The innermost ring is the household itself. It is the only one in this section that is not a government — and the only one whose composition the other six rings measure, fund, tax, and plan around.
This page reports what is measurable and sourced about households in Deer Park. It does not define a good family and does not rank family structures.
These are relational definitions, not judgements. The record uses them because they are what the national statistics are actually built from.
Same-sex marriages have been counted within families since 2014. The definition is relational rather than ideological, and the record says so rather than leaving it implied.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Households | ~11,999 |
| Family households | ~76.3% |
| Nonfamily households | ~23.7% |
| Average household size | ~3 |
| Owner-occupied | ~78.3% |
| Poverty rate, families | ~6.8% |
| Poverty rate, persons | ~9.2% |
| Median household income | ~$100,382 |
U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimatesACS 5-yr 2019–2023, via Census QuickFacts — exact data.census.gov table pin in progress
Two of those rows measure different things and are often confused: the family poverty rate counts families below the threshold, the person poverty rate counts people. They are not interchangeable, and neither is a statement about any particular household. All ACS figures are estimates carrying margins of error. Median household income is context for reading the other rows, not a measure of family quality.
There is an established instrument for this: the McMaster Family Assessment Device. It measures problem solving, communication, roles, affective responsiveness, affective involvement, behaviour control, and general functioning — from the ratings of the family's own members, aged 12 and over. It is widely validated across cultures and has short forms usable at community scale.
What makes it usable here is that it captures how a family functions without prescribing what a family should look like, and the assessment is the family's own, not an outsider's. Licensing for public use is being confirmed before the Council deploys it.
Sources are identified for these; the local values are not yet pulled, so they are not asserted here:
The rule this page is written under: describe, do not rank. Report an association as an association and never as a cause. A single parent should be able to read this page and find it accurate rather than accusatory. Anything that sounds like a verdict on how a family ought to be arranged does not belong in the record — it belongs in the open, in the teaching layer below, where it can be argued with.
The Council on Local Relations does one thing: it establishes the record and keeps it honest. We do not organize, campaign, or tell you what to do about any of it — the moment we did, every fact above would be worth less.
Want to do something about it? That is Think and Act Locally — a separate organization, where residents meet about what the record shows.