A Proactive Approach to Preventing Eviction: Austin Texas Displacement Risk Mapping
Our mission is to connect residents in high eviction risk areas of Austin, Texas with resources to protect their homes and themselves.
When residents are displaced, the things we love about Austin leaves too. Without these resources, residents lose their homes, and Austin loses the unique support systems, artist, musicians, and diversity that create and define the city.
There is no local, real-time tracking of eviction and (more generally) displacement data for Austin, Texas.1 Through this project, we are developing a tool to map current displacement risk for residents of Austin, Texas (inspired by a New York city based tool http://map.dapmapnyc.org/app/). Community activists would be able to use the geographic information to cut turf, create walk lists, and canvass door-to-door, connecting Austin residents at risk of displacement with useful resources and information to prevent or fight back against displacement.
We are currently in development to build out a heat map visualization tool of displacement risk in Austin, Texas. We have analyzed several datasets to determine the displacement risk factors for block groups in ATX, and have designed a model of displacement risk. While we are still working through implementing these plans, we have a preliminary website interface for this tool.
1: While Evictionlab offers great insight into evictions in the Austin metro area through 2016 there is no way to assist people who are currently at-risk of being evicted.