At its Community and Supportive Services (CSS) website, HUD recently posted links to some new resources that PHAs may find useful.
One is the Urban Institute’s new MetroTrends Data Dashboard, which “transforms complex datasets into easily accessible, interactive charts and maps.” Using the dashboard, you can find out information like the following:
- Local unemployment trends
- Trends in employment by sector and subsector
- Housing price trends
- The latest demographic and migration data
- Maps of income, age, race, and education level
- Trends in property and violent crime
You can read a little more about the MetroTrends Data Dashboard here.
The other resources are designed to help low-income families understand and access the benefits available to them under the Affordable Care Act (ACA):
- A website for locating affordable health care
- A description of how the Supreme Court ACA decision affects health insurance coverage and health care access for adolescents and young adults
- HealthCare.gov, which features an abundance of ACA resources, including information about the insurance exchanges and insurance options, fact sheets explaining key features of the ACA, a page dedicated to families with children, and a timeline of what’s changing when
You’ll find links to these and two other ACA resources on the “News and Events” page at the CSS website.
New tools are also available from the Urban Institute and the Poverty and Race Research Action Council (PRRAC), who recently released a new report entitled “Expanding Choice: Practical Strategies for Building a Successful Housing Mobility Program.” As the chapter titles suggest, the report is intended to serve as a toolkit for PHAs and other organizations interested in developing a housing mobility program for participants in the HCV program:
- “Aligning Your Community’s Policies to Support Housing Mobility”
- “Setting Program Goals and Making Other Key Decisions”
- “Building Your Housing Mobility Program”
- “Measuring Success”
- “Funding and Implementing Your Mobility Programs”
- “Advocating for Policy Changes”
Nine appendices containing sample materials and other resources accompany the report. You can download them and the report here.
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