Chas Table

[Skyy Mansour]

Theseare census definitions, which may be different than terminology used at the local level. For instance, St. Louis city and Baltimore city are treated as counties by the Census Bureau, and are geographically exclusive of their surrounding counties. Minor civil divisions are a census term for cities in certain states, while "place" is the Census designation for the vast majority of cities. For instance, Chicago is both a place and a minor civil division within Cook County; the CHAS data for Cook County includes Chicago households, but Chicago's data can be separately viewed in the MCD files or place files.

Other issues:

As with the CHAS 2000 and all other special tabulations of Census data, the Census Bureau requires that the CHAS data be rounded. The rounding scheme is as follows: 0 remains 0; 1-7 rounds to 4; 8 or greater rounds to nearest multiple of 5. This causes discrepancies when adding up smaller geographies and when adding up data within CHAS tables. Consider a city where the CHAS data indicate that there were 4 renter households with extremely low income and 4 owner households with extremely low income. One might be tempted to conclude that there are 8 total households with extremely low income. If another CHAS table indicates that there are actually a total of 15 extremely low income households, that would appear to be contradictory. This situation is the result of rounding. The city could have 6 renter households with extremely low income and 7 owner households with extremely low income, which is a total of 13 extremely low income households; but all of these numbers would be rounded, to 4, 4, and 15. As a result, HUD advises: 1. Use the largest geographies possible (rather than adding up smaller units of geography); 2. Use the total and subtotals published in the CHAS data (rather than creating your own totals and subtotals); and 3. If you must create a derived estimate by adding multiple CHAS estimates, understand that rounding will cause the resulting number to be less accurate.

There are no substantive changes to the format/content of the tables from the 2019 CHAS release. Enhanced disclosure avoidance protections continue to be enforced by Census resulting in some previously-available estimates being suppressed, as was the case starting with the 2018 tables. The following tables have changed compared to pre-2018 releases:

Please use caution when referencing estimates using programming code developed for pre-2018 versions of CHAS or when making year-to-year comparisons, as variable names and definitions may have changed.

Each year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) receives custom tabulations of American Community Survey (ACS) data from the U.S. Census Bureau. These data, known as the "CHAS" data (Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy), demonstrate the extent of housing problems and housing needs, particularly for low income households. The CHAS data are used by local governments to plan how to spend HUD funds, and may also be used by HUD to distribute grant funds. For more background on the CHAS data, including data documentation and a list of updates and corrections to previously released data, click here: Background.

HUD has created a simple web-based table generator (also known as a query tool) that provides some of the most commonly used CHAS figures (click here for the CHAS query tool). Data users who are comfortable working with large datasets and have appropriate data management software (such as SAS or SPSS) can download the complete set of data files (click here for the data download page). The data download tool includes data from every ACS release from 2006-2008 through 2012-2016, for a variety of geographic summary levels. HUD has also created new analytical tools to support HUD grantees preparing their Consolidated Plans. The eCon Planning Suite and CPD Maps are pre-loaded with CHAS data. Access to the eCon Planning Suite is limited to CPD grantees, but CPD Maps is available to the general public.

Users can select a specific jurisdiction of interest (such as a state, county, or city) and receive a few simple tables including information such as the number of low income households, or the number of households with housing cost burden. Results can be viewed in a web browser, or downloaded in spreadsheet form.

This tool is meant to provide similar information to the data in the CHAS query tool in the State of the Cities Data System, which contains CHAS data from 1990 and 2000 (available here: )

HUD released similar data after the 1990 Census and made most of those data available to grantees and the general public. Those data are typically referred to as the CHAS Data.The CHAS data are different from the standard Census 2000 data files. They are mostly comprised of a variety of housing need variables split by HUD-defined income limits (30, 50, and 80 percent of median income) and HUD-specified household types. In addition to the CHAS 2000 data, HUD is also making available data being used for various allocation formulas, including the Indian Housing Block Grant (IHBG) and Fair Share formulas.

The CHAS 2000 data reflect HUD's attempt to balance a desire to have data comparable with the 1990 CHAS Data, in order to measure change, against the need to request only those variables that are likely to be used. The 1990 request included a number of items that appear to have been of only minimal value to HUD, grantees, and the general public. In addition to the slimming down of the specifications, there are some significant additions in the 2000 request. Some of the significant changes from the 1990 data include:

(1) Simple Query System. Users can use a simple query system to obtain basic housing need and basic affordability mismatch data for their jurisdiction. These data can be queried at the state, county, place, HOME program, and CDBG program geographic levels. The housing need tables are somewhat more detailed tables than the old CHAS Table 1C.

(2) State Files. Users can download the data for just their state. For each state, the user downloads a zipped file that contains separate files in DBF format for each of the 59 tables each geography level. Generally, the data are available at six different geography levels: state, county, minor civil division, place (if a place crosses county lines, there is a separate record for each county part), consolidated city, and Census Tract (part). There are a few tables at the Block Group (part) level. Before unzipping the files, we recommend looking at the basic table characteristics. The DBF file does not have data labels, so we recommend that the user also print out the data dictionary for the table(s) of interest. The file names look as follows:

3) National Level Files. Users can download national files in SAS (R) format, SPSS (R) format, and DBF format. SAS and SPSS are statistical packages, DBF is a database format. For these files, the user downloads the data by the table of interest and the data format (SAS, SPSS, or DBF). The zipped file downloaded contains separate files for each of the geographic levels produced for that table. The SAS and SPSS files have data labels for each variable that you can use to make sure you are using the correct variable for your analysis. The DBF files do not have data labels, so we recommend that the user also print out the data dictionary for the table(s) of interest.

As many users know, most of this data has been available since September 2003. This web page reflects an update of those data as of November 2004. Some tables were found to have problems that have been corrected. In addition, due to the rounding rules applied to all special tabulation data, we identified a problem with making only census tract and block group level data available. The problem created by the rounding was to cause a larger than marginal deviation from the actual totals when the data were aggregated to higher levels of geography. This caused particular problems for jurisdictions wishing to compare 1990 statistics to 2000 statistics. As a result, these data reflect new tables created by the Census Bureau at the higher levels of geography of minor civil division, consolidated city, place, county, and state. If possible, users should use the highest level of geography that seems reasonable for their particular project.

All of the tables contain a field with the FIPS codes that comprise that geographic area. For example, for the files available at the Tract (part) level, the field containing the geographic identifier is labeled "sum080". The geographic identifier for "sum080", for example, looks like the following:

Place code labels: fmt_hudplc.sas (note, these are standard place codes except for consolidated cities. In those cases, this file has consolidated city instead of place and the consolidated city code is used instead of the place code).

The summary level 080 (tract part) and 091 (block group part) are not standard shape files available from the U.S. Census Bureau. For planners interested in mapping the CHAS data at the Census tract or block group level, they can obtain the summary level 080 and 091 data from the HUDUSER website:

The CHAS data should not be confused with the data provided by HUD on what areas qualify as low-and moderate-income under the CDBG program. Those areas are identified using the Census SF3 data. To download those data, go to this website: CDBG low/mod area data.

The Economic and Market Analysis Division (EMAD) "Special Tabulations" data retrieval system produces tabular statistical summaries of counts of households by tenure, by income intervals, by age of householder, by size of household, by housing conditions based on the 1990 and 2000 Census, for select geographic areas in the United States. This system allows a user to extract data to conduct a longitudinal analysis of changes in a particular area. To query for data on your community:

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