Florida's 1985 growth management legislation requires all cities and counties in the state to prepare and adopt Comprehensive Plans, including a housing element. In 1993, the legislature revised Chapter 163 of the Florida Statutes to establish a uniform method of data collection and preliminary analysis for the housing element. The Affordable Housing Needs Assessment (AHNA) is intended to fulfill this requirement.

The 1993 law directed Florida's Department of Community Affairs (DCA) to conduct an affordable housing needs assessment for all local jurisdictions with four objectives:

• Assist local governments in the preparation of updates to the Housing Elements of Comprehensive Plans;
• Focus more attention on affordable housing needs;
• Provide local governments with a common starting point for subsequent evaluation of the Housing Element; and
• Provide state agencies with a consistent database with which to analyze housing needs at the state level.

Subsequently, DCA contracted with the Shimberg Center to develop the housing needs assessment methodology. The needs assessment is composed primarily of data on housing supply and demand in Florida. The supply data include Census data on Florida's housing stock that are updated with current information from building permit activity and property appraiser data. Demand or demographic data include estimates and projections of households by age, tenure, size, and income based on 2000 Census data. The AHNA data also include population projections and inventories of public housing and rental housing receiving state or federal subsidies. Back to AHNA main page.