Requirements - Housing

Voice to Congress / System Requirements, Candidate Metrics, and Congressional Report Card Framework

Purpose: This page defines the Housing issue requirements for Voice to Congress. The goal is to evaluate whether Congress is improving housing affordability, rental stability, homeownership access, mortgage fairness, housing supply, public housing performance, homelessness prevention, housing quality, fair housing, and housing resilience.

Status: Draft V1 for review. Metrics listed here are candidate metrics until source review, calculation review, traceability review, and promotion approval are completed.

1. What We Have

The United States has a housing system where many households face unaffordable rents, high mortgage payments, limited affordable rental supply, rising insurance and utility burdens, homelessness, aging housing stock, and unequal access to safe and stable housing.

Housing problems overlap with cost of living, healthcare, education, public safety, infrastructure, climate resilience, civil rights, and government spending. A family that cannot afford rent, move near work, maintain safe housing, or avoid displacement is affected far beyond the housing market itself.

2. What We Want

The United States should have a housing system where people can rent or buy safe, stable, affordable homes; where housing supply grows with population and household needs; where public programs measurably reduce hardship; where mortgage finance is fair and transparent; and where Congress can be graded on whether its actions improve affordability, stability, supply, access, quality, and outcomes.

3. Housing Sub-Issues

Code	Sub-Issue	Public Meaning
HOU-010	Housing Affordability and Cost Burden	Can households afford housing without sacrificing other basic needs?
HOU-020	Rental Housing and Tenant Stability	Are renters facing excessive rent pressure, displacement, eviction risk, or unstable leases?
HOU-030	Affordable Rental Supply	Are there enough affordable and available homes for low-income renters?
HOU-040	Homeownership Affordability	Can ordinary households buy and sustain a home if they choose to?
HOU-050	Mortgage Finance, Interest Rates, Credit Access, and Down Payments	Can households access safe, fair, affordable mortgage credit?
HOU-060	Housing Supply, Construction, and Permitting	Is the country building enough housing in the right places and at the right price points?
HOU-070	Land Use, Zoning, Regulatory Barriers, and Local Approval Bottlenecks	Are policy barriers restricting housing production or increasing costs?
HOU-080	Public Housing, Rental Assistance, and Housing Program Performance	Are federal housing programs helping eligible households obtain stable housing?
HOU-090	Homelessness and Housing Instability	Is the housing system preventing homelessness and reducing severe housing instability?
HOU-100	Housing Quality, Safety, Health, and Habitability	Are homes safe, healthy, accessible, and livable?
HOU-110	Fair Housing, Discrimination, and Equal Access	Can people access housing without unlawful discrimination?
HOU-120	Housing Resilience, Insurance, Property Taxes, Utilities, and Climate Risk	Are rising non-mortgage and non-rent costs, disasters, and climate risks making housing unaffordable or unstable?

4. System Requirements Summary

HOU-GEN-001: Housing Issue Universe

The system shall maintain a Housing issue universe containing bills, resolutions, amendments, votes, appropriations, oversight actions, and major congressional actions related to Housing.

Verification: Database query, issue-classification audit, and sample legislation review.

HOU-GEN-002: Sub-Issue Assignment

The system shall assign each Housing-related legislative item to one or more approved Housing sub-issues.

Verification: Classification export and manual sample review.

HOU-GEN-003: Cross-Issue Tagging

The system shall support cross-issue tagging when Housing legislation materially affects Cost of Living, Healthcare, Education, Government Spending, Climate, Infrastructure, Immigration, Veterans, Civil Rights, or Poverty.

Verification: Cross-issue audit.

HOU-GEN-004: Congressional Control Level

The system shall classify each Housing metric by congressional control level: Direct, Indirect, or Contextual.

Verification: Metric metadata review.

HOU-FUN-001: Requirements Repository

The system shall maintain a Housing requirements repository containing all approved Housing requirements, definitions, sub-issues, metrics, data sources, verification methods, and report-card rules.

Verification: Repository inspection.

HOU-FUN-002: Metric Catalog

The system shall maintain a Housing metric catalog with metric ID, title, definition, source, cadence, score direction, confidence, geographic level, congressional relevance, and limitations.

Verification: Metric catalog review.

HOU-FUN-003: Legislative Classifier

The system shall classify legislation as Housing when the legislation materially affects residential housing affordability, access, supply, quality, stability, financing, fairness, or resilience.

Verification: Classification test set.

HOU-FUN-004: Metric-to-Legislation Traceability

The system shall maintain traceability between Housing metrics and the legislation, appropriations, votes, or oversight actions most likely to affect each metric.

Verification: Traceability matrix audit.

HOU-FUN-005: Housing Report Card Generation

The system shall generate Housing report cards for members of Congress, issue-level performance, and sub-issue performance.

Verification: Demonstration using real congressional data.

5. Candidate Metrics

Review warning: The metrics below are candidates. A metric may be suitable for public education before it is suitable for active rollup or direct member scoring.

Metric ID	Metric	Sub-Issue	Candidate Source	Score Direction	Initial Use
HOU-MET-001	Renter Cost Burden Rate	HOU-010	HUD CHAS / ACS	Lower is better	Public candidate; rollup after formula review
HOU-MET-002	Severe Renter Cost Burden Rate	HOU-010	HUD CHAS / ACS	Lower is better	Public candidate; rollup after formula review
HOU-MET-003	Owner Cost Burden Rate	HOU-010	HUD CHAS / ACS / AHS	Lower is better	Public candidate; rollup after formula review
HOU-MET-004	Affordable and Available Rental Homes per 100 Extremely Low-Income Renter Households	HOU-030	NLIHC / HUD-derived candidate	Higher is better	Candidate; non-government source review needed
HOU-MET-005	Affordable Rental Shortage for Extremely Low-Income Renter Households	HOU-030	NLIHC / HUD-derived candidate	Lower is better	Candidate; non-government source review needed
HOU-MET-006	30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate	HOU-050	Freddie Mac PMMS	Lower is generally better	Context only; not direct member scoring
HOU-MET-007	Mortgage Denial Rate	HOU-050	HMDA / FFIEC	Lower is generally better	Methodology review required
HOU-MET-008	Mortgage Denial Disparity	HOU-050 / HOU-110	HMDA / FFIEC	Lower disparity is better	Do not use for scoring until statistical method is reviewed
HOU-MET-009	Building Permits	HOU-060	Census New Residential Construction	Higher is generally better when demand exceeds supply	Public candidate; demand-normalization needed
HOU-MET-010	Housing Starts	HOU-060	Census New Residential Construction	Higher is generally better when demand exceeds supply	Public candidate; demand-normalization needed
HOU-MET-011	Housing Completions	HOU-060	Census New Residential Construction	Higher is generally better when demand exceeds supply	Public candidate; demand-normalization needed
HOU-MET-012	Housing Choice Voucher Utilization / Coverage	HOU-080	HUD Picture of Subsidized Households / HUD	Higher is better	Denominator decision required
HOU-MET-013	Point-in-Time Homelessness Count	HOU-090	HUD AHAR / PIT	Lower is better	Public candidate with PIT limitation note
HOU-MET-014	Unsheltered Homelessness Count	HOU-090	HUD AHAR / PIT	Lower is better	Public candidate with PIT limitation note
HOU-MET-015	Housing Quality / Inadequacy Indicator	HOU-100	American Housing Survey	Lower inadequacy is better	AHS variable selection required
HOU-MET-016	Homeowners Insurance Burden	HOU-120	Treasury / Federal Insurance Office candidate	Lower burden is better	Candidate only; data availability review needed
HOU-MET-017	Property Tax Burden	HOU-120	ACS / Census / AHS	Lower burden is generally better	Context only; mostly state/local control
HOU-MET-018	Household Energy / Utility Burden	HOU-120	DOE LEAD / AHS / ACS	Lower is better	Source-definition review required

6. Data Source Baseline

Source	Recommended Use	Initial Confidence	Public Limitation
HUD CHAS	Cost burden, severe cost burden, affordability by tenure and income group	High	Release lag, geography limits, disclosure suppression
Census ACS	Rent, owner costs, income, property taxes, tenure, vacancy, denominators	High	Sampling error and 1-year/5-year geography differences
American Housing Survey	Housing quality, adequacy, habitability, utilities, owner costs	High	Limited local geography and changing survey design
Census New Residential Construction	Permits, starts, completions, single-family/multifamily trends	High	Supply counts need demand and affordability context
Freddie Mac PMMS	Mortgage-rate context	High	Contextual only; Congress does not directly set mortgage rates
HMDA / FFIEC	Mortgage denial, lending access, fair-lending indicators	High	Requires careful universe definition and statistical controls
HUD AHAR / PIT	Homelessness and unsheltered homelessness	Medium-High	One-night snapshot; local count quality varies
HUD Picture of Subsidized Households	Public housing and voucher assisted households	High	Voucher utilization and eligibility coverage are different measures
NLIHC The Gap	Affordable rental shortage for extremely low-income renters	Medium-High	Non-government source; method review required before scoring
DOE LEAD	Energy burden and utility burden	High	Estimated energy burden; overlaps Cost of Living and Energy

7. Legislative Classification Rules

The system shall classify legislation as Housing when the bill materially affects one or more of the following:

Rent, rental affordability, tenant stability, eviction prevention, or lease protections
Mortgage finance, mortgage insurance, FHA, VA, USDA housing loans, GSEs, credit access, or down-payment assistance
Housing construction, permitting, manufactured housing, modular housing, adaptive reuse, or housing infrastructure
Public housing, Housing Choice Vouchers, project-based rental assistance, HOME, CDBG, LIHTC, or Housing Trust Fund
Homelessness prevention, shelters, rapid rehousing, permanent supportive housing, youth homelessness, family homelessness, or veteran homelessness
Fair housing, housing discrimination, appraisal bias, lending discrimination, source-of-income discrimination, disability access, or accessibility
Disaster housing, flood insurance, wildfire housing risk, climate adaptation, housing recovery, homeowners insurance, energy burden, or housing resilience
Housing quality, habitability, lead, mold, heating/cooling safety, overcrowding, or healthy homes

The system shall not classify a bill as Housing merely because it references land, buildings, construction, real estate, local development, or federal facilities unless it materially affects residential housing affordability, access, supply, quality, stability, financing, fairness, or resilience.

8. Congressional Report Card Logic

The Housing member grade should follow the same general Voice to Congress report-card model used for other issues, with issue-specific evidence and limitations.

Component	Suggested Weight	Meaning
Legislative Effort	20%	Did the member sponsor or cosponsor meaningful Housing legislation?
Legislative Advancement	25%	Did the memberâ€™s Housing legislation advance through committee, floor action, passage, conference, or incorporation into larger legislation?
Public Result / Became Law	25%	Did the memberâ€™s actions contribute to enacted law, funded programs, measurable program changes, or public results?
Agenda-Control Accountability	20%	Did committee chairs, ranking members, or leadership use their greater power to advance or block Housing solutions?
Duty / Continuity	10%	Did the member participate, vote, and maintain continuity of representation?

Candidate Formula

Final Housing Member Grade = 20% Legislative Effort + 25% Legislative Advancement + 25% Public Result / Became Law + 20% Agenda-Control Accountability + 10% Duty / Continuity

Suggested Grade Bands

Score	Grade
90-100	A
80-89	B
70-79	C
60-69	D
0-59	F

9. Review and Readiness Status

Area	Status	Next Review Action
Sub-Issue Taxonomy	Draft V1	Review and approve HOU-010 through HOU-120.
Metric Catalog	Candidate V1	Review source definitions, calculations, and score direction.
Source Registry	Candidate V1	Confirm source URLs, release dates, access methods, and limitations.
Public Display	Not final	Separate candidate metrics, context metrics, rollup metrics, and scoring metrics.
Active Rollup	Not approved	Approve only after source, formula, geography, and limitation review.
Member Scoring	Not approved	Approve only after metric-to-legislation traceability and congressional-control review.

10. Release Gates

Gate	Requirement
Internal Draft	Requirements drafted and sub-issues approved.
Metric Candidate	Candidate metric catalog created.
Source Review	Sources reviewed and confidence scored.
ETL Candidate	Metrics can be refreshed or manually loaded.
Classification Candidate	Housing bill classifier created.
Report Card Candidate	Member scoring logic tested using real congressional data.
Public Beta	Public page explains limitations clearly.
Public Ready	No blockers; evidence links working; data confidence acceptable.

Public trust rule: Housing metrics should not be used to assign direct member grades until the source, formula, limitation, congressional-control level, and metric-to-legislation traceability have been reviewed.

Draft V1. Prepared for Voice to Congress Housing Requirements development. This page is intended to be maintained as the public-facing requirements summary while the detailed metric catalog, source registry, and review checklist remain in the Housing support folder.

Government Spending Metrics

Executive Summary — What the Numbers Mean

This dashboard separates Government Spending into three questions: whether fiscal data is complete enough to support a trustworthy public grade, whether related bills are moving through Congress, and whether responsibility can be attributed to the right people. The current fiscal confidence score is 75.5, grade C. The current legislative progress score is 34.3, grade F. The role-aware attribution layer is Internal Review Ready. A low legislative progress grade means the issue is not moving through Congress; it is not the same thing as a cost estimate.

Last Full Metrics Refresh: 2026-05-05 17:11:05 Role coverage: Coverage file not found Attribution status: Current

Layer	Question Answered	How to Use It
Cost / Fiscal Confidence	Do we have enough fiscal classification, amount, and official-estimate data to support a trustworthy grade?	Use this to judge data quality before treating a score as public-facing.
Legislative Progress	Are Government Spending bills moving through Congress, stalling, or becoming stale?	Use this as an accountability warning about congressional action or inaction.
Role-Aware Attribution	Can responsibility be separated among sponsors, cosponsors, committee leaders, and chamber leaders?	Use this to avoid blaming the wrong person when a bill stalls.

Public-readiness caution: These metrics are designed to support a transparent public demonstration, but the dashboard should not overstate certainty. Cost confidence, legislative progress, and accountability attribution should be read together.

Cost-Estimate Interpretation: The Government Spending cost-estimate metrics are ready for public demonstration with normal source and confidence disclosures.
Legislative Progress Interpretation: The legislative progress metrics are not ready for public grading. The current data show that most Government Spending bills have not moved beyond introduction or referral and have stale latest-action dates.
Accountability Attribution Interpretation: The role-aware accountability attribution layer is ready for internal review. It identifies sponsor/cosponsor credit separately from committee and floor leadership review, but does not assign individual leadership penalties yet.
Cost Snapshot: 2026-05-04T21:25:35Z. Loaded: C:\WEB\VoiceToCongress.com\40 - Top Issues\050 - Government Spending\40 - Metrics\App_Data\metrics_current.json
Progress Snapshot: 2026-05-04T21:25:35Z. As of: 2026-05-04. Loaded: C:\WEB\VoiceToCongress.com\40 - Top Issues\050 - Government Spending\40 - Metrics\App_Data\legislative_progress_current.json
Attribution Snapshot: 2026-05-04T21:25:35Z. Loaded: C:\WEB\VoiceToCongress.com\40 - Top Issues\050 - Government Spending\40 - Metrics\App_Data\government_spending_accountability_attribution_current.json

System Score Summary

Cost Confidence Score	75.5	Cost Grade	C	Cost Readiness	Public Demonstration Ready
Legislative Progress Score	34.3	Progress Grade	F	Progress Readiness	Not Ready
Attribution Readiness	Internal Review Ready	Sponsor Credit Records	268	Leadership Review Rate	100.0%
Bill Count	268	Fiscal Assessment Coverage	100.0%	Needs Review Rate	9.7%

Cost-Estimate Data Confidence

Metric	Current Value	Count	Meaning
Fiscal Assessment Coverage	100.0%	268 / 268	Percent of Government Spending bills with a fiscal assessment row.
Resolved Fiscal Classification Coverage	90.3%	242 / 268	Percent of bills where the fiscal classification is resolved and no longer in the review backlog.
Confirmed Official Estimate Coverage	0.0%	0 / 268	Percent of bills with official CBO/JCT/official cost-estimate metadata. Auto-classified bills are not counted here.
Usable Amount Data Coverage	83.6%	224 / 268	Percent of bills with usable amount data, fixed bill-text amounts, ranges, or amount classifications suitable for fiscal metrics.
Fiscal Impact Determination Coverage	85.4%	229 / 268	Percent of bills where the system has determined whether and how the bill affects spending, revenue, assets, administration, or fiscal exposure.
Needs Review Rate	9.7%	26 / 268	Percent of bills still requiring human review or additional automation.

Fiscal Classification Summary

Classification Area	Count	Use
Fiscal Significant Bills	225	Bills identified as having spending, revenue, asset, administrative, procurement, personnel, transfer, grant, open-ended, or other fiscal relevance.
Open-Ended Fiscal Exposure	46	Bills with open-ended or contingent fiscal authority, including language such as "such sums as are necessary". These are not treated as zero cost.
Fixed Bill-Text Amounts	28	Bills where a fixed dollar amount was detected in bill text near fiscal authorization or appropriation language.
Official Estimate Metadata	0	Bills where official CBO/JCT/official cost-estimate metadata was found. Dollar amount parsing from CBO documents is a separate future step.

Legislative Progress and Action Staleness

Metric	Current Value	Count	Meaning
Introduced or Referred	97.8%	262 / 268	Bills that have not moved beyond introduction or committee referral. This is normal early in a process, but weak evidence of legislative progress.
Advanced Bills	2.2%	1 committee activity, 5 reported, 0 passed one chamber	Bills with committee activity, committee reporting, chamber passage, or enactment. This is stronger evidence that Congress acted on the issue.
Stale or Dormant	100.0%	268 / 268	Bills with no recent meaningful action. This is a legislative accountability warning, not a cost estimate.
Became Law	0	0 / 268	Bills that completed the legislative process and became law.
Average Stage Score	19.8	0 to 100	Average progress stage score across the Government Spending bill universe.
Average Action Staleness Score	16.4	0 to 100	Average recency score. Lower values mean the bill universe is stale or dormant.

CBO Estimate Eligibility

CBO Status	Count	Rate	Meaning
Not Yet Expected	259	96.6%	No official CBO estimate has been found, but the bill appears to be introduced/referred only, so an estimate may not yet be expected.
Watch - Committee Activity	1	Information	The bill has some committee activity but no official CBO estimate metadata found yet.
Expected but Missing	5	1.9%	The bill appears advanced enough that a missing estimate is more concerning and should be reviewed.
Official Estimate Found	3	1.1%	Official CBO estimate metadata has been found.

Role-Aware Accountability Attribution

Attribution Area	Count	Use
Sponsor Initiative Credit	268	Sponsors receive credit for introducing or carrying a Government Spending bill. Lack of later movement should not automatically reduce the sponsor score.
Cosponsor Support Credit	189	Cosponsors receive support credit. The system should not automatically penalize cosponsors when committee or chamber leadership does not move the bill.
Committee Leadership Review Needed	263	Bills appear stalled before meaningful committee advancement. Committee jurisdiction, chair, ranking member, and referral data are needed before assigning individual responsibility.
Floor Leadership Review Needed	5	Bills appear reported or calendar-ready but have not received a chamber vote. Chamber leadership and floor scheduling data are needed before assigning individual responsibility.
CBO Gap Review Needed	5	Bills appear advanced enough that missing official CBO estimate metadata should be reviewed.
Leadership Review Rate	100.0%	Percent of bills requiring committee or floor leadership review before a fair member-level report card can assign responsibility.

What These Metrics Mean

Confirmed official estimate coverage is intentionally strict. It counts official cost-estimate metadata only. It does not count open-ended appropriations, fixed bill-text amounts, or automated fiscal classifications as CBO estimates.
Resolved fiscal classification coverage shows how much of the Government Spending bill universe has been classified well enough for internal metrics review.
Legislative progress is separate from fiscal impact. A bill can be fiscally significant but still have little or no legislative progress.
Stale or dormant status measures inaction. This is potentially important for future congressional report cards.
CBO estimate eligibility prevents the system from unfairly penalizing introduced-only or referred-only bills that may not normally have a CBO estimate yet.
Role-aware accountability attribution separates sponsor/cosponsor initiative credit from committee and chamber leadership review. It prevents the report card from punishing the wrong person when a bill stalls.

Suggested Public Disclosure

Government Spending fiscal classifications are internally review-ready. The metrics distinguish official cost estimates from automated fiscal classifications, and bills with open-ended fiscal exposure are not treated as zero cost. Legislative progress metrics show whether bills are advancing, stalled, stale, or awaiting review; this score should be treated as an accountability warning, not as a cost estimate. Role-aware attribution is now available for the current target set, so sponsor/cosponsor initiative can be separated from committee or chamber leadership review. Public grades should still disclose data confidence, official-estimate coverage, amount coverage, and attribution readiness.