Mission:
To provide information on housing and demographic data about users' community, region, and the nation by assembling data sets from multiple sources and offering tools and guides to assist people in analyzing, interpreting, and applying the data so they can make more informed decisions.

Background:
Sponsored by the Fannie Mae Foundation DataPlace is an initiative of KnowledgePlex, an online resource serving affordable housing and community development professionals.

Outstanding Web Features:
The site makes housing data widely accessible and enables users to create detailed maps and area profiles. Users can chart to their specifications data from the 1990 and 2000 Censuses (demographic, economic, housing, and social characteristics), Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (home mortgage applications and loans), Section 8 Expiring Use database (neighborhood- and property-level data on federally assisted housing at risk of loss), and Consolidated Plan special tabulations (data on housing needs by household income level). Through the Scatterplot link, users can also compare a range of places on two indicators at the same time, to see how they are correlated. Over the next few months, the data library will be expanded to include information on topics such as business establishments from the Census Bureau's ZIP Business Patterns database, and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit developments from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. And new users can take a self-guided tutorial to learn how to use the tools.