Preserving affordable housing requires more than funding, partnerships, and policy solutions. It also requires a clear understanding of where affordable housing exists, which properties may be at risk, and how preservation efforts can have the greatest impact.
For National Housing Trust (NHT), that work begins with data. The organization uses the National Housing Preservation Database (NHPD) to better understand affordable housing portfolios across the country, helping inform technical assistance, research, policy development, and preservation efforts that support communities nationwide.
National Housing Trust's approach to preservation
Founded 40 years ago, NHT is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving, producing, and improving affordable housing. Drawing on its experience as an affordable housing owner, developer, lender, and provider of resident services, NHT works with communities across the country to translate on-the-ground experience into practical policy solutions.
NHT Senior Manager of State & Local PolicyMoha Thakur works with public agencies, advocates, and housing organizations to support the preservation of affordable housing through technical assistance, research, and policy development. As a centralized database of federally assisted rental housing properties, the NHPD is a valuable tool for NHT.
"It's a good starting point for understanding the universe of properties we're trying to preserve through our technical assistance, policy advocacy, research, and policy solutions," Thakur said.
Why centralized preservation data matters
Much of NHT's work involves helping communities understand what affordable housing they have today, what may be at risk in the future, and identifying and implementing policy solutions to help preserve our existing affordable housing stock. However, before organizations or localities can develop preservation strategies or policy recommendations, they first need a reliable picture of their existing affordable housing stock.
According to Thakur, one of the NHPD's greatest strengths is bringing existing affordable housing data together in one place. Having this information in one publicly accessible resource makes it easier to understand affordable housing portfolios across multiple states and communities before diving deeper into local analysis.
"It helps answer practical questions like which properties exist, where they're located, and how many affordable homes are at stake," Thakur said.
Because NHT works with communities nationwide, property or subsidy-level information is often spread across multiple local, state, and federal sources. The NHPD makes it possible to quickly identify affordable housing properties, understand their characteristics, and begin assessing preservation risks across different jurisdictions.
Rather than replacing local knowledge, the NHPD provides a foundation that NHT combines with community expertise, administrative data, and stakeholder input to better understand local preservation needs.
Turning data into action
For NHT, the value of the NHPD extends beyond identifying where affordable housing exists. The data helps shape conversations about where preservation efforts are most needed and supports policy recommendations tailored to each community.
According to Thakur, having access to high-quality data offers the organization the context needed to understand each property's preservation significance, how many apartment homes it includes, where it's located, and when it may be at risk.
One example is NHT's work with the Virginia Affordable Housing Preservation Coalition. When the Coalition began exploring preservation needs across the state, one of its first priorities was to understand the existing affordable housing inventory and identify properties with expiring affordability restrictions.
Using information from the NHPD, along with additional state and local data sources, the Coalition developed a clearer picture of preservation risks. It used those findings to inform conversations about policy solutions, including efforts to establish a local right of first refusal through statewide enabling legislation, giving a specific group the first opportunity to purchase a property by meeting the terms offered by an outside buyer to help preserve affordable housing before it is lost. A dashboard of existing affordable housing properties gave Coalition members a shared understanding of the state's preservation landscape before they began discussing policy solutions.
Looking beyond large affordable housing properties
The NHPD has also helped NHT identify preservation challenges that might otherwise receive less attention.
During a recent technical assistance project in Pennsylvania, NHT examined the preservation needs of small subsidized affordable housing properties. Using the NHPD as a starting point, the team quickly identified the universe of smaller affordable housing developments across the state before evaluating which preservation tools were available to support them and offered a roadmap to implement new policy solutions where gaps existed.
The analysis revealed that, while these properties are often overlooked in preservation conversations, they collectively constitute a significant share of the affordable housing stock across the Commonwealth. The findings broadened the preservation conversation beyond larger developments and highlighted the important role smaller subsidized properties play in the nation's affordable housing inventory.
In Thakur's experience, preservation conversations often focus on larger developments, given the economies of scale, making smaller subsidized properties easier to overlook.
"This work helped shine a light on a part of the affordable housing portfolio that otherwise receives a little less attention," Thakur said.
Advice for others using the NHPD
For organizations just getting started, Thakur recommends treating the NHPD as the first step rather than the final answer.
"The NHPD is a great starting point for understanding the affordable housing portfolio in your jurisdiction and identifying where deeper analysis might be needed," Thakur explained. "Pair that data with your local knowledge, outreach, and other administrative sources to understand property conditions, ownership, tenant needs, and preservation opportunities."
While national housing conversations often focus on increasing the supply of affordable housing, preserving existing affordable homes is just as important.
"We need accurate data to understand what our affordable housing portfolio looks like," Thakur said. "That allows organizations to identify preservation risks, develop policy and programmatic solutions, and help communities act before affordable homes are permanently lost."
Learn more from the National Housing Trust
Interested in learning more about preserving small subsidized affordable housing properties? Read National Housing Trust's recent article, Strategies to Preserve Small Subsidized Affordable Housing Properties, which explores preservation challenges facing these properties and the policy solutions needed to support them.
Access the Virginia Housing Preservation Dashboard, developed by the Virginia Housing Alliance in partnership with HousingForward Virginia, Locus, and Virginia Housing. The Dashboard provides interactive locality-level data on affordable rental units in the Commonwealth supported by the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. Users can see where and when each property will reach the end of affordability restrictions, as well as how many units are in jeopardy. The Dashboard also layers additional data such as housing quality, market rent growth, and more.
Explore the NHPD to access property-level data, preservation-risk insights, and affordable-housing trends nationwide.
Are you using the NHPD in your work? We want to hear from you. Share how your organization is using the database for preservation planning, policy, advocacy, research, housing navigation, or other efforts for a chance to be featured in an upcoming blog in this series.
