Household Survey on Tribal Lands: Frame Building Through Rural Address-Based Sampling and Traditional Enumeration

Carol Hafford
Steven Pedlow
NORC at the University of Chicago

Nancy Pindus
Urban Institute

The congressionally mandated Assessment of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian Housing Needs was a housing needs assessment designed to produce national-level estimates of housing needs in U.S. tribal areas (HUD, 2017a). Special care was taken so that the process would not only be technically effective (to ensure reliable results) but also be fully acceptable to the tribes involved. The foundation for the in-person household survey was the development of the sample frame of eligible American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) households from which to derive national estimates of housing needs. Three methods were used to construct the list of AIAN households and addresses for the sample frame and to select the households to interview: (1) United States Postal Service address lists, (2) tribal maps and lists, and (3) inperson enumeration. Use of these methods yielded sufficient coverage to provide reliable estimates of housing needs.