CASE STUDIES

Beginning in 2004, the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency (LHFA) contracted with GCR for the completion of a statewide housing needs assessment.  The methodology proposed by GCR for this initiative included the preparation of a detailed demographic profile of each parish in the State and a comprehensive examination of a variety of critical housing issues in Louisiana, including changes in population; the trend toward smaller household sizes; rates of change in household income levels and housing costs; and the age and overall condition of the existing housing stock.  As a part of this effort, GCR designed and developed a web-based application for the analysis and mapping of demographic and housing data in all 64 Louisiana parishes. This application allows for continuous updating and refinement as new data from the Census Bureau and other relevant data sources become available. The web-based application also allows the assembled data to be accessed and utilized by a wide variety of users in a concise, user-friendly format.

In 2005, GCR updated the website to reflect the damage caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. GCR incorporated FEMA and SBA housing damage reports into the analysis, categorizing units by tenure, insurance and affordability, and utilized the analysis to forecast affordable housing need in the post-storm period. Additional to the damage estimates, GCR incorporated the changes in housing costs, GO Zone residential construction activity, and shifts in the labor market, to determine housing need. The quantified loss and resulting demand were presented in actual and relative terms.
The estimates of low income housing needs, coupled with the parish-level analysis of extensive demographic and socio-economic data, provide the LHFA with a critical foundation for prioritizing its assets and devising strategies to provide a greater quantity and quality of affordable housing in communities where there is a documented, urgent need.