Housing Study Glossary

Cost burden
The Office of Housing and Urban Development defines a household as cost burdened when it spends more than 30 percent of its income on housing costs. This is commonly used to define affordable housing around the country though it may vary between program and state. The share cost burdened is the percentage of all households that are burdened.

Gross rent
The contract rent for a housing unit plus the expected average monthly cost of utilities (water, sewer and fuel, if paid for by the renter).

Housing unit-to-person ratio
This ratio compares the number of homes to the number of people living in an area. It’s calculated by dividing the total number of housing units by the total population. A low ratio can mean there are not enough homes, which can lead to overcrowding and increased risk of homelessness.

A housing unit-to-person ratio of 1 means that there is 1 housing unit for every person. A ratio above 1 indicates there are more housing units than people. This is seen in some communities in Berkshire County where there are more vacation or seasonally vacant homes and fewer full-time residents.

For example, in Springfield, the ratio is 0.41, meaning there are .41 housing units for each person that lives there. In Amherst, the ratio is 0.29 meaning there are only 0.29 housing units for each person and there are more people living in the same unit.

Inflation adjustments to $2024
The $2024 indicates the 2023 data was adjusted to 2024 dollars to account for inflation and show data in real dollars. While this data could have been shown in 2023 dollars, 2024 dollars is a more current value. Additionally, in the report, the income and rent data was adjusted in this way to compare data across time. We used the inflation-adjusted numbers in the dashboard to be consistent with the report.

Median
The median is used in these dashboards to show the typical household income or rent in a location. More generally, the median is the value at the center of a distribution. If you took the household incomes of every household in a town, ordered them, and took the middle value, that would be the “median.”

Municipal sewer and water
Most residential properties in western Massachusetts receive water or sewer from town managed infrastructure, meaning that homes connect to piping in the street for wastewater and fresh water. Some communities in western Massachusetts, particularly rural areas, do not have this capacity. In these cases, individual homes have their own septic systems and denser housing developments such as condominium complexes may treat their own wastewater. These residences may be connected to well-water which may require its own water treatment before use.

Poverty
Households are classified as in poverty when the total income of the people in the household is below an amount set by the federal government.

Renter housing units
Housing occupied by a permanent resident who is not the property owner (AKA a renter). The share of renter units is the percentage of total renter-occupied housing.

Vacant housing units
A housing unit is vacant if no one is living in it at the time the Census conducts its annual survey, or if it is only temporarily occupied by people who normally live elsewhere.

Types of vacancy

• Seasonal are vacant units used or intended for use only in certain seasons or for weekends or other occasional use throughout the year.
• For sale or rent are units currently unoccupied for the purpose of being sold to new owners or rented to new tenants.
• The share of vacant units is the percentage of all housing units (occupied and vacant) that are vacant.