Housing Choice Voucher holders looking to relocate should check out this new opportunity map from PolicyMaps (http://www.policymap.com). You click on an area of the map to determine the level of opportunity available to low-income residents. It’s free, so bring the link with you when you go to speak with your case worker about porting to a new location.

The Housing Opportunity Index sprang from a 2011 research paper that attempts to quantify low-income housing opportunities by examining data from the 2010 census. The research couples lifestyle variables — such as work availability, commute time and voucher-holder density – with population and housing statistics to determine which areas offer the most opportunity to low-income assisted housing dwellers.

“The index will be designed for use by Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) to help voucher-holders identify neighborhoods (defined as Census Tracts) that have relatively low poverty rates, an available stock of at-or-below Fair Market Rent housing, economic opportunities for HCV holders, and a relatively low density of subsidized households,” according to Housing Choice Voucher Marketing Opportunity Index: Analysis of Data at the Tract and Block Group Level from HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research (http://bit.ly/HTys3F).

Here’s how you get to the opportunity map. After logging onto the site, click go to Policy Map in the upper right corner of the page. A map of the United States appears. Choose Federal Guidelines from the menu list that runs across the upper portion of the map page. Now that the Opportunity Index data has loaded, you can select your area of the country by placing the cursor there and clicking.

Each time you click the area, a pop-up displays specific mapped areas to zoom-in on. Once you’ve narrowed down your mapped area, you can use the +/- function the upper left of the map to move in closer or fade out further. The darker the shaded area on the map, the more opportunity the area contains. Areas of the map that are white contain no opportunities for low-income assisted-housing recipients.

High Opportunity Means Low Poverty, Plenty of Housing, Lots of Work, Few Vouchers

What makes a high-opportunity area? The report led to the recognition of these characteristics of a high-opportunity neighborhood:

• Poverty below 10% of the population.
• Poverty that is stable or falling over time.
• Assisted housing is less than 5% of tract, and less than 15% of block.
• HCV households consume 4% or less of housing stock.
• Minority concentration at 20% or less.
• Adult unemployment at less than 5%.
• Work commute under 30 minutes for 75% of population.
•  High school drop-out rate less than 15%.

Back in March 2011, less than 4% of the 56,000 housing tracts in the study would have qualified as a high-quality neighborhood. On the map, these areas would show as deep purple. But only 260,000 units fitting the high-opportunity description are available in the country, while the housing-choice voucher population is around 2.2 million families.

Just trying to find communities with less than 10% of the population living in poverty is difficult. “If the HCV program were to be restricted such that participating households could rent units only in neighborhoods with poverty below 10 percent, only 5.2 million rental units would be available with rents below the applicable Fair Market Rents,” the report points out. Based on average usage, the report predicts that only 300,000 units would be available in all the low-poverty areas of the country combined.

The best neighborhoods with the most opportunity consist of less than 10% poverty; less than 20% of families headed by a single woman; less than 15% are high-school dropouts; and area unemployment was less than 5%. If you locate any of these neighborhoods, you should jump on the opportunity. Only one in twenty Census tracks contain such opportunity filled neighborhoods.