CAPE/Census: Housing Units value vs Household values

[LonnieY]

Question

I’m looking for a bit of clarification between two variables. Total Housing Units and Total Households from both the Experian and Census dataset return a number that is about 1,000,000 different than each other for the State of Texas.

I thought Housing Units was defined as…

Housing unit - A house, an apartment, a mobile home or trailer, a group of rooms, or a single room occupied as separate living quarters, or if vacant, intended for occupancy as separate living quarters. Separate living quarters are those in which the occupants live separately from any other individuals in the building and which have direct access from outside the building or through a common hall. For vacant units, the criteria of separateness and direct access are applied to the intended occupants whenever possible.

…and then both Total Housing Units and Total Households would just be a count of what fell under the above definition; but I must be wrong!

Answer

You have a definition for Housing Units but not Households, which reflects the difference is occupancy. The difference between the values should be vacant units. Households = occupied housing units.

Definition from www.Census.gov:

A household includes all the people who occupy a housing unit (such as a house or apartment) as their usual place of residence.

A household includes the related family members and all the unrelated people, if any, such as lodgers, foster children, wards, or employees who share the housing unit. A person living alone in a housing unit, or a group of unrelated people sharing a housing unit such as partners or roomers, is also counted as a household. The count of households excludes group quarters. There are two major categories of households, "family" and "nonfamily."

Thevariables belowfrom Allocate display Vacant + Occupied Housing Units (also Total Households)= Total Housing Units.

Looking for answers at www.Census.govis always a great place to start! I usually find the answer to my questions somewhere in their Glossary, Index or FAQ links.