How to do a Threat Assessment on Your Neighborhood

The goal of this exercise is to determine who, in a crisis (disaster, war, domestic conflict), in your neighborhood could be a potential threat or ally. The methods used will be ordinary observation, communication, and public-domain resources. While not foolproof, at least you will have basic friend/foe identification predictors, as well as a profile, of those who live around you.
 
Sources 
You don’t have to use expensive people search subscription services. A lot is available online for free if you know how to use your Google-fu. You can use open-source (or subscription-free) services. Services are myriad; but at the cheap end just search names and addresses. Cross-reference them with popular social media like Facebook. Much more information can be had easily for low fees, depending on the service.
 
Recording 
Create a map of your neighborhood. You can use pins on Google Earth, draw a complex map, or a simple map with a legend. A simple map, with street names, house/parcel numbers, and names with perhaps a few extra quick-reference symbols would probably be most helpful. Detailed information is then cross-referenced off a spreadsheet listed by street and then address. A digital map might have just a pop-up with the relevant file (though you should have paper files in case of EMP or something).
 
Obtain the name of the property owner. Generally this will be the homeowner, but you will need to conduct additional research if the property is in a trust or some sort of company. This step will not only tell you who probably lives there, but if the home is a rental or not. For instance, the GPS/mapping software I use for off-roading also has property registration details for nearly all parcels, which tells me who owns a given house.
 
Once you have a name of the owner/resident, search the Internet for them starting with the name + the town/city. You might use more specific tools like Facebook or “people search” sites to dig up more info. Do they have a criminal record or are they litigious? Most county courts have a website where you can search cases for past criminal charges or civil cases. Note their job as well, paying attention to those with critical skills.
 
Note details such as who lives in the home. Are they a family with young kids? Elderly people? List the number of residents, ages, and names if possible. Attempt to determine their job, if any, the politics, and any religious affiliation (if any).
 
If the home is a rental, see if it is titled to an individual, a small landlord’s LLC, or a large corporate property ownership group. Individual and small landlord companies are slightly more likely to have better tenants than large, faceless companies. Someone who lived in that house or might live there again, or has to manage the tenants themselves are more likely to choose better tenants. Better tenants mean better people and less potential problems.
 
Visual indicators like lot of cars parked outside a home may indicate many residents in a multi-family residence or a lower-income household. You can generally judge by the car; cheap car not in great condition (unwashed, unrepaired damage) probably indicates a poorer person. On the other hand, some cultures will have nice or expensive looking cars but live in a run-down home.
 
Is the house an Airbnb? If it is, you probably already know the potential downsides. Long term, an Airbnb may play host to squatters, either the traditional type or refugees who maybe stayed there at one time. Prepare for a LOT of people who are interested in that house, especially if it’s in a desirable bug-out location like the woods. Bad actors may be aware that the place isn’t habituated. Conflicts may erupt between renters/squatters and the owner who might be bugging out there.

• Is the property listed on a short-term rental site?
• Is the property owned by an LLC?
• Is the owner from out-of-state?

 
Incidents 
How your neighbors live and what goes on at their home is probably one of the largest behavioral cues on how they will react in extremis. What houses have the police over a lot? Do they have loud parties or fights? These are indicators of people who are disrespectful of others and potentially combative.
 
Homes with frequent EMS calls are a potential weak-link; the people there may have medical issues that could result in an empty house. This means one less defender, the loss of a special skill, or simply an undefended home that is a vector for intrusion or squatters.
 
Which homes frequently get deliveries? It is just packages (UPS/FedEx) and Amazon, or do they regularly order grocery deliveries or DoorDash? Food deliveries could indicate someone has a scant pantry. People who don’t stock up on food or cook for themselves will rapidly be in a bad situation of grocery stores and restaurants go down.
 
Affiliation 
Who are the cops who live in your neighborhood? Look for take-home cars or police cars parked in the driveway or out front at lunchtime.
 
Military affiliation: with the demise of DOD window stickers, it’s a bit harder to tell who’s “in” and who isn’t, but there are signs. Look for people coming and going in uniform. Though it’s more likely to identify veterans, look for military-themed license plates, disabled veteran plates, and branch motivational (“moto”) stickers like the USMC eagle, globe, and anchor. One guy I saw has a license plate frame that basically says “active duty Coast Guard.” Since I did my area study, I know he’s not just a fan of the HH-65 helicopter but most likely a crew member of the Los Angeles area helicopter squadron.
 
Active-duty servicemembers may be absent in a time of crisis, or they may be assets at home. Potentially, they could be targets for violence in a low-intensity conflict. Can you determine if this person is in a sensitive position, such as a drone pilot or a special forces officer?
 
Note homes with American flags flying; they’re probably at least ideologically similar to you, if not potential allies. On the other side, look for foreign flags (i.e. Mexican flags), pride flags, or those dumb “In this house…” signs; these are likely risks if not enemies. Political yard signs should be tracked as an indicator of the residents’ politics; research candidates you aren’t familiar with as someone may be more comfortable putting out a sign for a lesser political office than easily advertise with Trump/Harris.
 
Ethnicity 
Why is race/ethnicity important—after all, aren’t we all equal? In virtually every civil or domestic conflict across history, racial, ethnic, and cultural distinctions have formed the basis for violence. In fact, some of the most basic divisions of humans are along racial, then ethnic (nationality), and finally religious/cultural lines. Different groups are preyed upon primarily because they are different.
 
The general ethnic makeup of an area can only be done at the larger-scale using things like the racial dot map, which will tell you if you live in a predominately single-ethnicity, or multi-ethnic, area. It will show you enclaves of relatively homogenous single ethnicities, but this gets us into more of an area study.
  
Why is race important? Racial heterogeneity has always been a recipe for a disaster in a crisis. Irish Catholics vs. Protestants, Serbs vs. Croats, black residents vs. white police. In a serious enough emergency, everything goes racial. People separated into different nations, ethnic groups, and self-segregated long ago for a reason. It is only prosperity and law and order that prevents (mostly) racial conflicts from cropping up.
 
Even if you have prosperous, respectful black neighbors, this is no guarantee that they do not have lower-class relatives that might come to stay with them and create problems.
 
Illegal aliens may cause problems like violence or revolt during immigration crackdowns. They may also have brought attachments to foreign organized crime like drug cartels or Tren de Aragua. 
 
Immigrants may not share your culture. A relative complained about a group of recent Hispanic immigrants having loud parties in her neighborhood. Her boyfriend, who grew up in the third world, said “No one back home would ever think to complain or call the police. Huge, loud parties until dawn are so commonplace over there.” Of course, being upper class himself he understands the complaint but was pointing out that third worlders are accustomed to a certain degree of bad behavior and squalor. They do not place the same emphasis on property value, orderliness, or the boring quietude of the suburbs.
 
Third worlders of any stripe are a risk precisely because they do not appreciate to the same degree of what makes western life so enjoyable. Coming from abysmal standards, literally anything is better.
 
Note religious affiliation or suspected religious affiliation if you can, although this is not a big indicator outside of certain areas. Utahns might want to note their non-LDS neighbors or anyone might be interested in knowing that Muslims live next door. Do they celebrate Christmas, for instance?

Age
What are the ages of your neighbors? Older people have probably been in the are for a while, are relatively financially stable, but may die soon or in a crisis, leading to turnover of the home. Younger people may be outsiders, but probably longer-term residents. Do adult kids live at home? Do middle-aged parents have children that might return home and change the dynamic or bring problems with them?
 
Special risks
Certain places will be high-risk, like the residence of motorcycle gang members, drug houses (either “trap” or flop houses), and overcrowded, illegal alien rental “clown houses.” Section 8 has seen low-income individuals with violent tendencies and disrespect for suburban norms moved into middle-class communities. These Section 8 tenants often bring with them crime and other problems to areas that didn’t see them before.
 
How about apartment or condo complexes that get taken over by a certain ethnicity and then devolve into a gang-infested hellhole? Sure, we’ve heard of bad neighborhoods but we forget about high rise housing projects like Cabrini Green that were utterly dysfunctional and gang-controlled. Maybe you’ve seen the images of an apartment complex taken over by an armed Central American gang. This will only get worse as immigration increases and law enforcement pulls back.
 
Poverty and crime go hand in hand. There are many “low income” projects going in that cater to or attract illegal aliens or immigrants. With them, they bring gangs and violence. While these communities may seem self-contained like the walled city of Kowloon, they often spill over into neighboring areas. A complex of 250 units may house 1,000 people—more if third-world living situations take hold despite zoning. In desperate times, these places will spill over into surrounding neighborhoods.
 
Here is an example I posted on Twitter: this is an "affordable community" specifically for farmworkers, which means simply by demographic realities it discriminates in favor of Hispanic. This complex is a 19 acre, 360 apartment ghetto with a population of probably 1,000 people right in the heart of a middle-class bedroom community of mainly mid/upper-middle class income white people.
 
The residents must be farmworkers (basically 100% Hispanic in California) who make near-poverty wages. The majority of these people are extremely poor, often recent immigrants from Latin America, and likely not citizens or even legal. They do not reflect the economic or cultural background of the community at large and this is essentially a colony of “others” who will not easily homogenize with the rest of the city.
 
Personal factors
Financially imprudent: if they’re broke and hungry, they’re more likely to be desperate and take chances that someone who isn’t destitute won’t take. Undisciplined people who live carelessly are more probably the kind who will blame others for their problems, engage in risky behavior to survive, or make poor choices for both themselves and the neighborhood. These types may be a higher risk for engaging in theft, robbery, prostitution, or other illicit activities to survive.
 
Addiction: Alcoholics, drug addicts, and those dependent on prescription medication (especially psych meds) may do dangerous things to feed their addition or because of their condition. They should be regarded as unreliable and unpredictable.
 
Mental illness: Persons who are mentally ill should be regarded as potentially unstable and dangerous. A paranoid schizophrenic may be obvious, but persons with less disabling disorders could might not be an imminent danger, but they could degenerate without medication to a disagreeable or disruptive person. Imagine a bipolar neighbor who is ordinarily normal when medicated, but without their prescription they have dangerous mood swings. Example: when manic, it’s “Maple Street stole our water, let’s burn them out!” and when depressive “This is miserable, I can’t take it anymore. I’m gonna kill myself, my family, and maybe the neighbors too.” This might even extend to a generally disagreeable “Karen type” who when off-meds engages in petty squabbles that destabilize neighborhood amity.
 
Homeless
Map homeless people in your area. They are of course transient so this is not a permanent map, although some areas are conducive to homeless encampments like open spaces. You might wish to create maps that you can track over time to analyze for patterns of homeless camp sightings. Be sure to track RVs and people living in cars; the latter may be harder to spot. For car campers, track them by vehicle description and license plate.
 
A car that although it moves around, but is seen occupied by a person all hours of the day, likely indicates a homeless person. Additional indicators include a car filled with personal items, windows that are often completely blacked out (for sleeping), cooking in or near the vehicle, and often signs of someone relieving themselves near the vehicle. Tracking by specific vehicle/plate allows you to monitor movement of individual homeless persons, not just generally.
 
Making a list
Make note of individuals who post on local social media, such as Facebook and NextDoor. You are looking for inflammatory political rhetoric that implies that they would engage in, sanction, or condone political, ethnic, or religious violence. Not a mere difference in political opinion, but the kind who viciously gloat over the death or harm to those on the opposite side of them. For example, someone who posts with glee that X person or politician was or nearly was assassinated or celebrates or calls for harm.

• Cross reference their posts by searching by date, such as to see what they said at the Butler shooting of President Trump or Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
• Search names in combination with commentary on other hot social issues to see if they are making inflammatory remarks.

Persons who openly gloat in political or like violence are likely to support it, even indirectly. In a civil conflict, actions alone cannot be used as predictors of risk. Statements made in this regard may imply an attitude and system of beliefs that are sympathetic to social terror and tyranny. As for the Left/Right divide, the Left tends to see extrajudicial/extralegal harm as an appropriate tool, whereas the Right sees it as a last resort. The Left is more likely to openly relish in their opponents coming to harm while the Right tends not to, or tempers the normal human adversarial reaction in ways leftists do not.