The Atlanta City Council approved a resolution Monday pledging $3 million from its affordable housing trust fund to support “rapid housing” for people without homes.
Councilwoman Andrea L. Boone led the resolution authorizing Partners for Home to use the funds to fast-track housing projects and construction. Passage of the measure comes as Mayor Andre Dickens set a target of providing 500 rapid housing units by 2025.
Rapid housing can be constructed more quickly than traditional housing units, to get people off the streets and into living quarters faster.
Boone said she was proud the city passed the resolution. But she encouraged state and county officials to do more to ease a problem worsened by layoffs, the price of food, utilities, and property taxes. She added that the “face of homelessness had changed” with more families and children living without a roof over their heads.
“Atlanta has become more of a gathering spot for the homeless population and we have a duty to serve. We have a duty to provide safe, sanitary housing for as many individuals as we can, " she said in an interview.
Dickens has tasked Partners for Home, a non-profit coordinating the city’s homelessness strategy, to create housing on public land.
Partners for Home’s chief executive officer Cathryn Vassell said about $63 million was needed in capital funding for the 500 units. She estimated each unit would cost $125,000, and said about $20 million had been identified. She said the group was about to launch a fundraising campaign as it worked toward raising the money to bridge the more than $40 million funding gap.
Even so, she hoped the City Council’s action would allow the group to move quickly on new developments.
“We believe housing is the solution to ending homelessness and that homelessness is a housing problem,” she said. “To the extent that these funds are going directly to the effort of bringing online housing in a way that we’ve never done before, we are incredibly grateful and we look forward to bringing on the next units.”
The city council’s pledge of $3 million from the housing trust fund follows a $4 million executive order in August 2023 launching the first phase of the city Rapid Housing Initiative. In October, $7.5 million in housing bond funds were allocated to the initiative, according to a Partners for Home update on the plan.
The Melody, a 40-unit community of studio-style apartments made from used shipping containers, opened in February on Forsyth Street downtown. The city plans to build an additional 65 units at the Waterworks Reservoir on Northside Drive, 32 units at the Interdenominational Theological Center Campus, and 100 units at 405 Cooper St.
Dickens wants to maintain or build 20,000 units of affordable housing by 2030.
As part of that push, the mayor announced last week that the Atlanta Urban Development Corporation had released a Request for Qualifications, or RFQ, seeking development partners to revive Thomasville Heights in southeast Atlanta and relocate residents of the shuttered Forest Cove Section 8 complex back to new homes.
“This development will bring more affordability and equity to Southeast Atlanta and create a pathway back for former Forest Cove residents while ensuring they have the safe and secure housing they deserve,” Dickens said in prepared remarks.
Last year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development suspended Forest Cove owner Millenia Housing Management from securing new government contracts and said last week that the mega-landlord would be banned from all new Section 8 contracts, according to Atlanta Civic Circle.
About the Author
