Submission of Proposed Information Collection to OMB

DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

Office of Administration

[Docket No. N-94-3767]

Submission of Proposed Information Collection to OMB

AGENCY: Office of Administration, HUD.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The proposed information collection requirement described

below has been submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

for expedited review, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act. The

Department is soliciting public comments on the subject proposal.

DATES: Comments due date: May 23, 1994.

ADDRESSES: Interested persons are invited to submit comments regarding

this proposal. Comments must be received within seven (7) working days

from the date of this Notice. Comments should refer to the proposal by

name and should be sent to: Josephe F. Lackey, Jr., OMB Desk Officer,

Office of Management and Budget, New Executive Office Building,

Washington, DC 20503.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Kay F. Weaver, Reports Management Officer, Department of Housing and

Urban Development, 451 7th Street, SW., Washington, DC 20410, telephone

no. (202) 708-0050. This is not a toll-free number. Copies of the

proposed forms and other available documents submitted to OMB may be

obtained from Ms. Weaver.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This Notice informs the public that the

Department of Housing and Urban Development has submitted to OMB, for

expedited processing, and information collection package with respect

to the Public Housing Residents Anti-crime Survey. HUD is requesting a

7-day OMB review of this information collection.

HUD is currently implementing Operation Safe Home, a joint anti-

crime effort with the U.S. Departments of Justice, Treasury, and the

Office of National Drug Control, to eliminate criminal activity in

public housing. A key component of Safe Home is coordinated strikes by

Federal agencies against drug-related crime in public housing.

Predatory violent crime in public housing also has been targeted for

action. In an effort to make Operation Safe Home as effective as

possible and to guide HUD's policy and legislative agenda, the

Secretary wants to survey public housing residents on their opinions

regarding crime and associated problems.

These survey data will be used directly by the Office of Public and

Indian Housing to strengthen HUD's crime prevention activities in

public housing and by the Office of Policy Development and Research to

enhance HUD's policy and legislative initiatives for crime prevention

in a broad range of other settings as well.

The Department has submitted the proposal for the collection of

information, as described below, to OMB for review, as required by the

Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. chapter 35):

(1) The title of the information collection proposal;

(2) The office of the agency to collect the information;

(3) The description of the need for the information and its

proposed use;

(4) The agency form number, if applicable;

(5) What members of the public will be affected by the proposal;

(6) How frequently information submission will be required;

(7) An estimate of the total number of hours needed to prepare the

information submission including numbers of respondents, frequency of

response, and hours of response;

(8) Whether the proposal is new or an extension, reinstatement, or

revision of an information collection requirement; and

(9) The names and telephone numbers of an agency official familiar

with the proposal and of the OMB Desk Officer for the Department.

Authority: Section 3507 of the paperwork Reduction Act, 44

U.S.C. 3507; Section 7(d) of the Department of Housing and Urban

Development Act, 42 U.S.C. 3535(d).

Dated: May 3, 1994.

Michael A. Stegman,

Assistant Secretary, Office of Policy Development and Research.

Submission of Proposed Information Collection to OMB

Proposal: Public Housing Residents Anti-Crime Survey.

Office: Policy Development and Research.

Description of the Need for the Information and its Proposed Use:

The survey is needed so that HUD can poll public housing residents on

their opinion regarding crime prevention activities in public housing.

The information will be used to strengthen HUD's crime prevention

activities in public housing and to ensure client feedback is

incorporated into their design.

Form Number: None.

Respondents: Individuals or Households.

Frequency of Submission: One Time.

Reporting Burden:

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Frequency

No. of x of x Hours per = Burden

respondents response response hours

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Survey............................................... 2,500 1 .08 200

Interviews........................................... 1,500 1 .42 633

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Total Estimated Burden Hours: 833.

Status: New.

Contact: Donald S. Bradley, HUD, (202) 708-4504, Joseph F. Lackey,

Jr., OMB, (202) 395-7316.

Date: May 3, 1994.

Information for Inclusion, OMB Clearance Package, Public Housing

Residents Anti-Crime Survey Sponsored by U.S. Department of Housing and

Urban Development, Conducted by Research Triangle Institute

Section A: Justification

A.1 Circumstances That Make Information Collection Necessary

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is

currently implementing Operation Safe Home, a joint anti-crime effort

with the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Treasury, and

the Office of National Drug Control, to eliminate criminal activity in

public housing. A key component of Safe Home is coordinated strikes by

federal agencies against drug-related crime in public housing.

Predatory violent crime in public housing also has been targeted for

action. In an effort to make Operation Safe Home as effective as

possible, the Secretary wants to survey public housing residents on

their opinions regarding crime and associated problems.

A.2 Use and Users of Information--Overview of Data Requirements

These survey data will be used directly by the Office of Public and

Indian Housing (PIH) to strengthen HUD's crime prevention activities in

public housing and by the Office of Policy Development and Research

(PD&R) to enhance HUD's policy and legislative initiatives for crime

prevention in a broad range of other settings as well.

A.3 Consideration of the Use of Improved Information Technology

The survey is utilizing several technological approaches to create

an innovative way to efficiently gather information from a population

in which data collection has traditionally been difficult. We are

creating the sampling frame for the telephone interviews by obtaining

recent telephone numbers for the sample or addresses, using a

commercial file matching service. The phone numbers obtained will be

loaded into an electronic scheduler which will assign cases to

interviews at times which maximize the probability of successful

contact. The scheduling algorithm considers time zones, time and result

of previous efforts, and the most appropriate time to make calls to

residences, as well as handling specific call-back appointments.

Once contact has been made with an eligible residence, and an

eligible respondent selected, the Computer Assisted Telephone Interview

(CATI) program will guide the interviewer through the questionnaire.

Respondent burden is reduced since CATI selects the correct question

sequence based on the respondent's previous answers allowing the

interviewer to concentrate on reading the question and entering the

response, not searching for the correct next question. CATI requires

the entry of consistent data which falls into appropriate ranges thus

eliminating editing time while the respondent is on the phone or

callbacks to resolve problems. The CATI program can also offer the

opportunity of providing the questions and response categories in an

alternate language, if needed to allow special population to

participate fully.

A.4 Efforts to Identify Duplication

The Department has examined existing administrative data sources to

determine if similar data are collected. The information that this

survey seeks to gather is not available from existing administrative or

other survey instruments. This is the first telephone survey of its

kind to focus on public housing residents.

A.5 Why Similar, Already Available Data Cannot Be Used

There does not exist a source of data on the attitudes of public

housing residents toward crime/crime prevention issues equivalent to

what is being collected in this effort. The Department regularly

collects information (such as income and number of dependents) on

residents of low-income public housing developments for use in

administering low-income housing programs but does not collect

information on resident's perceptions of crime and safety, and their

opinions of programs that could effectively address these issues.

A.6 Reducing the Burden

The only burden associated with this survey is the 25 minute

interview which respondents agree to complete. As discussed in Item

A.3, the use of CATI minimizes the burden associated with the mode of

administration.

A.7 Consequences of Less Frequent Data Collection

Since this is a one-time data collection effort, this section is

not applicable.

A.8 Special Circumstances Requiring Inconsistency With 5CFR1320.6

All data collection procedures and data collection instruments have

been designed in a manner which is in compliance with all sections of 5

CFR 1320.6. No exceptions are requested.

A.9 Consultations With Persons Outside the Agency

The survey design and the data collection instrument have been

designed by project staff at the Research Triangle Institute (RTI)

working under contract from HUD to design and completer the survey. RTI

staff and their consultant, Dr. William Rohe from the University of

North Carolina, have worked closely with the HUD project staff to

develop the questionnaire and the sampling approach which will be used

with standard telephone data collection procedures to complete the

survey. During the questionnaire design, RTI methodologists consulted

with the staff from the Census Bureau on issues of question wording and

ordering.

A.10 Confidentiality

During an introduction to the interview which address the

components of informed consent, all respondents will be assured that

the information that they provide will remain confidential, and that

they can refuse to answer any individual question during the interview.

No names are requested and the address and telephone numbers will not

be included in the data file prepared and delivered to HUD. Any

location information used in the analyses will be presented in

composite form which will not allow the identification of individual

respondents.

All project staff and each telephone interviewer will comply with

all aspects of relevant federal regulations concerning privacy of

respondent's data, and the data will be maintained in limited access

secured computer files.

A.11 Justification for Questions of a Sensitive Nature

During their cognitive and telephone pretest interviews, we

attempted to identify questions which the respondents might consider

sensitive. None of the respondents indicated any problems with the

questions in the questionnaire. We did replace a household income

question with a proxy measure, monthly rent, which we felt would be

less intrusive.

A.12 Estimates of Cost

The cost of the survey design, data collection, and analysis and

reporting contract to RTI is $142,401.

A.13 Estimates of Respondents

The sample will consist of 2,500 telephone numbers which will be

screened to determine eligibility, defined as a working residential

number at the address determined for the sample. These screening calls

will require an average of 5 minutes. The interview will be completed

for 1,500 respondents and will take, on average, 25 minutes. The total

burden is estimated to be 833 hours.

A.14 Reasons for Change in Respondent Burden

Since this is a one-time effort, there is no change in the

respondent burden.

A.15 Plans for Publication and Statistical Tabulation

RTI will prepare a databook presenting outcome variables cross-

tabulated by independent variables. A final results report will provide

summary tables and/or graphics that present main findings and text that

interprets and gives highlights of the main findings.

Section B: Statistical Methods of Data Collection

B.1 Sampling Method and Respondent Universe

B.1.1 Target Population and Respondent Universe

The target population, the desired inference population, comprises

all public housing residents in the 48 coterminous States. The

respondent universe or study population, defined as the portion of the

target population actually being sampled from, is essentially the

public housing residents in the 48 States that have listed telephone

numbers. Because of undercoverage of this list source compared to the

target population, that is, residents with no listed telephone and some

that are not covered by the HUD address file (the 951 data base),

special attention is being given to the sample allocation and to the

construction of analysis weights to improve interferences relating to

the target population.

The basic source of sample residents will be the HUD 951 data base,

which is basically an address file. The approximately 300,000 addresses

on this file represent 68 percent of the 1.3 million public housing

units in the United States. Those not represented are the result of

nonreporting, data errors, and indefinite addresses (rural addresses,

etc.) provided to HUD in response to the periodic mailout to all of the

Public Housing Authorities. The circa 300,000 records identify on the

average about three housing units each because of a single address and

file record representing a multi-family unit in many cases. The

respondent universe will be developed by matching these addresses to

telephone listings.

B.1.2 Sampling Method

The sample public housing resident will be selected in several

phases beginning with a proportional stratified sample of approximately

25,000 addresses obtained from the 300,000 records on the 951 data base

(proportional to the target population counts in 32 strata). The strata

to be used at each phase are the cross of 4 Census Regions, 4 sizes of

Housing Authority, and by housing for elderly versus other. The

telephone numbers obtained from the addresses selected for matching

will be subsampled, again using random stratified sampling with

proportional allocation. The result will be a nearly self-weighting

sample with respect to the target population.

Approximately 2500 telephone numbers will be selected for fielding,

possibly in two waves to facilitate early testing of analysis and

weighting software and with expectation of obtaining 1500 interviews

required for the study. Finally, any eligible individual (a resident of

the household who is 18 years of age or older) will become the sample

respondent.

The sample of 1500 is expected to yield sampling errors ranging

from about 2 to 4 percentage points for the required domain estimates

when the estimates are near 50 percent (the domains will be

approximately 15 percent or more of the total).

B.2 Procedures To Deal With Nonresponse

Two categories of nonresponse are important in this survey: first,

the undercoverage of the sampling frame and, second, the potential

nonparticipation of those residents contacted. With regard to the

potential for nonparticipation, we are making allowance for nonworking

numbers, other types of loss, and approximately a 20 to 25 percent

nonresponse by fielding 2500 numbers to obtain the required 1500

interviews.

To deal with potential for nonresponse and undercoverage biases, we

are also developing analysis weights that align the final sample with

known control totals (with regard to the design strata defined above).

Finally, other control totals will be compared to weighted frequencies

(based on the initial analysis weights). Additional weight adjustments

using iterative proportional fitting will be used as needed to agree

with other important control totals (for example, age, race, metro/

nonmetro).

B.3 Pretesting

RTI staff conducted pretesting of the questionnaire during the

second week of the contract. The testing included four cognitive

interviews and eight telephone interviews with residents of public

housing facilities in Durham, North Carolina. The four in-depth

cognitive interviews lasted approximately 45 minutes each, including

introductory and concluding comments. Respondents were paid $20 for

participating in the interview. During each interview, the respondents

listened to the survey questions and responded to each as appropriate.

We used concurrent probing during the interview to obtain insight into

how respondents were interpreting question wording and choosing the

best response option. In addition, we asked respondents to comment on

what we felt were the most sensitive items (for example, the gun

ownership and income questions) in order to determine the likelihood

that respondents would provide valid responses.

We also conducted 8 telephone interviews to determine if there were

any additional changes to the questionnaire that were needed due to the

mode of administration. All respondents were paid $10 for completing

the interview. These calls averaged about 25 minutes each. Three of

these interviews were conducted by project survey specialists and

methodologists. The remaining interviews were conducted by RTI

Telephone Survey Unit (TSU) supervisors, and were monitored by one of

the project survey specialists. After each of these interviews, the

interviewer completed a debriefing form with the respondent and then

answered a similar set of items gauging his or her perception of how

well the questionnaire worked.

Based on these pretest interviews, we prepared a series of

recommendations which were faxed to HUD and used as the basis of a

series of discussions of potential revisions. The revisions which were

agreed upon were included in the final version of the questionnaire,

which is included in Section B5.

B.4 Persons Responsible for Statistical Aspects of the Design

Staff at RTI responsible for the statistical aspects of the design

include:

Project Statistician--Steve Williams, (919) 541-6246

Task Manager--Harvey Zelon, (919) 541-5888

Policy Analyst--Sam Leaman, (919) 541-6682

Staff at HUD involved in the design include:

Project GTR--Don Bradley, (202) 708-4504

Sampling Staff--Lynn Rodgers, (202) 708-2031

B.5 Copy of the Survey Instrument

A copy to the current version of the survey instrument is attached

as Appendix A. The following table indicates the questions associated

with the analysis domains.

Screening questions used to verify the S1-S4

household and identify an eligible sample

member.

Background/demographic questions used to 1, 2, 40-47

characterize the respondent and his/her

living situation.

Level of fear of crime and perception of 3, 4

safety.

Attitudes toward police role in the public 5, 6

housing neighborhood.

Existence of and attitudes toward citizen 7-11, 25-27

involvement in crime prevention activities.

Perception of perpetrators of crime......... 12, 14, 17

6-month history of victimization............ 13, 15, 16

Perception of developmental characteristics. 18, 24, 31, 37-39

Perceived efficacy of crime-reduction 19-23, 28-36

measures.

BILLING CODE 4210-01-M

Appendix A--Survey Instrument

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[FR Doc. 94-11836 Filed 5-13-94; 8:45 am]

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