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WORKING DRAFT FOR HCD REVIEW <br />NEEDS ASSESSMENT 3-1 SAN LEANDRO HOUSING ELEMENT <br />3. NEEDS ASSESSMENT <br /> <br /> <br />introduction <br /> <br />The purpose of the Needs Assessment is to describe demographic, housing, and economic conditions in <br />San Leandro so that the City’s housing policies and actions reflect local needs. The Needs Assessment <br />includes data on population, household characteristics, income and employment, special needs groups, <br />housing stock characteristics, building condition, and housing values. As appropriate, it presents this data <br />side by side with data from Alameda County and other communities to facilitate an understanding of the <br />city’s characteristics relative to the region. Consistent with State law, this chapter also includes a <br />discussion of subsidized units at risk of converting to market -rate rents, a discussion of residential energy <br />conservation, and an evaluation of the needs of homeless and extremely low income households. <br /> <br />The starting point for this Needs Assessment is the 2010 San Leandro Housing Element. Data from that <br />Element has been updated to 2014, or to other benchmarks in time where more current data is available. <br />The 2010 Element was adopted in April 2010, the same month the 2010 Census was taken. Thus, it relied <br />on 2000 Census data and various estimates from the Census Bureau and other sources. The 2015-2023 <br />Element relies on the 2010 Census, as well as more current estimates from the American Community <br />Survey (see text box below), the California Department of Finance, the City of San Leandro, and other <br />more current data sources. <br /> <br />The American Community Survey <br />The American Community Survey (ACS) was initiated in the 1990s to provide a means of estimating <br />the characteristics of the population on a more regular basis than the decennial census. The ACS is <br />designed to replace the Census “long form” with an annual survey, with results that can be <br />extrapolated to the population at large. Since 2003, annual ACS reports have been produced for all <br />counties and cities with 65,000 people or more. <br />The Census long form is currently administered to 1 in 6 American households every 10 years and <br />includes detailed demographic, household, and employment questions. The ACS is distributed to a <br />smaller sample size—totaling about 3 million households nationwide. Thus, the findings for smaller <br />cities like San Leandro may be less reliable than the decennial census. Each ACS statistic is <br />presented with an estimated margin of error. The margins range from 10 percent to as high as 50 <br />percent of the figure listed. ACS data is typically presented as a five-year average. <br />When cited in this Housing Element, the data is for the 2007-2011 or 2008-2012 periods. ACS data <br />for 2007-2011 was compiled by ABAG specifically for use in local Housing Elements.