A Preservation Catalog is NLIHC’s term for a database of all rental projects with units affordable to low-income households (<=80% AMI) as a result of one or more federal, state, or local subsidies. Some of the property-level information captured in this database would include name, locational characteristics (e.g., address, city, latitude and longitude, etc.), owner, manager, and a project’s physical condition. The Catalog would also capture any information pertinent to each and every subsidy that contributes to a property’s affordability, including each subsidy’s effective and expiration dates, the number of income-restricted units, the income level at which the property is affordable, and an owner’s intention to either continue or discontinue participation in the affordable housing program.
By itself, this Preservation Catalog would be the first of its kind to integrate information on all housing subsidies for each affordable project. As such, it would enable advocates and researchers to easily quantify the availability of affordable housing in any geography while at the same time establishing a baseline of affordable units against which future levels could be measured.
With the generous support of Fannie Mae, the National Low Income Housing Coalition is in the process of developing a national inventory of assisted housing across federal subsidy programs integrated at the property address level as the foundation for a national Preservation Catalog, it is currently very difficult for anyone interested in the state of subsidized housing in the United States, whether nationwide or in a specific locality, to build a project-level picture of the sector, which leads to a great deal of uncertainty around how many unique properties are subsidized in the country and by which subsidies. It also means that those interested in preserving the current stock of affordable housing have a tough time figuring out how many subsidized properties are at risk of losing their affordability.
To address this lack of comprehensive project-level data, a Preservation Catalog uses data from government, financial, and grassroots sources to create a data system that is:
- Comprehensive: The catalog must include all federally subsidized housing units and local information as it is available, nationwide.
- Integrated: The catalog must contain only one record for each assisted property that includes information on all subsidies that make it affordable. This criterion necessitates a unified database rather than one for each program.
- Preservation-oriented: The catalog must provide clear information on affordability periods, such as Section 8 contract expiration dates and mortgage maturity dates, as well as indicators of increasing risk of loss.
- Locally monitored: Inherent in the vision of a preservation catalog is the creation of linkages between the assisted properties and local organizations to ensure the accuracy of the data and facilitate the identification – and ultimately the preservation – of at-risk projects.
Since 2006, NLIHC has been researching the feasibility of a national Preservation Catalog with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In this process, NLIHC has built housing preservation catalogs for Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia and created initial inventories of projects in North Carolina and Washington State. The NLIHC research team has also consulted on projects across the country including Florida, New York City, and Utah and recently published a detailed Preservation Guide on how to create a local inventory and establish a preservation catalog. FIX LINK TO PRESERVATION GUIDE