2011 Housing Planning Study - Technical Report

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Housing vacancy rates are now available in greater detail and for all counties in the Census and the ACS. Data users are familiar with the impact of ACS on their work and the problems involved with acquiring this new, more detailed, and more timely set of data. ACS is a survey, with all of the accompanying variance issues, especially for areas with smaller sample sizes. Perhaps more important, ACS data do not seem to match the 2010 Census data and that causes all of us some concern. These issues can and will be worked out, but it takes time to acquire the larger samples sizes required for that work. When the vacancy rate data "settles down", the ACS and census combined data will be the data we need for analysis and modeling of Hawaii's housing market. For the 2011 housing model, we used to Census and ACS data, modeling them to fit the previous data series. "Snowbird Units" is a series that is important to estimating needed units in Hawaii because those units are lost to the local housing market but appear in counts of total housing units. In the 2010 census, the Bureau includes the definition (and counts) for housing units defined as "vacant, resident lives elsewhere". This is certainly the best estimate we have seen so far for what we sometimes call "snowbird units". The dividing line between snowbird units and other vacant units is now well defined. Population and Households are also problematic when using ACS data. Here, the population growth trend seems reasonable and accurate, but the year-to-year fluctuations in the data are more likely the result of sample variation than actual changes in population. For many applications this does not present a serious problem, but the fluctuations affect forecasting routines in important ways, and cause dramatic changes in housing predictions. For the 2011 model we use the Census estimates and smoothed the estimates between 2005 and 2010. Doubling Up and Crowding are two more variables that are better measured in 2011 than they have been in the past. In this case, it occurs without serious drawbacks. The crowding indices are defined in the same way that have been in the past and are no routinely available by year and county. The doubling-up variable, however, is still one for which we must rely on the HHPS Demand Survey data. The Housing Policy Study 2011 also brought to light information that will likely change the housing model significantly in the next several years. The data on homelessness, hidden homelessness, and at-risk of homelessness will be more valuable in the future. More and more, homelessness is seen as a housing problem. With respect to housing policy, it has never been possible to ignore the important role of homelessness in funding housing initiatives. As homelessness becomes understood as an integral result of the working of the housing market in Hawaii, it will be more important to include it in the housing model. The same might be said for the problems of persons with special needs. It would seem that housing is a central need of this important subpopulation. The likelihood is that they will be included in Hawaii housing policy and planning in more meaningful ways in the futures. And if that is so, we might expect to hear the call that their data be included in the Housing Model. Everyone who took part in the study this year look forward to those challenges. Hawaii Housing Planning Study,2011: Technical Report Page 16 0 SMS, Inc. November,2011