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Re: AHS Voucher Coverage / Housing Adequacy (was AHS 2015 Geographic Coverage)

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This has been incredibly helpful discussion, and, to follow up on this specific topic, I also had a few related questions of my own (regarding vouchers and rental assistance programs), I'm hoping you may be able to answer:

1) Does the AHS only sample privately-owned homes where assisted households are presently utilizing a Housing Choice Voucher, or, has there also been sampling of the following types of housing units where Housing Choice Vouchers holders could reside (and if so, which ones?):

Some examples:
a) Project-based Section 8 properties (i.e., Section 221, 236, 202/811), where often less than 100% of the units are assisted, meaning voucher holders could potentially reside in these 'unassisted' units on site?
b) Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) properties
c) Privately owned apartment complexes working with local public housing authorities to provide project-based vouchers?

2) In these above-mentioned hypothetical scenarios where subsidy 'layering' is occurring, how is this reported (and potentially parsed out) in the AHS?

3) From what I understand, housing units targeted in the AHS are revisited every other year for assessment--in the case where a once subsidized/insured property has opted out of Section 8 rental assistance program (and is no longer affordable), or in a scenario where units within a multifamily property (or even private, single family units), are taken off line/demolished due to sale, foreclosure, or substantial rehabilitation, how have/are these changes reflected in the AHS data in future years?

4) Lastly, as housing adequacy (and relatedly housing quality), is an important aspect of worst case needs determination, I'm wondering if there are any plans to review, re-explore and/or potentially revise the physical inadequacy criteria for the AHS 2015. Further, if there's any information available regarding how these specific measures, (particularly the questions under the 'severely inadequate' category), were originally designed and tested.

Thanks so much for your time and review. Have a nice evening.

Best,

Tanya M. Lukasik
tanya1@jhu.edu | (516) 587-4013

On Jul 12, 2013, at 9:47 AM, AHS wrote:

    The American Housing Survey has a two ways to identify households receiving Housing Choice Vouchers, neither of which is entirely satisfactory.

    The first method is self-identification: we ask the respondents a series of questions and use their answers to determine their assistance status. However, housing assistance programs are complicated and unfamiliar to most respondents. Because of this, the accuracy of the responses is not as good as we would like.

    The second method, which we began using in the 2011 survey, is to match AHS addresses with HUD administrative records. We believe that assisted units identified this way are more reliable. However, there are differences in the way that HUD and the Census Bureau record addresses, and this means that some HUD records cannot be matched to the Census Bureau’s Master Address File. The result is that some assisted units in the AHS are not matched to HUD records.

    There are variables on the AHS public use file that show the results of both of these identification methods. Judicious use of these variables can reveal the conditions of the housing units occupied by voucher recipients.

    We continue to work on better ways to identify assistance in the AHS sample.

    Dav Vandenbroucke
    Senior Economist
    U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development
    451 7th Street SW, Room 8222
    Washington, DC 20410

    Email david.a.vandenbroucke@hud.gov
    Phone 202-402-5890

    From: AHS [mailto:ahs@huduser.gov]
    Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2013 4:05 PM
    To: Vandenbroucke, David A
    Subject: AHS 2015 Geographic Coverage (was RE: Time is Running Out to Make Your Voice Heard)

    Do you have information that correlates HCV renters to dwellings?

    Ed Ware
    eware@nrha.us