HUD Multifamily Properties: We’ve Made Some Improvements
HUD Multifamily Properties is a monster of a dataset. I mean that in a good way. It combines data on multifamily subsidized properties from three different sources, in order to provide a complete picture of the companies maintaining the sites, the people living in them, and the sites’ physical conditions. It’s a one-stop-shop for HUD multifamily data.
It’s also a monster to process. Though the data comes from three sources, it comes in five databases. Two of the databases don’t report data for properties, but for contracts. In some cases, there are multiple contracts per property. All of the Picture of Subsidized Households data, which shows demographic information about the people that live in the properties, is reported at the contract, not property level. So it’s complicated.
In the past, it was a little messy on PolicyMap. If a property had multiple contracts, it would show up as multiple points. Each point would show contract data for all the contracts at the site, but show demographic data for only one contract at a time. Not only was this unwieldy, but what you really want to see is the demographic data for the whole property.
That is now fixed. As before, contract data for up to four contracts is shown for each point. However, now the most recent four contracts will be shown, not the original first four contracts. It also now displays how many contracts are not shown.
For the demographic data, the data for different contracts at one property is aggregated together, and a weighted average is shown. For example, if there were two contracts at one property, and contract A had 60 households, 50% who were disabled, and contract B had 30 households, 0% who were disabled, it would show up as the property having 33% disabled households. Whew!
Besides these updates in how the data is shown, the data itself is updated as well, to show HUD Multifamily contracts through October 2nd, 2014, demographic data from 2013, and physical inspection scores through 2014. Physical inspection scores now show whether there are health or safety violations at the site, and whether there are smoke detector issues.
This data is available to all users, and is in the Housing menu. While you’re there, also check out the HUD Public Housing dataset, which has also been updated.
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