U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams celebrated the life of late housing advocate Hattie B. Dorsey Tuesday, at the unveiling of a new townhome development in Southwest Atlanta.
Dorsey died in May, a week before her 85th birthday. In attendance at Tuesday’s event at the new townhome community on Campbellton Road, were about a dozen of her family members, including her daughter Michelle Dorsey, her sister Joyce Dorsey and brother Jimmy Dorsey.
Williams revealed street signs at a new intersection at the development called Hattie Drive and Dorsey Drive. And she said the community would continue Dorsey’s legacy to provide stable housing to the people of Atlanta.
“It represents opportunity, stability and the promise of generational wealth for families right here,” she told the audience. “I can only imagine the joy that this will bring Miss Hattie.”
Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership Inc. (ANDP) CEO John O’Callaghan, and former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin were among those who delivered tributes.
Dorsey was ANDP’s founding President and CEO. In 1984, she was named as Vice President of the Atlanta Economic Development Corporation, now known as Invest Atlanta. Later in her career, Atlanta’s first Black Mayor Maynard Jackson announced the formation of ANDP after merging the development corporation’s Neighborhood Development Department and the Chamber of Commerce’s Housing Resource Center.
Over more than a decade as head of the ANDP, Dorsey pushed for more affordable and mixed-income housing and coordinated more than $15 million in funding for 20 regional community development corporations, according to O’Callaghan.
“Her tenacity, vision, and leadership laid the groundwork for ANDP’s 33-year history of providing affordable housing options to thousands of metro Atlantans,” O’Callaghan wrote in a remembrance handed out to attendees.
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Credit: Olivia Bowdoin
Franklin said: “She knew Atlanta. She loved Atlanta. She knew that Atlanta needed to have a balance between the haves and the have nots, and she knew what to do about it.
“Affordable housing [and] helping communities was in her blood.”
Michelle Dorsey said her mother visited the Campbellton Road site before she died and was moved to tears when she saw the intersection had been named after her. More recently, Dorsey had been preoccupied with the plight of seniors facing rising property taxes.
“She started this discussion in the 80s. And here we are in 2024, and the need for affordable housing is even greater now than it was then,” she said.
Williams used the event as an opportunity to talk about the benefits of the federal New Markets Tax Credit Program, which financed the townhomes. The lawmaker said she is supporting a bill to make it permanent.
The program incentivizes private investment in low-income neighborhoods by offering tax credits to investors for eligible projects. Aimed at boosting development in underserved communities, the tax credit is often used for non-residential developments but has been used for mixed-use buildings and affordable housing, according to ANPD.
“There are ways that the developers who are developing these houses at affordable margins can also get tax credits because they are giving a service to our communities,” Williams told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It’s about communities coming together so that we can have both affordable and desirable housing.”
The community has 3-bedroom and 3.5 bath homes priced between $324,900 and $329,900. ANDP is offering up to $32,000 in down payment assistance for qualifying homebuyers and Invest Atlanta and Atlanta Housing could offer additional down payment assistance, the group said.
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