Editorial & Corrections Policy

PlainVoucher turns HUD's published Housing Choice Voucher data — Public Housing Authority directories, payment standards, Fair Market Rents, and income limits — into readable agency, metro, and state pages. This page explains how those pages are produced, the standards we hold them to, and exactly how to flag a number that looks wrong.

How Pages Are Produced

PlainVoucher's agency, metro, and state pages are generated from published federal datasets: HUD's PIH Open Data PHA directory, HUD USER's Fair Market Rent, payment-standard, and income-limit files, and HUD's ArcGIS FeatureServer for Housing Choice Voucher tract concentration. We download each source directly from HUD, load it into a structured database, and render every page from that database. The figures you see — unit counts, bedroom-level payment standards, income thresholds, and voucher-vs-rent gap percentages — are computed from HUD's numbers, not hand-typed and not estimated by us.

This is a data-publishing model: the same template renders thousands of pages so that every PHA and metro is covered consistently. We are transparent that these data pages are produced programmatically from the source datasets rather than written individually. The editorial work goes into the pipeline — how data is sourced, normalized, joined, and computed — into the methodology, and into the written guides; not into hand-authoring thousands of near-identical agency pages, which would add no accuracy and invite inconsistency.

Sourcing Standards

  • Primary sources only. Program figures come from HUD's published files — the PIH Open Data PHA directory, HUDUSER Fair Market Rents, payment standards, and income limits, and the HUD ArcGIS HCV tract layer — as documented in our methodology.
  • Attribution in context. Each data page names its dataset and vintage year near the figures, and links to the methodology that explains how HUD calculates Fair Market Rents and payment standards.
  • Derived values are labeled. Numbers we compute ourselves — percentile rankings, voucher-vs-rent gap percentages, state medians — are presented as our analysis of HUD data, distinct from HUD's published figures. Our voucher-vs-rent gap joins HUD payment standards against advertised market-rent medians from PlainRent; that comparison is our analysis, clearly framed as such.
  • No invented data. Where a value is unavailable for an area, the page says so rather than filling the gap with an estimate.

Update Cadence

HUD publishes most of our source files once per federal fiscal year. Payment standards and Fair Market Rents reflect HUD Fiscal Year 2025 (effective October 1, 2024); income limits reflect FY25 (effective April 1, 2024). When HUD releases new annual data we refresh our database and recompute derived metrics, typically within about two weeks. Our PHA directory is consolidated quarterly; HCV tract concentration follows HUD's own irregular schedule. Between releases the figures are stable because the source itself does not change. The reference year is shown on every data page.

Corrections Process

If a figure on PlainVoucher looks wrong, please tell us. Because our pages are generated from HUD's datasets, a genuine error almost always traces back to either the source data or our processing of it — so this is how we handle a report:

  1. Report. Email corrections@plainvoucher.com or use the contact page with the page URL and the number that looks off.
  2. Verify. We compare the figure against HUD's published documentation for that agency, area, and year.
  3. Fix at the source. If the value is wrong on our side, we correct it in the database and pipeline that generate the page — not just on the single page — so every affected page is fixed at once. If the figure faithfully reflects HUD's published data, we explain that and, where useful, add context.
  4. Note it. Material corrections that change a published figure are reflected the next time the page rebuilds, with the data reference year shown so you can see which release a page is based on.

We aim to acknowledge data-error reports within a few business days.

Editorial Independence

PlainVoucher is an independent publisher and is not affiliated with HUD, the Section 8 program, or any local Public Housing Authority. We do not accept payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from any PHA, landlord, housing-counseling agency, or other covered entity. Our only revenue is contextual display advertising served by Google AdSense; advertisers do not influence which agencies or metros we cover or how we present data. Our rankings are computed mechanically from HUD figures, so no agency can pay to move up a list.

Appropriate Use

PlainVoucher is for informational purposes only and does not constitute housing, financial, or legal advice. Payment standards and Fair Market Rents are HUD's policy benchmarks, not a quote for any specific unit, and PHAs may set payment standards between 90% and 110% of the published FMR. Eligibility, waitlist status, portability, and appeal rights depend on current federal regulations and local PHA policy. For decisions about a voucher or a lease, confirm current figures with your local PHA and consult a HUD-approved housing counselor or qualified professional. See our full appropriate-use disclaimer.