Press
Atlanta Set to Make Historic Affordable Housing Investment
Public and private funding pledges could inject $300 million into affordable housing initiatives in the metro Atlanta area.
By DianaIonescu@aworkoffiction.com
A massive investment in affordable housing could be coming to the Atlanta metro area, with $200 million pledged by the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta and another $100 million slated to come from a proposed affordable housing bond. “Today’s announcement is a game-changer in our ability to have projects keep pace with a rapidly evolving market,” said Mayor Andre Dickens, who is working with the city council to pass the new bonds and has pledged to build or preserve 20,000 housing units by 2030.
As Maria Saporta explains in the Saporta Report, “The Community Foundation, working with local partners including the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and the Atlanta Regional Commission, estimates Atlanta is losing more than 1,500 affordable homes each year. Metro Atlanta is projected to add another 2.9 million people by 2050, and nearly 100,000 households will not be able to afford market prices.” The historic investment would still fall short of the estimated $1 billion needed to fully address the region’s affordability crisis.
“The efforts announced Tuesday morning build upon HouseATL, an initiative launched by dozens of nonprofit and for-profit leaders in 2018 to make recommendations on housing affordability.” The initiative’s recommendations included investing more in affordable housing, prioritizing anti-displacement initiatives, improving cross-sector collaboration, and empowering community members to participate in decision-making.
FULL STORY: Stars align for $300 million affordable housing treasure chest in Atlanta
HUD ALLOCATES $382 MILLION TO HELP STATES PRODUCE AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Housing Trust Fund Allocations will increase and preserve the supply of decent, safe, and sanitary affordable housing for extremely low- and very low-income households
WASHINGTON - Today, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) allocated $382 million through the nation's Housing Trust Fund (see list of state allocations below). The Housing Trust Fund (HTF) is an affordable housing production program that complements existing Federal, state and local efforts to increase and preserve the supply of decent, safe, and sanitary affordable housing for extremely low- and very low-income households, including families experiencing homelessness.
“We’re proud to invest in states to create more affordable housing,” said HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge. “The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to improving the nation’s housing affordability crisis and the Housing Trust Fund provides communities resources they need to produce more safe, sustainable and affordable housing.”
HTF is a formula-based program for States and U.S. Territories. By law, each state is allocated a minimum of $3 million. State affordable housing planners will use these funds for the following eligible activities:
- Real property acquisition
- Site improvements and development hard costs
- Related soft costs
- Demolition
- Financing costs
- Relocation assistance
- Operating cost assistance for rental housing (up to 30% of each grant)
- Reasonable administrative and planning costs.
The Housing Trust Fund is being capitalized through contributions made by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In December 2014, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) directed these Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) to begin setting aside and allocating funds to the Housing Trust Fund. The Housing Trust Fund helps to strengthen and broaden the Federal housing safety net for people in need by increasing production of, and access to, affordable housing for the nation’s most vulnerable populations. One hundred percent of funds must be used for extremely low-income families. This targeting ensures the priority of this program is helping those with the greatest needs.
The Pearl: Affordable Housing Complex With Health Clinic Coming To Southwest Jackson Aliyah Veal ALIYAH VEAL JANUARY 11, 2023
JACKSON, Miss.—Pastor Samuel Boyd sat inside the Western Sizzlin off Highway 80 for lunch. Glancing outside the window by his seat, he noticed an old Holiday Inn rotting away. This dilapidated building sparked an idea that stemmed from his time serving as a pastor at Historic St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church in New Orleans.
In 2000, the late Bishop Cornal Garnett Henning Sr. assigned Boyd to become the new pastor of Pearl Street AME Church in West Jackson, though the latter was not initially excited about returning to the metro. The move, however, opened up an opportunity for the AME church organization to begin doing work that they had already started in the Crescent City.
“In the ’90s, there were a lot of abandoned properties across the street from the (Historic St. James AME) Church,” Boyd described to the Mississippi Free Press. “It was blighted. It was bad for the church members coming in, driving in the church … and across the street, prostitution and everything would go on in there.”
By 1994, the church completed a $5-million renovation on the property, converting it into a 38-unit complex called St. James Homes.
Initially, Pastor Boyd wanted to turn the old property off Highway 80 into a headquarters for the southern region of the AME organization, but that plan did not pan out. But on the seventh day of the seventh month in 2007, at around 2 a.m., he received a message from God, he said.
“God gave me a vision to deal with possibly converting that place, if I could get it, into a home for seniors,” Pastor Boyd said. “Scripture tells us to write down the vision, make it plain and run with it. And that’s what we did.”
Sixteen years later, that vision is finally coming to fruition with The Pearl, a 72,000-square-foot affordable-housing complex for the elderly and disabled. The community will have 76 one- and two-bedroom apartments reserved for residents aged 55 or older and a health clinic—operated in partnership with the Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Center—that will be open to the public.
“It’s the prayer and work of this membership and the community buying into that (vision), and it is nobody but God moving onto the hearts of people to see what you don’t see,” Boyd said. “All I can do is just give all the praises under God to lead me to putting the right people in the path (and) putting the right people together.”
The Pearl Street AME Church has been a part of the Jackson community for more than 152 years. Pastor Boyd said the church was a recruitment station for the NAACP during the Civil Rights Movement and has always been heavily involved in anything that can better the Pearl Street community.
“We talked about revitalizing Highway 80; Pearl Street needed to have a footprint in the efforts to wake that area back up and get it back going,” Boyd said. “We are a long way from waking it up and getting it going, but … it’s coming back. But it won’t be like it used to be.”
In the 1960s, Highway 80 bustled with businesses, hotels and restaurants. During this period, which was before the construction of Interstate 20, one would have to take the long trek through Jackson to get from Brandon to Clinton, making the area a very busy thoroughfare, Pastor Boyd explained.
“(With) development in the outskirt areas like Madison and Rankin County (and) people moving out into other parts of the suburbs, businesses quite naturally wouldn’t be as lucrative,” he said. “There was an economic shift due to people moving out of the Jackson area, and that brought business down.”
Today, though businesses still operate along the highway, various blighted properties pepper the path.
The pastor scheduled a meeting with Gulf Coast Housing Partners CEO Kathy Laborde, with whom he shared his vision for an affordable housing complex for elderly Mississippians.
“We’ve been working toward (that vision) all the way to where we are now. It’s a 76-unit project for seniors who are able to live on their own and we have special units for handicap and veterans,” Boyd said.
The Gulf Coast Housing Partnership received a $750,000 affordable-housing program subsidy from Trustmark and Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas to help fund the $28-million adaptive-reuse project.
“At the groundbreaking, Pastor Boyd mentioned that this was his vision, and he thought that this location, when it came about, was a sign that this needed to be done,” FHLB Senior Affordable Housing Analyst Mark Loya told the Mississippi Free Press.
“It is within his community (and) within the area of the church,” he added. “With it being a property that’s going to be targeting elderly and disabled individuals, that’s something that I think he was wanting to make sure happened.”
Boyd connected with Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Center CEO Jasmin Chapman, and together they devised a plan for the center to operate the health-care clinic that will serve not only the residents at The Pearl, but the surrounding community as well.