OGD: Housing and Urban Development
By Luke Rosiak Jan 22 2010 7:28 p.m.How bad are the public housing projects where our nation's poorest live? A handful of tables from HUD released minutes ago may lend some insight. Here are some quick takeaways:
The first is quite a large Excel table detailing complaints lodged alleging discrimination based on factors such as race, disability, religion or retaliation for an earlier complaint, broken down by county where the housing project is located. Sunlight has made it slightly easier to access directly in your browser here.
Some quick sums show that LA County tops the list for complaints of all sorts--whites and blacks alike say they're being discriminated against because of their race, as do those with disabilities. Of course, that's mostly because it's one of the largest counties: to make real use of this data to determine disproportional impropriety, we'd need to pull in housing project population by county. Tarrant County, Texas takes home the (perceived) sexism award.
A more interesting measure, to me, is physical housing inspection scores (again, I've put in Google Fusion tables here), which are provided down to the level of individual housing projects. It would be interesting to visit these buildings and witness cockroaches and holes in the walls--or see whether improvements were made in the wake of failing scores. Perhaps not surprisingly, the worst public housing projects in America are in New Orleans. Looking at average inspection scores per housing authority:
Housing authorities with most run-down buildings
| pha_name | state | # of inspections | Avg score | Worst score | Best score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Housing Authority of New Orleans | LA | 136 | 35.3847794117647 | 3.01 | 94.79 |
| Housing Authority of St. John the Baptist Parish | LA | 28 | 41.1678571428571 | 9.93 | 95.95 |
| VIRGIN ISLANDS HOUSING AUTHORITY | VI | 149 | 49.8152348993288 | 9.63 | 100 |
| Housing Authority of the City of Orange | NJ | 18 | 50.5322222222222 | 5.13 | 81.99 |
| Wellston Housing Authority | MO | 13 | 50.7246153846154 | 17.78 | 82.29 |
| The Housing Authority of the City of Sanford | FL | 49 | 51.7969387755102 | 26.72 | 87.52 |
Finally, HUD takes a look at agencies' administrative performance. Which are riddled with failures and lack of oversight? Which have most improved?
| Formal HA Name | FY02 SEMAP Score | Fy07 SEMAP Score | improved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warren Housing Authority | 4 | 96 | 92 |
| Clearwater County Housing Authority | 13 | 100 | 87 |
| Housing Authority of the City of Hugo | 10 | 96 | 86 |
| New London Housing Authority | 4 | 89 | 85 |
| Formal HA Name | FY02 SEMAP Score | Fy07 SEMAP Score | improved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mount Pleasant Housing Commission | 100 | 12 | -88 |
| Municipality of Adjuntas | 87 | 4 | -83 |
| Municipality of Vieques | 88 | 7 | -81 |
| Housing Authority of the City of Portland | 87 | 12 | -75 |
| Clinton Township Housing Commission | 83 | 9 | -74 |
| City of Richmond Housing Authority | 83 | 11 | -72 |
| St. Bernard Parish Government | 83 | 11 | -72 |
| Housing Authority of the City of North Las Ve | 85 | 14 | -71 |
Here's the aggregate over time, by ranking. Looks like agencies have been getting better over time -- but there's also been fewer of them.
| Year | High | Standard | Troubled | Total |
| 2001 | 868 | 1332 | 347 | 2547 |
| 2002 | 1155 | 976 | 374 | 2505 |
| 2003 | 1332 | 553 | 153 | 2038 |
| 2004 | 1449 | 542 | 116 | 2107 |
| 2005 | 1162 | 668 | 162 | 1992 |
| 2006 | 878 | 985 | 179 | 2042 |
| 2007 | 1055 | 818 | 143 | 2016 |
| 2008 | 1408 | 512 | 100 | 2020 |
Search the Blog
Related Content
Real Time Ticker
Recent Posts
Reporting we're watching
- OpenSecrets: Millionaire Freshmen Make Congress Even Wealthier
- OpenSecrets: Owner Of Collapsed Indonesian Mine is Big Donor to Congress
- Sunlight Foundation: Reflecting on Sunlight
- Sunlight Foundation: Agenda for House's Legislative Data & Transparency Conference
- Sunlight Foundation: 2Day in #OpenGov 5/20/2013
