IMPACT DC's Healthy Housing Map

Many Washington, D.C., apartment complexes are “garden-style” rather than high-rise buildings, meaning that they are made up of multiple shorter buildings with numerous addresses rather than one building that is tall with numerous units. A complex may be over multiple city blocks, with the management or rental office address identified as the “building address” in city records.

In order to map addresses to apartment complexes, we need to know what addresses make up an apartment complex. We were able to obtain this information for many apartment complexes with subsidies or tax credits in D.C. However, we have not been able to obtain this information for apartment complexes without any subsidy or tax credit.

This means that the properties represented on the map are accurate, but that properties without subsidies or tax credits are underrepresented on the map. The map is able to show a greater number of properties deemed “affordable” as a result of the subsidies and tax credits. Many of these housing complexes are developed by nonprofit developers.

We are not suggesting that housing conditions are not an issue in privately developed and owned properties.

The data reflected in the map is data obtained from Children’s Law Center cases and publicly available data obtained from the agency responsible for housing code enforcement in D.C. (formerly known as the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and now known as the Department of Buildings). DCRA data was accurate in terms of what it found, but it was known to be limited in terms of finding the complete range of housing conditions.

In addition, the DCRA disproportionately represents certain wards because it reflects who chooses to call the agency. Thus, the data reflected in the maps is accurate, but may not provide the full picture of what is occurring in a particular building or in the city. Finally, data was also obtained from reports of housing conditions from families of children with asthma seen at the IMPACT DC Asthma Clinic.

More information about data sources can be found in the map methodology documentation (PDF).

In order to protect the confidentiality of patients, only buildings with three or more patients at the time of mapping were included on the map with the asthma patient filter on it. This often excluded smaller properties due to the number of people living on the property and the lower likelihood of having three or more children in the asthma registry living on the property.

To see smaller buildings with asthma hazard conditions only, it is possible to remove the filters that include only asthma patients.