AFFH Metrics for Affordable Housing Programs: An Approach to Assessing the Spatial Distribution of Housing Subsidies in Large Jurisdictions in the Assessment of Fair Housing

Abstract

With the 2015 issuance of the final rules for Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH), jurisdictions that receive funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) are now provided with data and tools necessary to conduct the analysis of fair housing issues specific to their area. They have been asked by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to assess their fair housing performance and generate fair housing goals based on their findings from using the tools and data. However, little guidance has been given regarding how a jurisdiction should actually develop quantitative measures or reasonable “metrics and milestones” in order to assess performance and set specific, measureable goals. We use the HUD-provided AFFH data for Gwinnett County, Georgia – a large suburban entitlement community in the Atlanta metropolitan area – to establish some generalizable methods for assessing one aspect of fair housing concern – the neighborhood distribution of affordable housing subsidies. The method can also be used to set fair housing goals in this area.