3
Overview of the 2003 NRC Assessment of PATH and HUD’s Current Response
Manuel Gonzales
KTGY Group, Inc.
In the 2003 NRC assessment of PATH,1 the committee believed that the program initially placed too much emphasis on research and development; but during the course of the three-year study, it was evident that PATH was making an effort to refocus. The current draft strategic plan provided by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for the workshop reflects that shift. The 2003 NRC assessment committee recommended that PATH continue as a federal program focused on identifying, understanding, and removing barriers to innovation in housing, disseminating information, and increasing industry investments in the development of new technologies.
The 2003 NRC assessment noted that because PATH was a new and evolving program, ongoing expert review of the program’s performance and its response to those reviews are especially important. Effective program assessment is essential to PATH if it is to be efficiently managed. The NRC assessment report stated that “the program should be evaluated based on whether the activities it undertakes are likely to help achieve its goals and on the quantity and quality of the results of these activities. If PATH undertakes the right mix of high-performing activities, then improvement in measures of innovation in the housing industry can be attributed, at least in part, to PATH.”
The draft operating plan and performance measures for PATH should be reviewed to determine if the goals depict innovation in the housing industry and are accurately communicated, and if the measures are effective for assessment of progress toward those goals. This is not an assessment of what PATH has done as much as an evaluation of the plan and metrics for the future.
