Atlanta Housing freezes out Section 8 landlords from raising rents

Axios Atlanta first reported the freeze.

In 2024, the national nonprofit Enterprise Community Partners said an analysis of HUD administrative data had found about 60% of households receiving vouchers were able to lease a unit within 180 days.

Housing expert and author Dan Immergluck, professor emeritus at Georgia State University, said that means about 40% of voucher holders nationally already can’t find housing even with assistance, and that freezing rent hikes is the “last thing we need.”

“They need to keep those rents adjusted so that landlords won’t leave the program,” Immergluck said.

The freeze follows Atlanta Housing’s July announcement that it would cut its budget by $80 million, and reduce funding for the Housing Choice program by $51 million, or 13%. The agency said it was making the cuts in anticipation of reduced federal spending.

In the memo shared with the AJC, Ferguson said the decision was made amid “news and guidance continuing to evolve around federal funding and financial assistance programs.” He wrote that agency officials thought it was “prudent to suspend rental increases for AH’s Housing Choice Voucher Program, effective immediately.”

The pause was “subject to ongoing review,” Ferguson wrote, acknowledging landlords’ participation in affordable housing programs is “mission-critical.”

“AH will continue to track and monitor key legislative and regulatory actions, including budget resolutions, appropriations bills and regulations that may impact the agency’s funding and the ability to achieve its objectives,” said Ferguson, who will leave his post effective Aug. 1.

Credit: contributed

Credit: contributed

Michael Lucas, executive director of the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation, said the hold would make it even harder for tenants to find landlords willing to accept their vouchers.

He said many families already face an “uphill battle,” and usually have 60 days to secure housing before their voucher expires. Families who may have been on a wait list for years could see their choices narrow, he said.

“One more downstream impact of all of that is there’s going to be even more of a market for the kind of slumlords that Atlantans too often have to endure,” Lucas said.

Atlanta Housing CEO Terri Lee declined a request for an interview and the mayor’s office did not immediately comment. But Atlanta Housing spokesperson Carolyn Smith said the agency has “not seen any significant departure” from participating landlords since the announcement.

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

“The pause is part of a broader effort to protect housing stability for residents amid federal funding uncertainty and to ensure Atlanta Housing can meet its core priorities,” Smith wrote in an emailed statement.

Immergluck pointed to a series of proposed federal cuts to housing that will leave Atlantans vulnerable, and lead to more people losing their homes or becoming homeless.

With the rent pause expected to hit low-income families, Trump administration proposals imposing time limits or work requirements could deal another blow, Immergluck said.

Most public housing authorities do not impose work requirements as a condition for receiving housing aid, with Atlanta Housing among the few that do.

A recent brief from the Housing Solutions Lab at the New Furman Center at New York University detailed stricter proposals, including state block grants for rental assistance tied to work requirements and two-year caps on “able-bodied” adults. According to the Lab, 70% of households with members able to work received assistance for more than two years and would be at risk of losing it.

In June, a spokesperson with the White House’s Office of Management and Budget said the proposed budget “contains long overdue reforms to finally fix our broken federal housing policy and ensure that assistance goes to those who need it most.”

Immergluck said those policies would only “increase displacement,” adding that most “people on vouchers either can’t work or do work. They just don’t make enough money.”

“I understand the logic of time limits. The logic might work if you had jobs that paid enough for people to afford housing, but the kinds of jobs that these folks can get do not pay enough,” he said.

Matthew Nursey, an organizer with advocacy group the Housing Justice League, said his organization wants the city to require any developer receiving a tax break for affordable housing to accept a minimum number of vouchers.

“The amount of affordable housing stock is going to go down,” Nursey said of the pause on rent hikes. “You’re going to see more evictions. You’re going to see even more homelessness.”