Indianapolis, Indiana: Using Eviction Hotspot Maps to Target Rental Assistance

Partnered with: Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) on Displaced in America and the development of FEAT.

At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the Deputy Mayor of Indianapolis had to distribute $15 million of CARES funding across the city to keep people stably housed. At the Deputy Mayor’s request, we provided census-tract level heat maps of eviction and foreclosure from the five years prior to the pandemic (2014-2018), produced for Displaced in America. City leaders used these maps showing which neighborhoods had historically been hardest hit to better predict which areas were likely to be most impacted by housing loss during the pandemic, as a way to determine how to allocate federal housing aid.