Claremont Housing Inventory Project

The City of Claremont, New Hampshire approached the Rockefeller Centers Policy Research Shop about methods for surveying housing stock in the city. At that time, Claremont had just received a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) grant with provisions attached to its award. One of these, the one we were charged with researching, was to determine the current state of the housing inventory in Claremont. Two important goals were to collect accurate information about residents and about basic measures of quality for each residential unit via a housing survey. An analysis of housing survey methodologies and options are contained in this report. After doing preliminary research on other cities throughout the United States and their housing survey methods, we have compiled a wide range of factors that a housing inventory survey should address. We have divided these into three categories - exterior, interior, and demographics - with the measures in each section categorized into a condensed method and a more comprehensive one. We have tried to ensure that varying amounts of time and resources are taken into account so that the combination of methods Claremont ends up choosing will meet its needs.