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Renter-Occupied Housing Units

Vacant For Rent Units

About the New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey (HVS)

Beginning in 1965 and in order to fulfill its responsibilities under various rent control and rent stabilization laws, New York City has regularly retained the U.S. Census Bureau to conduct a comprehensive survey of the New York City housing market. The resulting "Housing and Vacancy Survey" (HVS) is an invaluable source of information about the state of the City's housing stock, residential population, and other housing-related issues and trends. To prepare the most recent "1993 Housing and Vacancy Survey," the U.S. Census Bureau conducted household interviews of a sample of some 18,000 housing units in New York City between late January and May of 1993.

How to Read HVS Tables

When looking at the HVS tables, be sure to keep the following things in mind:

The HVS is a SAMPLE survey. The Census Bureau interviews thousands of households and then "weights" the data to achieve citywide totals. Remember that small numbers in the HVS tables may not be statistically significant.

The HVS is a survey based on HOUSING UNITS. For the survey the Census Bureau selects a sample of housing units (i.e. addresses) and interviews the households in these units. This is different from some other surveys, which track households.

Interpreting the data in the tables may not always be intuitive. Here are a few examples:

• Race and Ethnicity of Householder - The "householder" is the person (or one of the persons) who rents or owns the sample unit (i.e. the apartment or house the Census interviewer visits). The HVS indicates the number of HOUSEHOLDS (in this case synonymous with "dwellings") in which the householder is white, black, etc. Note that this variable is NOT the same as the population of whites, blacks, etc. Nor does it show the number of mixed households (e.g. two roommates rent an apartment, one is black and one is white. However, since only one will be counted as the "householder", the data will reflect the race of only one roommate).
  
  
• Condition of Building - All of the numbers in these tables are numbers of housing units (in the case of renter-occupied units, synonymous with "households"). Thus, under the "Total Renter" column we see the number 23,336 in the "Dilapidated" column. This is NOT the number of dilapidated Buildings but the number of housing units IN dilapidated buildings.
  
  
• Household Receiving Public Assistance - In some cases the data refers to the householder and in some cases to the household. For instance, in this case the numbers refer to HOUSEHOLDS (i.e. the persons occupying the dwelling unit; NOT necessarily synonymous with "family") which have one or more persons receiving public assistance.

The Census Bureau reports the HVS data in a number of "Series", including separate tabulations for "Renter-Occupied" housing units, "Vacant For Rent" units, etc. We currently have data on Renter-occupied units and will soon post the "Vacant For Rent" series.

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