AHS: House Affordability Data System Updated

From: American Housing Survey (AHS) ListServ <ahs@huduser.gov>

The Housing Affordability Data System (HADS) files have been updated through 2009. The new files are available from the HUD USER web site, https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/hads/hads.html.

HADS is a set of data files based on the American Housing Survey (AHS). The HADS files contain recodes of AHS variables that categorize housing units by affordability, and households by income, using three common standards: area median income (AMI), fair market rent, and poverty income. For example, one can use HADS to count housing units that are affordable to households with incomes at specified percentage of AMI, and to count the number of households at or below this percentage. HADS files can be linked to the regular AHS microdata, so that analysts can use all of the AHS variables with the HADS recodes.

The HADS contains the underlying data used in HUD's Worst Case Needs reports.

The current update adds data files corresponding to the 2007 and 2009 national AHS and the two independent metropolitan AHS done in 2009 (Seattle and New Orleans). In addition, the 2005 national HADS file has been updated using the recently updated AHS dataset for that year. Both SAS and ASCII (comma-separated values) files are available for download.

The documentation file has also been updated to reflect all changes in the HADS, and the archive of source files contains the programs used to generate all HADS datasets.

Dav Vandenbroucke
Senior Economist
U.S. Dept. HUD
david.a.vandenbroucke@hud.gov
202-402-5890

I disclaim any disclaimers.