Update Catalog with HUD LIHTC 2020 data

[ptatian]

There are no instructions for LIHTC updates as of yet and the process requires manual checking to match projects. This first issue will update existing Catalog projects with the HUD LIHTC data. A subsequent issue will add new LIHTC projects to the Catalog.

[ptatian]

Create Prog\Updates\Update_LIHTC_2020.sas

There is no template for this process but you can follow the model of 2013 update based on Prog\Updates\Update_LIHTC_2013.sas. Make a copy of the 2013 program in C:\DCData\Libraries\PresCat\Prog\Updates and rename file to 2020.

Edit the program to replace 2013 with 2020 throughout. You also should delete the code after the manual_subsidy_match= and address_correct= parameters, but leaving the comma (,) between them. And change quiet=n to quiet=y.

%Update_LIHTC( Update_file=Lihtc_2020, quiet=y,
  manual_subsidy_match=
  ,
  address_correct=
)

The next step is to submit this code and review the LOG and output. In addition the SAS listing file, three other files are created.

• Update_Lihtc_2020_project.pdf - This report lists all of the data that will be revised in Prescat.Project as part of the update. This information is generated from the subsidy updates (next bullet), so we will just give this a quick scan to see if anything seems off.

• Update_Lihtc_2020_subsidy.pdf - This report has two sections.

  • The first section (Updated variables) lists all of the data that will be revised in Prescat.Subsidy. For affordability and compliance dates, you will often see a new value and then a yellow-highlighted "exception" value. The HUD database only gives the year the project was placed in service, not a full date. In this situation, we assume the date placed in service was Jan. 1 of that year. But we previously got some data from DC DHCD that told us the specific dates when projects were placed in service. These are the dates listed in the exception column.

    In a "normal" update, we would replace the value currently in the Catalog data with the value from the latest update file. But we don't want the more precise DHCD dates to be replaced by the HUD dates. The exception value is what prevents that from happening.

    The upshot is, we should note any places where the year in the "New value" column is different than the years in the "Old value" or "Exception" columns. These differences may be OK, but we may want to double-check them.

  • The second section (New subsidy records) lists LIHTC records that will be added to Prescat.Subsidy. The new rows are highlighted in yellow in the report. Here we mostly want to check whether the subsidized unit counts are consistent with the total units and assisted units for other subsidies. We also want to make sure that the new LIHTC record is not a duplicate of an existing LIHTC record in the Catalog.

• Update_Lihtc_2020_subsidy_nonmatch.xls - This report lists all the LIHTC projects that could not be matched to existing Catalog projects. For the most part, these are projects that we will add to the Catalog in the next step. We should check, however, that we didn't have any failed matches. There's no single or completely reliable way of doing this but I would suggest a few things. First, look at the project names and then check the Catalog to see if similar names already exist, keeping in mind there might be some spelling variations. You can use the Catalog PDF that you created for Network or the Housing Insights web site to search for projects.

  Second, we should check whether any of the addresses for the LIHTC projects are overlapping with existing Catalog projects. The program is supposed to check for this but a manual review doesn't hurt. My suggestion is to search for the addresses in Housing Insights and see if they land on or near any existing projects. If you copy and paste the street address into the Housing Insights search bar and press Enter, it should zoom to that address on the map. You can then see what is around that location.

  NOTE: When you try to open Update_Lihtc_2020_subsidy_nonmatch.xls you will probably get a message from Excel that the file format doesn't match or may be corrupted. That's OK. Just click "Yes" to open the file. (The report is a SAS-generated XML file that acts like a spreadsheet, but isn't a real spreadsheet. That's why that message appears.)

For the most part, there shouldn't be any further action to take from the above reviews but we may have to make some manual adjustments if projects or subsidies aren't matching properly. I can explain how to do that if the need arises.

Once this issue is complete, we will deal with any new LIHTC projects in the next issue.

[ptatian]

@dharvey17 Next issue to work on now that you have created the HUD LIHTC data set.

[ptatian]

@dharvey17 Need to batch submit Prog\Updates\Update_LIHTC_2020.sas on SAS1, review and copy LOG file pathname here, and then close this issue.

[dharvey17]

\sas1\DCDATA\Libraries\PresCat\Prog\Updates\Update_LIHTC_2020.log