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.