Brief

Improving housing quality and safety

In high-cost cities, towns, and counties, lower-income individuals and families often need to make tradeoffs to find or keep housing they can afford. In some cases, these tradeoffs mean living in low-quality housing that may pose health and safety risks. When left unaddressed, quality and safety issues can pose serious threats to residents’ well-being, especially young children and older adults. This brief describes opportunities to improve housing quality and safety for homeowners and renters.

Analyze housing stock characteristics

This guidance shows how to use data to gain a better understanding of key aspects of the quality and condition of your housing stock. Such insights help in the designing and the targeting of resources of your local housing strategy.  Learn more about what data is readily available that can help shed light on the quality and composition of your housing stock.