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Rental Housing Affordability Data Explorer

Data Sources

Data Sources for the Rental Housing Affordability Data Explorer.

The primary data source for estimates presented in this tool is the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS), accessed via the Minnesota Population Center IPUMS-USA database.1 For areas with 200,000 or more renter households, we use single-year ACS PUMS files (2017, 2022) to generate estimates. For those areas with fewer than 200,000 renter households, we use the five-year ACS PUMS files (2013–2017, 2018–2022).

Additionally, to estimate of the number of federally subsidized affordable rental units in each area and identify those at risk of expiration within the next ten years,2 we use the National Housing Preservation Database developed by the Public and Affordable Housing Research Corporation (PAHRC) and the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC).3

See Methodology for details.

1

IPUMS-USA, University of Minnesota, www.ipums.org.

2

For more information on federal housing subsidy expiration, see preservationdatabase.org/reports/picture-of-preservation/.

3

Available at preservationdatabase.org/about-the-database/.