Know what the evidence says

What is current. What is provisional. What still needs proof.

Affordable Forever is an early-warning and preservation-research system. This page shows where the data comes from, how recently key layers were checked, and where a building still needs document-level verification.

Current data status

Dates below show when Affordable Forever last checked or built each major data layer. Some sources change over time, especially elected-official and legislative information, so time-sensitive information is refreshed before it is used for advocacy.

National LIHTC property layer

Current search universe

National LIHTC property data derived from the National Housing Preservation Database. This is the dataset that currently powers the public tenant address search. It does not contain every residential building.

Primary use: Current LIHTC property search, LIHTC status and screening windows
Key limit: No match means no match in the current LIHTC/NHPD search layer — not that the building does not exist or has no other protections
Source: NHPD / NLIHC & PAHRC

NYC LIHTC enrichment

Built Aug. 10, 2026

2,587 NYC LIHTC property records enriched from the NHPD All Subsidies research export for owner type, 4%/9% credit type and identified active federal subsidy signals.

Owner signals: 970 for-profit · 460 nonprofit · 22 public · 1,135 unknown
Credit signals: 889 4% · 975 9% · 108 both · 615 unknown
Key limit: Not a complete ownership history or Protection Stack

NYC Council geography

March 2026 release

Official NYC Department of City Planning Council district geometry used to assign properties to Council districts.

Release: DCP 26A / March 2026
Use: Organizer filter, district dashboard and Council briefs
Key limit: Officeholder names are verified separately

Assembly & Senate geography

Jan. 1, 2025 vintage

U.S. Census Bureau TIGERweb 2024 State Legislative Districts, filtered to New York.

Use: Assembly and State Senate assignments/briefs
Source: Census TIGERweb Legislative layers
Key limit: Boundary geometry does not supply current officeholder identity

Current elected officials

Verified Aug. 9, 2026

All 51 NYC Councilmembers, 150 Assemblymembers and 63 State Senators were checked against official legislative directories and stored separately from GIS data.

Use: District briefs and comparison dashboard
Refresh rule: Recheck after elections, vacancies or before high-stakes advocacy

COPA / TOPA / notice advocacy

Time-sensitive

Legislative status is kept separate from the property-data engine because bill text, sponsors and committee action can change quickly.

Last research pass: Aug. 10, 2026
What to expect: Official legislative sources are rechecked before a public call to action

Three evidence levels

Affordable Forever uses the same evidence model across its major research tools.

1 · Dataset signal

An administrative dataset reports a status, date, unit count or program. Useful for screening and pattern finding. Not automatically the controlling legal fact.

2 · Enriched research

Additional public sources add ownership, subsidy, credit type, transaction, geography or other context. Stronger for triage, but still may be incomplete.

3 · Verified legal fact

The governing agreement, recorded restriction, contract, statute or other authoritative primary document has actually been reviewed and cited.

Where the data still needs verification

These limits matter because the safest answer is sometimes “we need the governing document,” not a guess. They also show where tenants, organizers, agencies and researchers can add better information.

The current public address search is LIHTC/NHPD-scoped, not a universal residential-building search.A missing address means the current LIHTC search layer did not return a match. It does not mean the building does not exist or lacks rent regulation, affordability restrictions, tax benefits, regulatory agreements or other protections. Broader NYC residential-building coverage is under development.

Most building-level governing expiration dates still require document review.A database can identify an important year to investigate, but the controlling agreement may contain a different or longer affordability term.

No single federal dataset captures every New York affordability protection.HPD/HDC/HCR restrictions, 421-a/Affordable New York, J-51/J-51R, 485-x, Article XI, rent stabilization and other layers can overlap and must be checked separately.

Owner type is unknown for 43.9% of the current NYC research layer.Unknown does not mean problematic. It means the controlling or registered ownership entity still needs to be identified and verified.

Total property units are not the same as currently regulated affordable units.District and organizer tools label this field as total units in LIHTC properties rather than assuming every apartment remains income-restricted.

A missing protection in our data is not proof that no protection exists.Public datasets can be incomplete. A building may have a local regulatory agreement, rent-regulated apartments, a tax-benefit restriction or another protection that is not yet visible in the combined record.

Time-sensitive political information can change faster than property data.Bill status, sponsor lists and officeholders are dated and refreshed separately so a housing record does not silently carry stale advocacy information.

Corrections are part of the evidence process. If a source changes or a building-level record appears wrong, tell us what you found. Affordable Forever can preserve the original dataset signal while adding a better verified source. See Methodology & Sources →