“We’re human! The way y’all treat us?! [It’s] like we’re dirt!” Deborah Love shouted at one of the accused slumlord owners of her rundown apartment complex late Wednesday afternoon during an arranged town hall meeting in southwest Atlanta. “We have rights!” Love continued, shaking as tears streamed down her face. Other meeting participants and organizers […]
Housing
Posted inHousing, Politics & Policy
Mayor Dickens Proposes $60 Million to Combat Homelessness
Mayor Andre Dickens’ proposal to invest $60 million into affordable housing seeks to address Atlanta’s ongoing housing crisis by building 700 new affordable units by the end of 2025. “This would be the single largest investment in homelessness in Atlanta’s history,” Dickens said Tuesday at a Woodruff Park press conference. Despite average rent prices declining […]
Posted inHousing
Fairburn & Gordon Tenants to Address Owners Over Dilapidated Conditions
Traumatized, low-income tenants from Fairburn & Gordon I and II Apartments will finally get the chance to confront the owners of their troubled West Atlanta complex next month after spending years living there in extremely hazardous conditions. Partnership for Southern Equity, a local social justice nonprofit, worked with city officials to arrange the meeting between […]
Posted inHousing, Public Safety
‘You Are A Slumlord!’: Fairburn & Gordon Tenants Clash With Owners
Cherry Gary didn’t mince words Wednesday morning during a tense Municipal Court of Atlanta confrontation with one of her landlords. “You are a slumlord! … And everything y’all have needs to crumble!” Gary told Behzad “Ben” Beroukhai, one of the co-owners of A&B Apartments LLC, the parent company of the troubled Fairburn & Gordon I […]
Posted inHousing
Fairburn & Gordon Tenants Confront Owners Face-To-Face After Hearing
A pair of Fairburn & Gordon I and II Apartments tenants finally got the chance to confront the owners of their notoriously dilapidated southwest Atlanta complex face-to-face Thursday morning. Brothers Behzad “Ben” Beroukhai and Abraham “Abe” Beroukhai — co-owners of Fairburn & Gordon’s parent company, A&B Apartments LLC — met privately with two of their […]
Posted inHousing, Partner Content, Politics & Policy
Housing-First Policies Are on the Ballot This Presidential Election
This story was originally published by Atlanta Civic Circle. One of the nation’s most widely embraced strategies to combat homelessness — getting people housed first and then addressing other needs around mental health, addiction, and employment — faces an existential threat in the upcoming presidential election. Like Democratic and Republican administrations before it, the Biden […]
Posted inHousing
Homeless Census Reveals a Rise in Unhoused Black Workers in Atlanta
Lower-income Black workers whose stagnant wages aren’t keeping up with rent prices are driving the growth in Atlanta’s homeless population, according to an annual count of the city’s unhoused. The ranks of Atlanta’s homeless grew to 2,867 people, a 7% spike from the 2,679 homeless people counted in January 2023 in Partners for HOME’s annual […]
Posted inHousing
Fairburn & Gordon Owners Pay City Fine. Tenants Call For Demolition.
The owners of the Fairburn & Gordon I and II Apartments complex in southwest Atlanta paid more than $35,000 on Friday to settle an overdue civil penalty, but their tenants say that’s not enough. Some residents want the entire complex condemned and demolished after the city relocates them to better housing. “I would like to […]
Posted inCourts, Housing, Social Welfare
Judge Tells Fairburn & Gordon Owners It’s Time To Pay Up
The owners of the dilapidated Fairburn & Gordon I and II Apartments complex in west Atlanta are in hot water with a city judge after failing to complete a list of repairs and pay a hefty fine within a 30-day deadline. Municipal Judge Christopher T. Portis gave the complex’s parent company, A&B Apartments LLC, and […]
Posted inHousing, Money
Black Atlanta Homebuyers Cope With a Difficult Market
Forklift driver Craig Dollar and his wife Kimberly, an Atlanta Public Schools teacher, have dreamed of buying an affordable home in Atlanta for their family since 2006. But saving enough is a challenge in a metro area where rent prices have risen three times faster than wages since 2019 and the median home price has […]
