National Partners

We partner with organizations and collaborators focused on anti-displacement efforts at the national level.

Anti-Displacement Assessment Tool: Louisville, KY

IOC Director Loretta Lees, former IOC postdoctoral research fellow Kenton Card (now at University of Minnesota), and Andre Comandon (University of Southern California) were awarded a contract by the City of Louisville, KY, to create the groundbreaking Anti-Displacement Assessment Tool (ADA Tool). Developed in collaboration with Louisville’s Office of Housing and Community Development, then Councilmember Jecorey Arthur, and the Louisville Tenants Union, this first-of-its-kind planning tool is designed to protect low-income, marginalized, and racialized communities from displacement.

On November 21, 2024, the Louisville Metro Council voted unanimously to adopt it — the first time such a tool has been passed and implemented in a U.S. city. The tool’s origins trace back to 2020, when housing activist Jessica Bellamy and Councilmember Arthur launched a campaign to protect Historically Black Neighborhoods from the pressures of gentrification. Their efforts, grounded in data from Louisville’s 2019 Housing Needs Assessment — which found a shortfall of more than 50,000 affordable units — galvanized grassroots support and culminated in the Anti-Displacement Ordinance of November 2023.

The ordinance prohibits the use of city resources for developments that increase displacement risk and requires the creation of an evidence-based tool to assess that risk. The resulting Anti-Displacement Assessment Tool connects specific project characteristics, such as size and affordability, to neighborhood conditions — tracking indicators like changes in income, rent prices, racial composition, and education levels. These are synthesized into measures of market pressure, housing stress, and gentrification, producing a displacement risk score. Developers seeking city subsidies must now complete this assessment as part of their application, making the process both transparent and enforceable.