Applied Community Data Science

Evidence that points toward help.

Project Guardian turns parcel, neighborhood, county, and statewide data into evidence on heirs' property, housing security, food security, and neighborhood stability. Every finding connects to the intervention it can support: prevention, legal assistance, stabilization, investment, or partnership.

Project Guardian began with the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) in Jacksonville, grounded in a commitment to saving homes before they’re lost. With LISC’s continued support, that work is now expanding nationally.

76×

Higher unresolved-estate rate in Camden County's lowest-income tract quintile than its highest-income quintile

21 of 28

Duval County block groups without qualifying retail grocery access gained partial access when fixed pantries were included

0.1%–18.5%

Range in screened probable heirs' property prevalence across Virginia's 133 counties and independent cities

The Approach

Project Guardian connects evidence to action.

Project Guardian screens property and neighborhood data to identify probable ownership conditions and local patterns. We compare those conditions across communities, explain what the available records can establish, and identify the legal, planning, outreach, or stabilization work each finding may support. County records, local knowledge, partner capacity, and resident goals determine the appropriate next step.

Identify probable heirs' properties

Transparent ownership and property-record signals, applied consistently at parcel, county, and state scale.

Add local context

We look at neighborhood housing pressure, protective capacity, food access, and historic conditions alongside ownership, as separate evidence rather than folded into it.

Prioritize coordinated action

We match each condition to the intervention it needs: prevention, legal assistance, stabilization, or investment.

"When we look closely at property and neighborhood data, we are looking at history made visible. Redlining, discriminatory lending, uneven public investment, and limited access to estate planning and probate assistance helped shape the patterns we see today. Those histories still influence which families carry complicated title, which neighborhoods experience the greatest pressure, and where generational wealth remains vulnerable. Our work follows those patterns all the way to the parcel and then forward to the intervention, so communities can see where action is possible and what kind of help can make a difference."

Erin K. Rothman, Project Guardian

Heirs' Property

Heirs' property is not one condition.

A probable heirs' property may point to an unresolved estate, several current owners, or a living owner who still has time to plan. Project Guardian separates these conditions because each opens a different opportunity for help. They are not levels of severity.

Unresolved Estate

A prior owner appears deceased and the ownership record has not been resolved into a current, stable form.

Starting point

Estate resolution, heir identification, probate navigation, title clearing, urgent loss prevention.

Still requires validation: death, legal heirs, probate status, occupancy, liens, family goals.

Multiple Owners

The current record shows several owners, or a compressed multiple-owner signal such as "et al."

Starting point

Owner identification, family engagement, governance, mediation, partition prevention, title review.

Still requires validation: whether owners are relatives, each interest, occupancy, conflict.

At Risk

A living owner and long-term tenure suggest an opportunity for succession planning before ownership becomes unsettled.

Starting point

Wills, estate planning, beneficiary or deed review, homestead review, preventive outreach.

Still requires validation: owner status, household goals, existing documents, eligibility.

Bottom Line:Each ownership condition opens a different door: estate resolution, owner identification, or preventive planning. Knowing which one applies is what makes the next step clear.

NEXUS

Neighborhood pressure and protective capacity, read together.

A neighborhood's probable heirs' property prevalence tells us how common that condition is. NEXUS tells us whether other neighborhood conditions are likely to increase housing pressure or provide protective capacity. Neither measure replaces the other.

Housing pressure indicators

Probable heirs’ property prevalence, investor ownership, vacancy, and property-loss signals where available

Protective capacity indicators

Owner occupancy, long residential stability, household income, and home values

NEXUS neighborhood pressure tier

Pair with the ownership condition and validate locally before action.

A tier describes neighborhood context. It is not a household finding or forecast.

Heirs' Property Prevalence in Duval County (221 tracts)

Below 5.0%

26 tracts

5.0–9.9%

126 tracts

10.0–18.7%

63 tracts

18.8%+

6 tracts

The six highest-band tracts carry a median prevalence of 21.29%, and also have lower median household income and property value than the lower-prevalence bands. These are practical reporting bands, not universal thresholds.

Bottom Line:NEXUS is not a legal finding, a forecast, or a description of every household. It is a point-in-time read of where intervention may be most valuable and where protective capacity is already strong.

Findings

What becomes visible when we connect property and neighborhood data

Each example shows what Project Guardian identified in a specific place and why it matters. Together, they show how our data and models can support locally tailored analysis and action in other communities.

Prevalence

Duval's highest prevalence band contains six tracts.

"Prevalence" is the share of homes in an area that are probable heirs' properties. Grouping tracts into bands, from low to high prevalence, shows where that share is concentrated.

Those tracts have a median heirs' property prevalence of 21.29% in the current 221-tract analysis.

5.0–9.9% band

7.98% median

Highest band

21.29% median

A small number of tracts can carry far higher concentration than the countywide figure suggests, and lower median income and property value follow those same tracts.

Keep in mind: the four bands are practical reporting groups, not universal thresholds.

Unresolved Estates

Unresolved-estate rates vary sharply across income quintiles.

An "unresolved estate" is a home where a prior owner appears deceased and the property has not passed into a current, stable form of ownership. A tract's rate of unresolved estates reflects both how many estates are unresolved and how local probate filing is handled.

In Camden's tract analysis, the rate was 27.6 per 1,000 in the lowest-income quintile, compared with 0.4 per 1,000 in the highest.

Lowest income quintile

Highest income quintile

Affordable probate and title-clearing capacity may be hardest to find exactly where the need is most concentrated.

Keep in mind: this is a tract-level association, not a finding about an individual family, and a low rate can also reflect a county's filing approach rather than fewer unresolved estates.

Continuity and Unresolved Estates

Long residential continuity can coincide with greater unresolved-estate need.

"High continuity" means the top fourth of tracts in each county for the share of households in the same home for at least 25 years. "Lower resources" means both household income and owner-reported property value at or below 0.9 times the county median; "higher resources" means both above 1.2 times.

In high-continuity tracts, screened unresolved-estate prevalence was higher where both household income and owner-reported property value were lower relative to each county's median.

Lower resources

Higher resources

Harris County, TX3.9× higher

2.84%

0.73%

Duval County, FL8.1× higher

4.27%

0.53%

Camden County, NJ11.4× higher

0.90%

0.08%

Screened unresolved estates as a share of eligible residential parcels in high-continuity tracts. Source: Project Guardian cross-county continuity and resources review, 11 September 2026; 2020–2024 ACS context.

Keep in mind: These are tract-level associations, not findings about individual families or evidence of cause. County records and screening methods differ.

Legacy Neighborhoods

How history and present conditions shape a neighborhood

Project Guardian compares historical housing policy with current ownership, housing conditions, and community assets.

This helps explain what has endured, what has changed, and which resources can support families today.

Open full-size chart

A legacy-neighborhood profile connects historical patterns with present ownership conditions and identifies where legal services, preventive planning, stabilization, or further local research may be useful.

Keep in mind: Local participation is essential for defining the neighborhood, interpreting its history, and identifying appropriate action.

Scale

One state can contain hundreds of different local questions.

The same analysis, run consistently statewide, still needs a locality-by-locality summary: what looks similar at the state level often plays out differently on the ground.

Virginia is one example. Project Guardian analyzed all 133 counties and independent cities, revealing substantial differences in probable heirs' property prevalence and ownership conditions from one community to another.

Map of Virginia showing probable heirs' property prevalence by locality

Open full-size chart

Statewide processing provides consistent first-pass evidence while county summaries preserve local differences.

Keep in mind: Review county records to validate findings before conducting operational outreach.

Food Access

A store-distance map can miss community food distribution.

Most food-access models measure distance to grocery stores alone. Ours also counts fixed community pantries, since many families rely on both.

In the Duval Food (in)Security (F(i)S) model, 28 block groups lacked qualifying retail access. Fixed pantries changed 21 of them to partial access.

Retail access only

+ Fixed pantries

Still no access

A food-access model changes when it includes operating distribution sites, not just retail stores.

Keep in mind: Mapping all SNAP retailers vs. only those who provide quality food options results in very different access findings.

Our Models & Metrics

Different decisions need different heirs' property metrics.

A county deciding where to open a clinic, a land trust deciding where to stabilize homes, and a funder deciding where capacity is needed should not receive the same ranking of probable heirs' properties.

Metric	Best used for	Main caution
Count	Estimating service volume and staffing.	Large places often have large counts.
Prevalence	Finding concentration; comparing places of different sizes.	The denominator must be consistent and explicit.
Category mix	Choosing legal, mediation, planning, outreach capacity.	A low unresolved-estate share can reflect a county's filing practices as much as the true number of unresolved estates.
Value gap per home	Finding places where the typical gap is large.	Assessed value is not a sale price or appraisal.
Total modeled value gap	Estimating the scale of a neighborhood-level difference.	A modeled quantity, not guaranteed recoverable wealth.

Category mix changes the service question, county by county

Duval, FL

Camden, NJ

Jefferson, KY

Jefferson, AR

Unresolved estate

Multiple owners

At risk

Bottom Line:Start by choosing the unit of action and naming the operational decision. From there, select the matching metric, bring in category mix and NEXUS pressure, and let local partners validate before anything moves.

From Evidence to Action

Findings are designed to move.

Four counties, four different program questions, each drawn directly from what the evidence showed in that place.

Duval County, FL

26,640 of 32,670 probable heirs' properties fall into the multiple-owner condition.

How much owner identification, family engagement, mediation, and partition-prevention capacity is available at neighborhood scale?

Jefferson County, KY

10.4% of submitted owner records on at-risk properties matched as deceased. On 169 properties, every submitted owner matched as deceased.

Can prevention be organized before death or fragmentation, and which trusted institutions can reach long-term owners?

Camden County, NJ

The unresolved-estate rate reaches 27.6 per 1,000 in the lowest-income quintile, compared with 0.4 per 1,000 in the highest.

Where should affordable probate and title-clearing capacity be placed, and what barriers keep families from using it?

Jefferson County, AR

2,277 probable heirs' properties are vacant, and 368 of those are within the mapped 1% annual-chance flood area.

Which vacant properties need title work, hazard review, stabilization, or acquisition support first?

Working Papers

Working Paper 01

Heirs' Property Metrics That Lead to Different Decisions

Counts, prevalence, category mix, value gaps, and total modeled gaps: how each one produces a different priority list.

Read this paper →

Working Paper 02

NEXUS and Neighborhood Prevalence Bands

Distinguishes NEXUS from prevalence bands and demonstrates why both are useful.

Read this paper →

Working Paper 03

Three Ownership Conditions, Three Intervention Starting Points

Why probable heirs' property should not be treated as one service population.

Read this paper →

Partners

Working alongside communities.

Project Guardian works with local partners to turn community data into practical action.

Florida Collaborative

Community Research & Impact Team

Bring Project Guardian to your community.

Bring a question, a geography, a dataset, or an intervention challenge. Every locally governed project starts with what your community already knows and needs to confirm.

NonprofitsGovernmentsLegal servicesHousing & CDCsUniversitiesCommunity orgsJournalistsResidents

Schedule an introductory briefing

Contact

Erin K. Rothman, MSc

Managing Director, Project Guardian

erin@projectguardian.app