What's Needed to Create and Preserve Affordable Housing in Atlanta

Between 2013 and 2021, the per­cent­age of income that Black Atlantans spent on hous­ing decreased from 54% to 46%.

Why?

While the sur­pris­ing sta­tis­tic can be explained by many fac­tors, includ­ing an increase in new apart­ments and high­er-earn­ing res­i­dents, a major fac­tor was the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. The gov­ern­ment cre­at­ed tem­po­rary evic­tion mora­to­ri­ums, rental assis­tance pro­grams and a fed­er­al child tax cred­it.

The les­son is sim­ple: When it comes to mak­ing hous­ing more afford­able, pol­i­cy change and finan­cial assis­tance work.

Atlanta’s Cost-Bur­dened House­holds Today

Today, hous­ing costs in Atlanta are high­er. More res­i­dents, espe­cial­ly chil­dren, are expe­ri­enc­ing evic­tion and home­less­ness. These fam­i­lies are con­sid­ered ​“cost-bur­dened” households.

Learn how to sup­port stu­dents of col­or in Atlanta

Fed­er­al hous­ing guide­lines cat­e­go­rize indi­vid­u­als as cost bur­dened if they spend more than 30% of their income on hous­ing costs. This includes neces­si­ties such as food, trans­porta­tion, edu­ca­tion, child care or emer­gency savings.

Even in 2021, when hous­ing costs for Black Atlantans were com­par­a­tive­ly low, they spent more on hous­ing than their Asian (21%), Lati­no (25%) and white (16%) neighbors. 

To relieve the cost bur­den expe­ri­enced by many Black house­holds in Atlanta, hous­ing must become more affordable.

Hous­ing Afford­abil­i­ty and Homeownership

Hous­ing afford­abil­i­ty is a city­wide chal­lenge but dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affects Black Atlantans. While 45% of Atlanta res­i­dents are home­own­ers, only 35% of Black res­i­dents own their homes.

Home own­er­ship pro­vides many advan­tages, including:

• pre­dictable hous­ing costs via a con­sis­tent mort­gage payment;
• greater pro­tec­tions from hous­ing dis­place­ment com­pared to rent­ing; and
• own­er­ship of an appre­cia­ble finan­cial asset that can lead to inter­gen­er­a­tional wealth.

To relieve this hous­ing cost bur­den, Black Atlantans must have greater access to home­own­er­ship opportunities.

Casey’s Invest­ments in Hous­ing Affordability

While much of the Casey Foundation’s work in Atlanta is ded­i­cat­ed to help­ing renters, it also invests in strate­gies that increase hous­ing afford­abil­i­ty and house­hold incomes.

Read about end­ing income inequal­i­ty in Atlanta

These include:

• Invest­ments in afford­able hous­ing pol­i­cy. The Foundation’s hous­ing advo­ca­cy grantees — such as Abun­dant Hous­ing Atlanta, Hous­ing Jus­tice League, Geor­gia ACT and House­ATL — have all helped secure new ten­ant pro­tec­tion laws and pro­tect Georgia’s Low-Income Hous­ing Tax Cred­it pro­gram this year.
• Pro­tec­tion of exist­ing homeowners.
  1. Casey grantee House­Proud cur­rent­ly pro­vides crit­i­cal home repairs for long­time Atlanta residents.
  2. Anoth­er grantee, the Atlanta Belt­line Part­ner­ship, helps reduce prop­er­ty tax costs paid by lega­cy residents.
• Entre­pre­neur­ship and employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties through Pitts­burgh Yards. This 31-acre site is the Foundation’s largest invest­ment in equi­table devel­op­ment. It pro­vides afford­able com­mer­cial space for local small busi­ness­es, encour­ag­ing the devel­op­ment of high-wage jobs in south Atlanta.
• Legal advo­ca­cy for ten­ant pro­tec­tions: Through part­ner­ships with Atlanta Vol­un­teer Lawyer’s Foun­da­tion and Gideon’s Hous­ing Task­force, the Foun­da­tion works to ensure that ele­men­tary school stu­dents can remain in school even when par­ents are faced with eviction.
• New col­lab­o­ra­tive own­er­ship models:
  1. The Atlanta Land Trust, a grantee that pur­chas­es and devel­ops prop­er­ty with fund­ing from pub­lic and phil­an­thropic sources, helps new home­own­ers access afford­able hous­ing. When a home­own­er is ready to sell, they return a por­tion of their prof­it back to the land trust to keep the hous­ing afford­able for the next family.
  2. The Guild, a work­er-owned coop­er­a­tive, is in the process of devel­op­ing a 7,000-square-foot, mixed-use build­ing in Atlanta’s Capi­tol View neigh­bor­hood. The struc­ture will house a com­mer­cial space on the bot­tom and col­lec­tive­ly owned afford­able apart­ments on top. Capi­tol View res­i­dents will be able to buy build­ing shares start­ing at $10, receive div­i­dends and hold vot­ing rights to deter­mine how prof­its will ben­e­fit the community.

These tar­get­ed invest­ments and strate­gies, which are cen­tered on pol­i­cy change and finan­cial assis­tance, are impor­tant steps toward a more equi­table and afford­able hous­ing mar­ket in Atlanta.

Aman­da Jaquez is a senior asso­ciate with the Casey Foundation’s Atlanta Civic Site.

Learn more about the 2024 Chang­ing the Odds report