Estimating Capital Needs in United States Public Housing

• In Event: 40821 - Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 9. Low-Income Housing Provision

Abstract

The United States has a current public housing stock of approximately 811,000 units, housing over 1.5 million people. HUD provides funding for public housing in two main ways, through an operating fund and a capital fund. The capital fund is used for “capital needs” which include physical repairs, replacements, or improvements, beyond ordinary maintenance. Estimates of capital needs are the quantitative estimates, qualitative descriptions, and associated costs for all the elements required to maintain or return a property to its “as-built” condition, based on existing components and age, and to address any changes in standards since the building was last constructed or rehabilitated. All PHAs are required to estimate their capital needs every five years by conducting a “physical needs assessment” (PNA). HUD also has a need for a national level estimate of capital needs in public housing. In past years labor-intensive inspection-based studies were procured by HUD using outside contractors to estimate the capital needs of the nation’s public housing stock. For this work, a different method was tested to see if available PNAs could be used as a basis for an econometric model to calculate a national estimate. The research team developed a regression model to estimate total capital needs. This model uses data from 548 PNAs conducted at public housing developments. The model estimates much of the variation in the capital needs of these developments, with an adjusted r-squared value of 0.6905. We used the estimated coefficients for the intercept and independent variables from the regression model and applied them to the full population of 6,288 public housing developments. The estimate of capital needs is over $57 billion in 2024 dollars.

Authors

• Jennifer A. Stoloff, Econometrica, Inc.

• Alex Thackeray, Econometrica, Inc.

• Fred Bellemore, Econometrica, Inc.

• Gabrielle Flanders, Econometrica, Inc.

• Dennis Stout, Econometrica, Inc.