hud_api_replace is a Django project that provides a very basic API on top of HUD Housing Counseling data. It returns a list of HUD approved housing counseling agencies throughout the country that can provide advice on buying a home, renting, defaults, foreclosures, and credit issues near a given zipcode sorted by distance from it in ascending order.

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Default value	Short Description
distance	integer (in miles)	5000	Distance between zipcode area centroid and counseling agency
limit	integer	10	Number of results to return
offset	integer	0	Number of times to skip limit items before returning results
language	string, comma separated	N/A	A list of languages either of which is spoken in agency
service	string, comma separated	N/A	A list of services either of which is provided by agency

Data returned can be in json (default) or csv format. To set the format append .json or .csv to the zipcode value when accessing the API.

The API can be accessed from hud-api-replace/:zipcode address.

Examples:

Return 10 closest to 20005 agencies, formatted as json:

hud-api-replace/20005

Return 5 closest to the given zipcode agencies, formatted as json:

hud-api-replace/20005.json?limit=5 or hud-api-replace/20005?limit=5

Return at most 10 agencies that are closer than 5 miles to 20005, formatted as csv:

hud-api-replace/20005.csv?distance=5

Return page 2 of the agencies that are located not further than 100 miles from 20005, 5 agencies per page, formatted as json:

hud-api-replace/20005?limit=5&offset=1&distance=100

Get the list of agencies that speak English or Korean:

hud-api-replace/20005?language=eng,kor

Get list of agencies that provide [Mortgage Delinquency and Default Resolution Counse] or [Financial, Budgeting and Credit Repair Workshops] services:

hud-api-replace/20005/?service=dfc,fbw

Service Abbreviations:

abbr	name
DRC	Mobility and Relocation Counseling
FHW	Fair Housing Pre-Purchase Education Workshops
NDW	Non-Delinquency Post Purchase Workshops
PPW	Pre-purchase Homebuyer Education Workshops
MOI	Marketing and Outreach Initiatives
HIC	Home Improvement and Rehabilitation Counseling
PLW	Predatory Lending Education Workshops
FBC	Financial Management/Budget Counseling
RHW	Rental Housing Workshops
LM	Loss Mitigation
DFW	Resolving/Preventing Mortgage Delinquency Workshop
RMC	Reverse Mortgage Counseling
RHC	Rental Housing Counseling
FBW	Financial, Budgeting and Credit Repair Workshops
PPC	Pre-purchase Counseling
DFC	Mortgage Delinquency and Default Resolution Counse
HMC	Services for Homeless Counseling

Language Abbreviations:

abbr	name
ITA	Italian
TUR	Turkish
VIE	Vietnamese
OTH	Other
CHI	Chinese Mandarin
GER	German
FRE	French
ASL	ASL
HIN	Hindi
SPA	Spanish
HMO	Hmong
POL	Polish
POR	Portuguese
ENG	English
FAR	Farsi
KOR	Korean
CRE	Creole
CAM	Cambodian
CAN	Cantonese
UKR	Ukrainian
SWA	Swahili
ARA	Arabic
IND	Indonesian
RUS	Russian
CZE	Czech

JSON-P

Add callback parameter to the call. Works only when format is json.

Installation

• Add hud_api_replace to INSTALLED_APPS in settings file.

• If South is used, migrations folder will have to be removed.

• Make sure variables settings.GOOGLE_MAPS_API_PRIVATE_KEY, settings.GOOGLE_MAPS_API_CLIENT_ID and settings.DJANGO_HUD_NOTIFY_EMAILS are set. settings.DJANGO_HUD_NOTIFY_EMAILS is a comma separated list of emails.

• manage.py syncdb to create three tables used by the module.

• manage.py load_hud_data to load HUD data into local database.

• include hud_api_replace.urls.

load_hud_data management command

manage.py load_hud_data will load HUD data into local database. Error messages will be emailed to a list of emails defined in $DJANGO_HUD_NOTIFY_EMAILS