Glossary of Terms and Research Identifiers
Housing programs use similar-sounding terms for different
funding, ownership, and reporting processes. These brief
definitions are provided for readers; the linked source
records and applicable program rules remain authoritative.
Housing Programs and Reporting Abbreviations
| Term | Meaning in This Research |
|---|
| AAP | Annual Action Plan — a jurisdiction's plan for use of specified HUD community-development and housing funds. |
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| AHAP | Agreement to Enter into a Housing Assistance Payments Contract — an agreement connected with planned Section 8 project-based rental assistance, distinct from an executed HAP contract. |
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| CAPER | Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report — a report of program-year accomplishments and resources for HUD consolidated-plan programs. |
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| CDBG | Community Development Block Grant — federal funding for eligible community-development activities. |
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| CoC | Continuum of Care — a coordinated local system and federal funding program addressing homelessness and housing-related services. |
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| CR-15 | A CAPER reporting section concerning resources and investments; amounts must be compared using consistent categories and periods. |
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| ESG | Emergency Solutions Grants — HUD funding for eligible emergency shelter, homelessness prevention, and rapid rehousing activities. |
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| FY / PY | Fiscal Year / Program Year — reporting periods that may not use the same beginning and ending dates. |
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| HAP | Housing Assistance Payments — a contract or payment arrangement used in rental-assistance programs. |
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| HCD | Housing and Community Development — the City of Tucson department referenced in the source notices. |
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| HCV | Housing Choice Voucher — Section 8 tenant-based rental assistance generally used by an eligible household at a qualifying rental property; distinct from a project-based voucher. |
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| HOME | HOME Investment Partnerships Program — federal affordable-housing funds. A HOME-designated unit is not an additional apartment on top of the project's total. |
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| HOPWA | Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS — a HUD housing-assistance program included in consolidated planning and reporting. |
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| HUD | U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. |
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| IDIS | Integrated Disbursement and Information System — HUD system used for grant activity and financial reporting. |
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| PBV | Project-Based Voucher — Section 8 rental assistance associated with specified apartments rather than a household-selected rental elsewhere. |
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| PHA | Public Housing Agency — an organization administering eligible public housing or rental-assistance programs. |
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| PR-26 | A HUD financial reporting reference used in the project's CDBG expenditure comparisons. |
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| RAD | Rental Assistance Demonstration — a HUD mechanism for converting eligible public housing assistance to longer-term rental assistance. |
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| Section 8 | Federal rental-assistance authority, including Project-Based Vouchers. This is distinct from Section 18. |
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| Section 18 | Public-housing demolition or disposition authority under the U.S. Housing Act of 1937; in the Craycroft notice it concerns disposition/conversion, not an additional voucher program. |
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Identifiers Used Across the Project
| Identifier | What It Refers To |
|---|
| F-001, F-002, etc. | Stable finding identifiers on the Research Findings page. A finding's interpretation may be revised while its ID is preserved. |
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| Q-001, Q-002, etc. | Research questions in the Public Evidence Index; many remain unresolved. |
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| SRC-001, SRC-023, etc. | Tracked sources in the Public Evidence Index; an ID is a reference label, not itself proof that a claim is verified. |
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| FUND-001, etc. | Internal financial-research tracking identifiers shown in selected Research Library summaries. These are working-record references, not independent financial statements. |
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| VAR-001, etc. | Internal reconciliation or variance-reference identifiers used in research workbooks. A variance does not by itself establish an accounting error. |
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| FQ-004, etc. | Internal research-question references used in some Research Library entries; not the same as the public Q-001 question numbering. |
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For the Craycroft Section 8/Section 18 distinction, see
finding F-003 and the
City's August 3, 2026 notice.
How to Read Housing and Funding Figures
Allocated Is Not Available
An award, allocation, or proposed voucher commitment does not prove that a unit is vacant, a contract is executed, or an applicant can immediately receive assistance.
Unit Categories May Overlap
Project apartments, HOME-designated apartments, PBV-assisted apartments, and renovated apartments may describe the same physical homes. Do not add them together without a documented crosswalk.
Funding Measures Are Distinct
Planned allocations, commitments, expenditures, drawdowns, restricted carryforwards, and future rental-assistance estimates are not interchangeable cash balances.
Research Labels Are Not Verdicts
Source and finding IDs organize the evidence. An open question or reporting difference does not itself establish wrongdoing or noncompliance.
Additional shared terms and code guidance
These general explanations help readers interpret either city’s public records. Local labels and evidence remain separate.
Program and reporting terms
| Term | Meaning and reading caution |
|---|
| AMI | Area median income, an income benchmark used by housing programs. Use the applicable income limits for the household size, year and area; a percentage of AMI is not a percentage of rent. [1] |
|---|
| LIHTC | Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. A housing tax-credit financing program. A LIHTC project number is a program record identifier, not a parcel number. [2] [3] |
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| CFP | Public Housing Capital Fund Program. A HUD program for public-housing capital needs. CFP is distinct from CPF, Community Project Funding, a reversed-letter abbreviation appearing in the CAPER. [4] [5] |
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| ACC | Annual Contributions Contract. A HUD/PHA agreement. A published award schedule or unexecuted form does not establish a signed agency agreement. [6] [7] |
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| ALN | Assistance Listing Number. A federal-program identifier used in the SEFA. ALN 14.872 identifies the Public Housing Capital Fund; it is not a transaction ID. [8] |
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| LOCCS | Line of Credit Control System. HUD’s grant draw system. Capital Funds vouchered through LOCCS and a PHA payment to a vendor are different steps. [9] |
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| SEFA | Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards. An accounting-period schedule, not a cash-flow statement or a grant-by-grant payment ledger. [10] |
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| ACS / MOE | American Community Survey / margin of error. ACS values are survey estimates for a stated geography and population. Read the estimate together with its confidence level and MOE. [11] [12] |
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| FY / PY / CY | Fiscal year / program year / calendar year. Match the dates stated in each source. City fiscal years, federal grant years and program years are not automatically the same period. [13] [14] [15] |
|---|
More precise reading habits
- HAP has two meanings: Housing Accountability Project in this website’s name, and Housing Assistance Payments in rental-assistance records. A website reference label is not an agency code.
- Affordability label: a source category or stated income/rent condition. The label alone does not establish an executed legal restriction or its end date.
- Award, obligation, draw and expenditure: keep each financial stage separate. HUD Capital Fund guidance distinguishes a PHA agreement, funds vouchered through LOCCS and a vendor payment; the SEFA uses an accounting-period measure.
- Coverage and retrieval: the period a dataset says it covers differs from the date it was collected. Neither automatically verifies when every underlying row was refreshed.
Financial-stage definitions: [16] [17]
Public website labels and official codes are different
Housing Accountability Project assigns source, finding, question and public-card labels to organize the website’s evidence. A label is not an agency certification. An official program or grant identifier must be read with its agency, jurisdiction and period.
| Code family | How to read it |
|---|
| FUND-PUB-* | A curated funding-summary card in the public research extract. It is a Housing Accountability Project tracking ID, not an agency grant number or financial statement. Public example: FUND-PUB-001 |
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| PROJECT-PUB-* | A curated project card in the public research extract. It does not establish a legal parcel, owner or current vacancy. Public example: PROJECT-PUB-001 |
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| RECORD-PUB-* | A curated records-request card. Its identifier does not establish that a request was sent, answered or approved. Public example: RECORD-PUB-001 |
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| Phoenix PHX-* labels | Source-reference labels used in the public Phoenix research area. They are distinct from Tucson’s public source labels and from official agency identifiers. Public example: PHX-CITY-002 is a source reference in the public Phoenix index. |
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Find the public cards in the Research Center. For the separate Phoenix collection, see the Phoenix code guide. Shared definitions do not make city, county, fiscal-year or program totals comparable.
Sources and exact locations
- Phoenix HOME Unit Fact Sheet and 2026 Income Rent Limits. 2026 income-limit table and preceding sentence, as adjusted for family size; PDF page 1
- Draft FY2025–26 CAPER. Other public resources; Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program (LIHTC); PDF page 16
- Arizona LIHTC and bond project dataset. 9% LIHTC Projects worksheet; Bell project 0940 row; October 30, 2026 is embedded file-modification metadata, not a verified edition date
- Draft FY2025–26 CAPER. Capital Fund Program subsection; Community Project Funding (CPF) expansion on PDF page 16; PDF page 32
- HUD Capital Fund processing index. FY2026 Capital Fund Program Grant Awards section
- FY2026–27 Annual Agency Plan. PHA Inventory: Annual Contributions Contract (ACC); PDF page 1
- HUD Capital Fund processing index. Instructions to complete and sign the ACC Amendment
- FY2025 Single Audit Report: Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards. SEFA ALN column and Public Housing Capital Fund row; printed p.1; PDF page 3
- HUD Capital Fund obligations, expenditures and closeout training, September 25, 2023. Slide 40: disbursements and expenditures; PDF page 14
- FY2025 Single Audit Report: Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards. SEFA table: printed page 1 / PDF page 3; Notes 1–2: printed page 7 / PDF page 9
- Census ACS Sample Size and Data Quality Definitions. Question 4, How does the ACS measure sampling error: published margins of error at the 90 percent confidence level
- 2025 ACS median gross rent, table B25064. Original acsdt1y2025-b25064.dat row 1888 including header; table-shell metadata
- Draft FY2025–26 CAPER. Executive Summary: July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026 program period; PDF page 2
- FY2025 Single Audit Report: Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards. Year ended June 30, 2025; PDF page 3
- HUD Capital Fund processing index. Federal grant-year headings
- HUD Capital Fund obligations, expenditures and closeout training, September 25, 2023. Slides 5–6 / PDF page 2; slide 40 / PDF page 14
- FY2025 Single Audit Report: Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards. SEFA printed page 1 / PDF page 3, ALN 14.872; Notes 1–2 on printed page 7 / PDF page 9; auditor date January 21, 2026 on printed page 13 / PDF page 15
About These Definitions
Terms are explained for general research literacy. They do not replace current HUD regulations, executed program documents, or property-specific notices. For the underlying research, visit the Public Evidence Index and Research Findings.
First standalone glossary edition · November 2, 2026 · Definitions may be refined as new primary-source records are reviewed.
