Blueprint Overview

To understand how and why the Blueprint was developed, Housing and Planning staff, formerly Neighborhood Housing & Community Development, created a Blueprint Overview (PDF). The Overview outlines the major factors affecting housing affordability in Austin.

Translated versions of the Overview are available:

• Blueprint Overview, Chinese Translation
• Blueprint Overview, Korean Translation
• Blueprint Overview, Vietnamese Translation
• Blueprint Overview, Spanish Translation

How is the Blueprint addressing displacement?

In collaboration with the City’s Innovation Office, Housing and Planning, formerly Neighborhood Housing & Community Development, created a Displacement Mitigation Strategy (PDF) that included recommendations from the City of Austin’s Anti-Displacement Task Force (PDF), a gentrification study (PDF) conducted by researchers at the University of Texas, as well as the People’s Plan (PDF), which recommends strategies to minimize displacement.

These recommendations aim to address gentrification and create strategies for preserving and expanding the supply of affordable housing, supporting small businesses, and preserving the city’s cultural assets.

Using the above resources as a guide, the Innovation Office developed 15 recommendations, based on impact and resources required, covering a wide range of community-based displacement concerns –

including strategies to help households at immediate risk of displacement and longer-term strategies addressing the citywide affordable housing stock.

The Displacement Mitigation Strategy (PDF) has been incorporated into the objectives and actions in the Blueprint Implementation Plan (PDF).

How is the Blueprint addressing housing affordability?

The Austin City Council has directed the City Manager to create an Interdepartmental Action Team to coordinate implementation steps for each of the Key Actions, and to document progress and obtain ongoing community feedback. The specific steps and resources necessary to achieve the goals of the Housing Blueprint in Resolution No. 20170413-024 (Web), and strategies for affordable housing preservation to avoid significant loss of existing affordable housing in Resolution No. 20170413-025 (Web).

The City of Austin contracted with Asakura Robinson (Web) and a local sub-consultant Austin Community Design & Development Center (ACDDC) (Web) to develop an implementation plan.

In November 2018, NHCD released a draft Blueprint Implementation Plan which takes the Blueprint to the next phase of establishing specific actions, short-term priorities, and geographically-specific goals for implementing all 63 Strategic Housing Blueprint recommendations. The Implementation Plan has two components:

Blueprint Implementation Plan (PDF): Stakeholder engagement and use of the Atlas and Corridor Analysis to create detailed, schedule-driven action items based on each Blueprint strategy.

Atlas of Existing and Historical Conditions (Web): Citywide mapping and analysis to help operationalize key metrics in the Blueprint.  It also defines key goals at a corridor level for the 2016 Mobility Bond corridors using the University of Texas Corridor Preservation Tool.

 

The final Implementation Plan will include recommendations from several recent reports on gentrification, institutional racism, fair housing, and homelessness, including:

University of Texas Gentrification Study (Web) (56 recommendations) People's Plan (Web) (19 recommendations) Anti-Displacement Taskforce Report (Web) (107 recommendations) Mayor's Task Force on Institutional Racism and Systemic Inequities (PDF) (40 housing-related recommendations)  Fair Housing Action Plan (PDF) (2015) (32 recommendations) Central Texas Fair Housing Assessment (Web) (2019) Austin’s Plan to End Homelessness (Web) (10+ housing-related recommendations).

 

How is the Blueprint addressing homelessness?

As part of the Homeless Assistance System, the City of Austin collaborates with agencies, community organizations, and individuals working to make homelessness rare, brief, and nonrecurring. To learn more about Austin's Homelessness Strategy, visit the Homelessness Strategy hub (Web).  

The Austin Homeless Dashboard (Web) is an informational resource on the issue of homelessness in Austin. The data visualizations featured are created by the City of Austin. The data is gathered by Austin and Travis County’s Continuum of Care, led by the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO).