Atlanta picks firms to fix housing, revive neighborhoods

Atlanta has chosen 15 local companies to split nearly $14 million in hopes of combating the foreclosure crisis that’s left several neighborhoods in the south and west parts of the city struggling for survival.

Atlanta is the first city to award money under the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

The Atlanta City Council has already agreed to give four companies about $3 million obtained from the program that will pay for flipping houses to fix troubled neighborhoods.

On Monday, the council plans to award its remaining $11 million to 11 more companies who are all promising to repair and either sell or rent homes and apartments in some of the city’s toughest neighborhoods.

Housing officials asked potential contractors to submit proposals for what they would do and what neighborhoods they would target.

The 11 companies were selected from a list of 68 that requested more than $138 million.

“We were really looking for companies that would bring funding to the table, that had affordable housing experience, that had the development capacity to complete their project,” said Valerie Fountaine, Atlanta’s coordinator of the Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

The firms Fountaine is recommending to the council for approval Monday are proposing to create 258 units of either rental or owner-occupied homes and apartments in neighborhoods such as Pittsburg, Sylvan Hills and Edgewood.

The NSP is an effort through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to halt the slide of areas hit hard by foreclosure. It provides money to states, counties and cities to refurbish homes and then sell them.

Georgia governments got $146 million, of which $16.2 million came to Atlanta.

All were asked to also provide private money to match the city-approved federal funding.

Atlanta housing officials plan to act as gatekeepers approving specific projects and properties that fit under the broad guidelines of the program and inside the applications the companies file.

The Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership got $1.02 million and has promised to put up an additional $300,000 to restore at least 10 homes in the Sylvan Hills and Whitefoord communities. It hopes to spend less than $140,000 on each home before it’s ready to be sold.

The ANDP already has a handful of houses under way in an effort to test its model.

“Our goal is to sell first, then do lease-purchase,” said John O’Callaghan, CEO of the nonprofit affordable housing developer. “We don’t want the houses to sit around. I feel confident we are going to move houses. We put a lot of time into talking to Realtors and builders before designing our program.”

The city of Atlanta’s grants to outside contractors vary from as little as $400,000 to as much as $2 million.

City officials stress the money won’t be enough to turn around the most troubled communities. The NSP, they say, is designed more to slow the slide of areas that haven’t yet collapsed or to make an impact on individual streets.

Evelyn Nu’Man, the city’s housing director, said Atlanta got requests to put all its money in a single troubled community or spread it evenly among them all. Others have told her they hope for broad impact from the public investment.

Nu’Man said the goals of the NSP are much more modest.

“Let’s be realistic,” she said. “This is not enough money to save entire communities.”