occupied units in the same project (or program and agency for Certificates+Vouchers and Moderate Rehabilitation). This assumption is not always correct. Furthermore, if far too many or too few households were reported in a project or program, the weight was limited to the range from .5 to 5, to avoid great discrepancies in weights, and resulting variance in the final data. The range was limited to .5 to 1.49 on Certificate+Voucher tract summaries, to avoid implying that two or more households moved to the same remote tract, when we only have one report from it. There is no weighting to represent the places that did not report at all.

Processing Steps

The report merges data from about 50 different computer tapes. The steps of processing are described in the 1996 report. Additional steps involve summarizing operating and modernization subsidies for each agency, and adding two additional files of addresses of Public Housing Projects.

Symbols

Zero means the number is less than a half and rounds to zero. Blank or -1 is shown when data are unknown, or when 'few' households were reported. 'Few' means (a) less than 40% of households were reported, too few for reliable data, or (b) the absolute number of households reported was 10 or fewer, so their confidentiality could be at risk. For reporting rates below about 80%, the data may be unrepresentative, but we show data down to 40% to give some indication of patterns. In the computer file, the symbol -1 is used for low reporting. 8888, 888, and 88 have special meaning: more than one MSA, county, etc. is included in the area, so a more specific code cannot be given. Data are limited to the space available. For example, to fit 100% into 2 digits, it has been coded as 99.

The order #, where given, is at HUD User, 800-245-2691, 202-708-3178, TDD 800-877-8674. Within each section items are in chronological order. SuDoc# is a numbering system used at government depository libraries.

Related Data Files