User's Guide to Housing Assistance Supply Experiment (HASE) Data, Volume 3: The Program Files

摘要

This report provides guidance for understanding and using eight research files that contain administrative data compiled in the Housing Assistance Supply Experiment (HASE), which was conducted to test the effectiveness of direct cash allowances to help low - income households maintain decent housing. From 1974 through 1979, HASE supervised a housing allowance program in Brown County, Wis., and in St. Joseph County, Ind., and studied the program's effects on the local housing market. The four program files for each site contain data gathered during the 5 - year program period on the characteristics of clients' households, the features and quality of their housing, and their transactions with the allowance program. The information covers the age, sex, and race of all household members; the household's assets, income, and expenses; and the dwellings facilities, room features, interior and exterior characteristics, habitability, condition, and size for its occupants. Information is also included on household changes over time, the client's history with the program, suspensions and reauthorizations of allowance payments, and exceptional payment adjustments. The files can be used to obtain program statistics, to study changes in clients' housing over time, and to obtain both detailed and cursory views of the entire process. Suggestions on how to use the files and how to choose and link records for analysis are given, along with a description of procedural changes that affect the data and data problems of which the file user should be aware. An annotated bibliography listing 32 sources on HASE and appendices discussing variables contained in the files are provided.