Action Plan 2 Reflections: Displacement Mitigation

As the calendar year ends, Austin's community reflects on Action Plan 2 commitments, including our displacement mitigation focus

Austin experienced a 28% increase in median rental price from 2012-2017, making community housing stability a key focus for City staff and the Austin community.

Austin's Action Plan 2 included a displacement mitigation commitment, with the Bloomberg Philanthropies-funded Innovation Team (i-Team) providing focused research, synthesis and facilitation as the City’s first anti-displacement  focused staff team working exclusively on this public phenomena.

The i-Team began with a focus on six key city reports informing next steps for strategic housing.  Their findings from this assessment and the follow on research highlighted people and neighborhoods – describing the “triggers,” “shocks,” and “squeezes” that challenge a person’s ability to stay in their home, creating a definition of displacement for use by the City and surfacing community identified strategies for anti-displacement.  

The work also resulted in a robust Neighborhood Stabilization Strategy Tool for Homeowners, accessible at the link, and for Renters (NSST). The tool is designed to assist city staff in assessing neighborhoods, choosing responsive interventions, and deploying assistance to prevent displacement.

Today the Office of Innovation is expanding the NSST into a broader Prosperity Decision Support Tool that can help Staff and Community with data informed decision making against neighborhood level data. The first phase of this tool will be available for use in 2023.