!■ ; ' \ I \ USER’S GUIDE TO HASE DATA, VOL. 2: THE SURVEY FILES PATRICIA BOREN R-2692/2-HUD APRIL 1982 4 ;>r-i‘i'.','.' i-J/A C; C;:J V % ®^»|XPERIMENTa : -■« te'S'sss;**'« i...\ p rnpm-n% I! I plw : •- ;■ '•-' ■ - ;•- . ' twilit •: * .. \ .;: ■'" '• v> ■ .: 5k T The research reported here was performed pursuant to Contract No. H-1789 with the Office of Policy Development and Research, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Statements and conclusions in this report are those of Rand’s research staff and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsoring agency. I The Rand Publications Series: The Report is the principal publication doc­ umenting and transmitting Rand’s major research findings and final research results. The Rand Note reports other outputs of sponsored research for general distribution. Publications of The Rand Corporation do not neces- sarily reflect the opinions or policies of the sponsors of Rand research. \ Published by The Rand Corporation I USER’S GUIDE TO HASE DATA, VOL. 2: THE SURVEY FILES PATRICIA BOREN R-2692/2-HUD APRIL 1982 HOUSING ASSISTANCE SUPPLY EXPERIMENT Sponsored by The Office of Policy Development and Research US. Department of Housing and Urban Development Kland SANTA MONICA, CA. 90406 . - . * : ■ . ■ ■ M ? * V ■ k ■ y % " : (■ ■ . f- ■ • • ' ■ - , ? '* . x . • - ..... ~ . -v - . ' v V • —J ? ■ > i ■' . - r. : . iii PREFACE This report describes the research files compiled from field surveys conducted in two metropolitan housing markets as part of the Housing Assistance Supply Experiment (HASE). The report is one of three volumes describing the experiment’s 40 research files for analysts and programmers who wish to use the data.[l] The files are accessible through the Housing Research Data Center, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and operated by Data Use and Access Laboratories (DUALabs) in Arlington, Virginia. The experiment was conducted by The Rand Corporation under contract with HUD. Full-scale housing allowance programs were operated under Rand's supervision in Brown County, Wisconsin, and St. Joseph County, Indiana. To determine the programs' effects on each housing market and community, Rand conducted 32 surveys in four annual cycles in each site. The surveys included interviews with the owners and occupants of a marketwide sample of properties, and field observations of their buildings and neighborhoods. The survey data are contained in 32 files. This report explains how those files are organized and how they relate to each other, describes the contents of each, and offers advice about file processing and analytic uses of the data. This report was written under the guidance of E. Wayne Hansen and Christine D'Arc. Molly McMullen assisted in preparing the description of file contents in Sec. II and in compiling and formatting the technical appendixes, Evelyn C. Casper developed the plan for modifying variables to protect respondents' confidentiality, _ and drafted Appendix A. [1] The overall experimental design and the roles of the allowance program and surveys are explained in E. Wayne Hansen and Christine D'Arc, User's Guide to HASE Data, Vol. 1: Overview, The Rand Corporation, R-2692/1-HUD, forthcoming. The files of client data collected in the allowance program are covered in Ann W. Wang, User's Guide to HASE Data, Vol. 3: The Program Files, The Rand Corporation, R-2692/3-HUD, forthcoming. iv This report was prepared for HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research, pursuant to HUD Contract H-1789, and fulfills Task 2.20 of that contract. V SUMMARY The Housing Assistance Supply Experiment (HASE) was part of a Congress-mandated investigation into the desirability 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, Wisconsin, and St. Joseph County, Indiana, and studied the program's effects on the local housing market, The experiment yielded 40 research files: 8 program files contain data on program operations and client characteristics, and 32 survey files contain data from field surveys of the housing market, This report ! describes the survey files and offers guidance for using them. ! THE SURVEYS Four annual cycles of field surveys were conducted in each experimental site to monitor the program's effects on the local : community. The residential surveys were addressed to the HASE ; panel, a marketwide sample of about 2,000 residential properties in each site. To keep current with residential development, the panel, was annually augmented with a sample of properties containing ; newly constructed residences. Other surveys gathered data on all neighborhoods in the county from public records and field observations. The survey types are briefly defined below (under­ scores identify the sample element). Landlord survey--interviews with owners of sampled rental properties about property management and finances. Household survey--interviews with tenants and homeowners of housing units on sample properties about their households, housing characteristics, and housing expenses. Residential building survey--observations of physical characteristics, condition, and immediate environs of residential buildings on sampled properties. vi • Neighborhood survey (two parts)--compilation of secondary- source data on characteristics and facilities of each neighborhood in the county; observations of the features and condition of each street segment (both sides of a length of street between intersections) in the county. The first or baseline wave of the surveys was conducted in 1974 in Brown County (Site I) and in 1975 in St. Joseph County (Site II), in each case just before the allowance program began enrolling clients. The subsequent waves were conducted annually for three years thereafter. All survey fieldwork was subcontracted. THE FILES The survey cycles yielded 16 files per site: four each for the landlord, household, and residential building surveys (waves 1 through 4) and two each for the neighborhood surveys (waves 1 and 4). Each file contains one fixed-length record for every sample element in the survey type, site, and wave represented. Besides the variables obtained directly from survey instrument responses, the records contain a number of derived variables, added for their analytic usefulness. They consist of aggregations and other transformations of survey responses, data from other sources, indicators for selecting subsaraples, and record weights. Each file has a machine-readable dictionary giving the alphanumeric name, location, and length of every variable. Each file is documented by a codebook that defines and provides response distributions for the variables, and an audit report that assesses the completeness and reliability of the data. USING THE FILES Since interviews and observations were not always completed for the entire sample list, the number of analytically usable records is considerably smaller than the total number of records in a file. Indicators for completeness and other record conditions permit users i vii ! to select records that contain the types and amounts of data desired and represent the sample elements of interest. Within a site, records for related sample elements can be linked across survey types in the same wave, or across waves in the same j survey type. Other links--such as a longitudinal account pertaining to a landlord and his tenants--pose some problems, for which guidelines are given. Because the numbering systems for identifying sample elements overlap in the two sites, records should not be linked across sites. A topical index of all variables enables users to determine quickly whether the survey files contain the information they are seeking and where it is found, Changes in the survey instruments from wave to wave resulted in altered names and sequences of i corresponding variables across files, A cross-wave index permits users to trace the shifts. To protect the confidentiality of survey responses and the identities of respondents, it was necessary to alter the values of certain variables. The specific changes are detailed. For analytic designs that require deriving population parameters from sample data, the HASE survey records must be weighted to obtain unbiased estimates. We computed a set of exact sampling history weights and a set of "field-complete" weights to be applied to the analytically usable records. We found that the field-complete weights generally produced good estimates. We also calculated special-purpose weights for the files of particular survey types. i ; ■ ■ ; . ■ i'. ■: i .. .1 :• : V ; . £ A \ •* 4 A I i r 1-.- fi i ix ! ; CONTENTS ! PREFACE iii ! SUMMARY v i FIGURES xi ; •: | TABLES Xi ; I : ABBREVIATIONS xiii ! : 1 Section ; I. INTRODUCTION ..................... 1 : 2 i Purpose of the Surveys Survey Administration. 2 :! File Preparation........... 4 II. FILE ORGANIZATION AND CONTENTS ....................... 7 File Organization .............................................. 7 Record Structure ............................................ 8 Variable Naming Conventions ..................... 10 Variable Dictionary ...................................... 12 File Contents ...................................................... 12 Landlord Survey Instruments ..................... 14 Household Survey Instruments ................... 23 Residential Building Survey Instruments 31 Neighborhood Survey Instruments ............. 33 III. USING THE SURVEY FILES ..................................................................