PCHTF launches regional affordable housing dashboard

The Polk County Housing Trust Fund (PCHTF) has launched a new regional affordable housing dashboard to share data about relevant housing trends for Polk County communities.

A centerpiece of the new dashboard is a display of federally backed housing properties in Central Iowa drawn from the PCHTF’s report on this topic last summer. The dashboard expands on that report by including new properties known to be in development around the region which will be updated over time.

To encourage discussion of how production of affordable housing stacks up against a community’s growth, the dashboard also displays information about projected housing growth in metro communities. The dashboard displays a housing goal equal to 10% of a community’s projected 5-year housing unit growth in the “Mobilizing Tomorrow” long-range plan by the Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization.

The dashboard highlights extensive US Census data showing cost burdened households – defined as a household paying more than 30% of its gross income on housing costs – are much higher among lower income households. In response, PCHTF encourages communities to set rental housing program goals to serve communities at or below 60% of the median family income (MFI) and homeownership programs at or below 80% of MFI.

The Trust Fund has partnered with CBRE Des Moines to publish the organization’s rental housing statistics. While Census figures are known to be highly comprehensive, industry estimates like the CBRE figures are often collected and released more quickly, providing a recent view of rent and vacancy trends.

PCHTF will utilize the dashboard in housing planning conversations with communities and encourages community members to explore it. PCHTF will continue to update the dashboard as new information becomes available and based on community feedback.

The new dashboard uses the Microsoft Power BI platform, which allows greater interactivity and the ability to update and expand the data over time in response to conversations with local communities about data they find most useful for local housing planning.

View the new resource at PCHTF.org/dashboard.

If a community would like to schedule a meeting with Trust Fund staff to review the affordable housing dashboard specific to their community, please reach out to Johnny Alcivar, at jalcivar@pchtf.org.