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Method

How the housing figures are made

How the pages of the Low-income housing hub read what their publishers put out, and what that record can and cannot say. The method every topic shares — where a figure comes from, snapshots, freshness and corrections — is on the site’s methodology page.

HUD’s programs overlap, and are never added

The Picture of Subsidized Households counts the units under HUD’s rental assistance programs at December 31 of each year: 5,132,916 at the end of 2025. That figure is HUD’s own summary, every program together with each unit once. Public housing (848,354), Housing Choice Vouchers (2,797,798) and project-based Section 8 (1,321,212) are parts of it, beside HUD’s smaller programs; no page adds a program to the total. 14,327 of the units are in households HUD could not place in a county: they are in the national and state figures and in no county’s.

A county’s units are always published. The households in them are withheld where fewer than 11 reported, and HUD marks a program where under half of its households reported; those figures are absent here, never zero.

The tax-credit database

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit database lists 55,345 projects with 3,860,546 units placed in service since the credit began, as the state agencies that allocate it reported them. HUD adds a year each spring: the release of April 30, 2026 is complete through projects placed in service in 2024, and the 67 dated later are early reports, counted in the total and not drawn as a year. 2,765 projects have no confirmed year. The database names no owner, and a project HUD no longer monitors may still be affordable.

A tax-credit unit can also be a HUD-subsidized one, so the two files are compared on these pages and never added together.

Fair Market Rents and income limits

A Fair Market Rent is HUD’s estimate of the rent a voucher pays toward in an area, set each fiscal year for its programs; it is not a market median. An income limit is HUD’s threshold for its programs, set from the area’s median family income; it does not decide any household’s eligibility, which is the housing authority’s.

Per resident

A state’s subsidized homes and tax-credit units per 1,000 residents are over the Census Bureau’s July 1 estimate the demographics hub publishes, the same population for both, with its year printed beside the rate.

What this data cannot show

  • HUD's rental assistance programs overlap by design: its all-programs figure counts each unit once, and public housing, vouchers and project-based Section 8 are parts of it. Nothing here adds a program to that figure.
  • A tax-credit unit and a HUD-subsidized unit can be the same apartment, so the two files are never added together.
  • Units are counted at December 31 of the Picture year. A county’s households are withheld where fewer than 11 reported, and HUD places some households in no county; its national figure includes them.
  • The tax-credit database is about a year and a half behind: HUD's April 2026 release adds the projects placed in service in 2024. It names no owner, and a project HUD no longer monitors may still be affordable.
  • A Fair Market Rent is HUD's estimate for its programs, not a market median, and an income limit is HUD's threshold, not a judgment of any household's eligibility.

Sources

  • HUD Picture of Subsidized Households: units and households by county and program — U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research · U.S. Government work (https://www.usa.gov/government-works), recorded in our words as Kian decided on September 26, 2026. HUD’s Web Publication Procedures and Style Guide (§1.D): “As a rule, all content--including written materials and graphics--on HUD's Internet websites is in the public domain.” No HUD seal, nothing “official”, and no HUD employee named. · updated annual
  • HUD Low-Income Housing Tax Credit database: every project placed in service since 1987 — U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research · U.S. Government work (https://www.usa.gov/government-works), recorded in our words as Kian decided on September 26, 2026. HUD’s Web Publication Procedures and Style Guide (§1.D): “As a rule, all content--including written materials and graphics--on HUD's Internet websites is in the public domain.” No HUD seal, nothing “official”, and no HUD employee named. · updated annual
  • HUD Fair Market Rents: every FMR area, county and New England town — U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research · U.S. Government work (https://www.usa.gov/government-works), recorded in our words as Kian decided on September 26, 2026. HUD’s Web Publication Procedures and Style Guide (§1.D): “As a rule, all content--including written materials and graphics--on HUD's Internet websites is in the public domain.” No HUD seal, nothing “official”, and no HUD employee named. · updated annual
  • HUD Section 8 income limits and median family income: every area — U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research · U.S. Government work (https://www.usa.gov/government-works), recorded in our words as Kian decided on September 26, 2026. HUD’s Web Publication Procedures and Style Guide (§1.D): “As a rule, all content--including written materials and graphics--on HUD's Internet websites is in the public domain.” No HUD seal, nothing “official”, and no HUD employee named. · updated annual

Data retrieved