Fargo, N.D. — Richard Rathge, professor in the agribusiness and applied economics and sociology/anthropology departments at NDSU, and the staff at the North Dakota State Data Center received $142,001 from the North Dakota Housing Finance Agency to conduct a statewide housing needs assessment.

The purpose of the project is to enable the North Dakota Housing Finance Agency and local jurisdictions to better understand housing needs of low and moderate income people for housing and housing-related services to target and coordinate the use of federal, state and local resources available for housing.

A key component of the research will be projecting housing supply and demand to the year 2030 for all counties in the state and the state’s 20 most populated cities. This will be accomplished through a modeling procedure, which includes developing population projections by age and gender for the same time period.

“The key challenge we have is working with the very dynamic situation in western North Dakota created by energy development activities. Population growth in this region has increased at an unbelievable rate since 2005 and modeling its future direction is challenging,” Rathge said.

The project will be completed by September 2012 and results will be made available through an online resource tool available through the North Dakota Housing Finance Agency website.