HUD Racially or Ethnically Concentrated Areas of Poverty
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Explore where racial or ethnic concentration and high levels of poverty intersect with HUD’s Racially or Ethnically Concentrated Areas of Poverty dataset on Social Explorer. Available at the census tract level, the data makes it easy to identify R/ECAP-designated neighborhoods and examine the demographic, economic, and housing conditions surrounding them.
Developed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), R/ECAP designations are widely used in fair housing analysis and community planning. Social Explorer includes HUD’s 2024 release and brings these designations into the same mapping and analysis environment as thousands of demographic and socioeconomic variables.
What Are Racially or Ethnically Concentrated Areas of Poverty?
HUD defines Racially or Ethnically Concentrated Areas of Poverty, commonly abbreviated R/ECAPs, using two tests: racial or ethnic concentration and poverty.
For census tracts within metropolitan or micropolitan areas, at least 50% of the population must be non-White. The tract must also have a poverty rate of at least 40% or at least three times the average tract poverty rate for its metropolitan or micropolitan area, using whichever threshold is lower.
HUD adjusts the racial or ethnic concentration threshold for places outside metropolitan and micropolitan areas. In those areas, the threshold is 20%, recognizing that population patterns in non-metro communities can differ substantially from those in larger urban regions.
Together, these criteria identify neighborhoods where racial or ethnic concentration overlaps with unusually high poverty.
See Concentrated Poverty at the Neighborhood Level
Because the dataset is built at the census tract level, it provides much more geographic detail than county- or city-level statistics alone. Researchers and planners can pinpoint individual neighborhoods designated as R/ECAPs and see how those areas relate to surrounding communities.
The poverty test also takes local context into account. Rather than relying exclusively on one national poverty threshold, HUD compares tract poverty with conditions in the surrounding metropolitan or micropolitan area. That makes it possible to identify concentrated poverty in regions where overall poverty rates may be relatively low.
This neighborhood-level perspective is especially valuable when studying segregation, access to opportunity, housing patterns, neighborhood investment, and disparities within larger jurisdictions.
Add Demographic, Economic, and Housing Context
Finding an R/ECAP is often only the beginning of the analysis.
On Social Explorer, users can examine Racially or Ethnically Concentrated Areas of Poverty alongside American Community Survey data and other demographic, economic, and housing variables. That means you can move from locating a designated tract to investigating the characteristics of the people, households, and housing markets within and around it.
Explore measures such as household income, housing cost burden, employment, educational attainment, housing tenure, age, race and ethnicity, and other indicators without moving between separate mapping platforms or assembling multiple datasets by hand.
The result is a clearer picture of both where concentrated disadvantage occurs and what conditions characterize those communities.
Support Fair Housing and Community Analysis
R/ECAP data can support a wide range of housing, planning, policy, and research applications. Local governments and housing organizations can use it as part of fair housing and Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) analysis. Researchers can study the relationship between segregation, poverty, housing, and access to opportunity. Advocates can place neighborhood disparities in a consistent national framework, while journalists can add geographic context to reporting on inequality and community change.
R/ECAP designations should not be treated as a complete measure of neighborhood opportunity or disadvantage. They are a standardized HUD indicator that becomes more informative when considered alongside local knowledge and additional social, economic, and housing data.
Social Explorer makes that broader analysis straightforward.
Explore R/ECAPs on Social Explorer
Map Racially or Ethnically Concentrated Areas of Poverty, compare neighborhoods, add demographic and housing context, and turn HUD data into analysis you can use by signing up for a free trial of Social Explorer.