[Federal Register Volume 59, Number 93 (Monday, May 16, 1994)]
[Unknown Section]
[Page 0]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 94-11836]
[[Page Unknown]]
[Federal Register: May 16, 1994]
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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]
BILLING CODE 4210-01-C
