Urban and three NNIP partners featured in new HUD Cityscape issue

Three NNIP partners and Urban Institute’s NNIP team were featured in the recent HUD Cityscape issue, Local Data for Local Action. Urban Institute wrote commentary on past and potential applications of administrative data that inform and change housing policy. We identified three areas to enhance the use of local administrative data, based on experiences from NNIP partners and highlighting the three NNIP partners with work published in the Cityscape issue: 1) collaborating with residents and community organizations – Chicago partner at the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University 2) improving infrastructure around court records, zoning, and parcel data – New York City partner at the Furman Center at New York University and 3) integrating data across sectors – Cleveland partner at the Center on Poverty and Community Development at Case Western Reserve University.

In “Assessing How Gentrification- and Disinvestment-Related Market Pressures Drive the Loss of Small Multiunit Housing in Chicago Neighborhoods,” IHS analyzed parcel and sales data of two- to four-unit buildings to understand the geographic pattern of this lost housing stock, working closely with community organizations to understand their concerns and help quantify their experiences. The NYU Furman Center had two articles published and a commentary on “How Data Architects are Crafting Equitable Housing Policy Research.” Both Furman Center articles focus on subsidized housing, one examines evictions and finds filing rates are higher in public housing, but likely used as a rent collection strategy given a low share of filings result in physical eviction, and the other provides new methodology on understanding public housing authority’s service areas nationally. In Cleveland, CPCD’s article, “Using Linked Administrative Data to Profile a City’s Rental Stock and Landlords and Guide and a Lead-Safe Housing Initiative” developed a typology of landlords and identified rental properties failing to meet lead safety standards using several administrative data sets, including parcel data, housing code violations, rental registry, and eviction filings, guiding the local lead-safe strategy.

The Cleveland and Chicago NNIP partners were also featured at the Massive Data Institute and Association of Public Data Users’ webinar that included presentations from three authors in the recent Cityscape issue. Michael Henderson, CPCD, and Sarah Duda, IHS, presented their findings and methodology related to their use of local administrative data to create a landlord typology for Cleveland’s rental stock and the loss of small multifamily units in Chicago.