This manual provides examples of community-driven process reform that incorporates traditional tribal values while responsibly addressing both the immediate and future housing needs of tribal residents and their neighbors. The use of compressed earth blocks (CEBs) as a local, largely ubiquitous, tribally manufactured resource is promoted as a mechanism for achieving quality, healthy, affordable housing, while also advancing the parallel goals of self-sufficiency, sustainability, and energy independence.

This edition of Cityscape will feature a dual symposium on Home Equity Conversion Mortgages and also Transforming Communities.

• Access the Cityscape archives here:
  https://www.huduser.gov/portal/periodicals/cityscpe/prev_iss/cspast.html

This report summarizes an exploratory study of the effectiveness and value of PIH’s program on Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) that was conducted by PD&R staff. The researchers compiled and analyzed data from a questionnaire to public housing authority (PHA) staff, conducted in-person interviews with PHA staff, conducted inspections of EPC-installed improvements, complied a collection of executed EPC documents, and had discussions with multiple participants in the field of energy performance contracting.

This report examines how rural housing and economic development organizations have used the Rural Innovation Fund (RIF) to benefit their communities. Three main questions guided the study: What types of projects did the RIF fund; how successful were grantees at leveraging additional funding; and what were the impacts of the larger RIF grants?

HUD and the National Center for Health Statistics agreed in 2011 to link administrative records for individuals receiving housing assistance from HUD with records from the National Health Interview Survey. This report uses the linked data for 2006 through 2012 to present a broad statistical summary of demographic characteristics, health diagnoses and conditions, and health care access and utilization for HUD-assisted adults. Similar estimates are provided for two other relevant subgroups to support contextual understanding: unassisted adult renters with incomes below the federal poverty line and all adults in the U.S. population.

A Congressionally mandated study of the housing needs of Native Hawaiian housing needs.

This study investigates causes of client exit from the HUD-VASH program, the destinations of exiting clients, and the service use of exiters compared to stayers. This study was conducted for HUD by the VA National Center on Homelessness Among Veterans. The report will be co-published with the VA.

In this study, a literature review was contracted to examine the various credit-enhancing roles of down payment and the respective qualitative and quantitative importance of mortgage down payments of varying sizes. Through the review of the literature, the study identified multiple functions of the mortgage down payment and potential down payment substitutes.

The purpose of this research is the development of a set of informed simulation models that allow for the meaningful forecast of the demand and transition times for temporary, interim, and permanent housing of displaced households stemming from severe weather events. These modeling and simulation efforts identify for HUD the dynamics of displaced populations with social, medical, and financial vulnerabilities in the housing recovery process.

This study explores in-person testing protocols and provides estimates of discrimination against same-sex couples based on in-person testing, tests the efficacy of in-person testing versus remote testing for same-sex couples, and is the first study of in-person testing for discrimination against transgender persons.

HUD has conducted a pilot study of housing discrimination experienced by people with a “mental disability” (MD). This research focused on rental housing discrimination issues faced by two different subgroups within the MD population: people with psychiatric disabilities or mental illness and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The research explored the use of paired testing methods to detect discrimination in a sample of the housing markets. Email, telephone and in-person testing methods were examined in this study.

This proposed study examines the relationship between credit worthiness and the inclusion of rental payment data in consumer credit reports maintained by nationwide consumer reporting agencies. PERC seeks to add to the existing body of theoretical and empirical economic literature on this topic by examining the credit market impacts resulting from the inclusion of subsidized rental payment data from public housing tenants.

This study utilized loan-level mortgage origination and performance data. The study’s objectives were to 1) construct a database that expedites future empirical examination, and 2) empirically examine the relationship between mortgage down payment and mortgage delinquency and default.

This volume includes descriptions of the data sources and analytic methods used to produce the volume Housing Needs of American Indians and Alaska Natives in Tribal Areas: A Report from the Assessment of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian Housing Needs published by HUD on January 19, 2017.

This paper reviews the relevant literature, develops alternative housing quality indices, tests their validity, and applies them to both the assisted and comparable unassisted housing stock.

The research project is conducting a series of studies evaluating neighborhood conditions for participants in the LIHTC and HCV programs in the metropolitan Florida area.