What the Hud MCP server does
The Hud MCP server provides agent access to datasets published by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Its coverage includes Fair Market Rents (FMR), household income limits, USPS-derived vacancy data, public housing characteristics, Continuum of Care and Annual Homelessness Assessment Report data, and Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy (CHAS) tables.
These datasets support questions such as the FMR for a bedroom size in a location, income thresholds by household size, vacancy rates by tract, public housing authority characteristics, homelessness counts, and housing-cost-burden measures. FMR values are policy figures used in programs such as Section 8; they should not be treated as current market rents.
How it works
You can connect an MCP client to the hosted pack endpoint at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/hud/mcp. The gateway also exposes shared Pipeworx meta-tools, including routing and discovery functions, so the listed tool count is larger than the HUD-specific set. The initialize response is the authoritative source for the tools available at connection time.
A full gateway connection at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp lists all catalog packs directly. Either gateway URL can route questions through ask_pipeworx, including questions that require data outside the HUD pack.
The package also runs locally over stdio with @pipeworx/mcp-hud. The local mode exposes only HUD tools and does not include the gateway's shared meta-tools or cross-catalog routing. HTTP clients can call individual tools directly; the documented example uses hud_fair_market_rents with a state_code argument.
Setup and configuration
For a hosted connection, add the following MCP server configuration:
{
"mcpServers": {
"hud": {
"url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/hud/mcp"
}
}
}
For local execution, use the npm package through a stdio configuration:
{
"mcpServers": {
"hud": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-hud"]
}
}
}
Most HUD APIs do not require authentication. Some endpoints require a free token, and the gateway supports _apiKey passthrough where applicable. The hosted examples state that initial calls do not require an account. HTTP tool metadata can be inspected through the gateway's tool endpoints.
Tools and capabilities
The Hud MCP server is suited to the following tasks:
- Retrieve annual Fair Market Rent values for rental and voucher analysis.
- Look up income limits that vary by area and household size.
- Examine quarterly USPS vacancy rates by tract.
- Research Point-in-Time counts, demographics, and Continuum of Care information.
- Query public housing authority listings, unit counts, and served demographics.
- Analyze CHAS housing-cost-burden and affordability tabulations.
The datasets have different update schedules. FMR data is annual and effective October 1, income limits are generally updated annually in April, USPS vacancy data is quarterly, homelessness reports are annual, CHAS data uses five-year periods, and public housing information is maintained continuously.
Limitations and notes
The Hud MCP server returns administrative and statistical measures with important scope limits. FMR is not a live market-rent measure and may lag market conditions by 6–18 months. FMRs are commonly published at the metropolitan or micropolitan CBSA level, so a county's actual rents may differ from the applicable area figure.
Income-limit interpretation requires the household-size dimension; an 80% AMI threshold is not one universal number. USPS vacancy data identifies addresses marked vacant by postal carriers for at least 90 days, rather than every temporarily empty unit. It can miss short-term vacancies and may include properties affected by foreclosure.
Point-in-Time homelessness counts are usually collected on one night in late January. Methods differ among Continuums of Care, and unsheltered populations are especially difficult to count, so the results should be treated as a lower bound. CHAS is rolling five-year data and is not designed to represent real-time changes. Combine it with faster or market-based sources when current conditions matter.