Developing a Proxy for Identifying Family Developments in HUD's LIHTC Data: Using Information on the Distribution of Units by Size

Rachel M.B. Atkins
The New School

Katherine M. O’Regan
New York University¹

Data Shop
Data Shop, a department of Cityscape, presents short articles or notes on the uses of data in housing and urban research. Through this department, the Office of Policy Devel- opment and Research introduces readers to new and overlooked data sources and to improved techniques in using well-known data. The emphasis is on sources and methods that analysts can use in their own work. Researchers often run into knotty data problems involving data interpretation or manipulation that must be solved before a project can proceed, but they seldom get to focus in detail on the solutions to such problems. If you have an idea for an applied, data-centric note of no more than 3,000 words, please send a one-paragraph abstract to david.a.vandenbroucke@hud.gov for consideration.

The only existing national database on projects in the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) Program has limited data on which developments serve families, a population of considerable interest to policymakers and researchers. To fill this gap, we use existing data on the size distribution of units in LIHTC projects to develop a proxy for family developments. We supplement this work with data on occupants of LIHTC developments in six states to test how well this proxy works. We estimate that this proxy would capture 92 to 96 percent of units in family developments.

¹ This article was written before the author became the Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.