Community activist Margie McLeod spent years watching gentrification spread across Atlanta before deciding to do something about it last year. The 75-year-old retired bus driver grew tired of seeing her neighbors in Cascade kicked out of their homes after landlords dramatically raised their rents. Rates in South Atlanta soared during the first half of 2022 […]
Housing
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The Next Chapter in the Battle Over Historically Black Peoplestown
The former home of Summerhill and Peoplestown legend Mattie King Ansley Jackson, who died two years ago at the age of 98, is like a museum now — full of pictures and memories that put a smile on the face of her adoring daughter, Sheryl Calhoun. Calhoun inherited the house in 2020, the year her […]
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Local Housing Forum to Discuss Strengthening Tenants’ Rights in Georgia
With an increasingly unaffordable market, Atlanta’s housing crisis has become a hot topic over the past year for many residents. For the Black community, the stakes have never been higher. Eviction threats, uninhabitable living conditions, and rising home prices have housing advocates and community leaders alike calling for stronger tenant protections across the metro area. […]
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Facing Eviction, Forest at Columbia Residents Meet with DeKalb Commissioner
Tenants from Forest at Columbia — the Panthersville-based apartment complex at the center of an alleged illegal eviction controversy — have gained new allies in their fight to keep their homes. DeKalb County Commissioner Larry Johnson arranged for staffers from the county’s Community Development Department to visit Forest at Columbia on Aug. 5, less than […]
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‘An Illegal Eviction’: Forest at Columbia Residents Feel Blindsided By Ownership
Freshly packed and stacked cardboard boxes formed a pile in front of the wall-mounted television inside Cynthia Arnold’s living room. The 68-year-old grandmother had “Sanford and Son” on the tube, but it was harder than usual for her to watch with medical gauze taped over her lacerated right eye. It’s an injury Arnold said she […]
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A Guide to Atlanta’s NPU System
The city of Atlanta’s 2023 fiscal year budget feedback and approval process is over, but you can still have a say in how your tax dollars are spent. How, you ask? Neighborhood Planning Units, aka NPUs. NPUs are advisory councils designed to amplify the voices of city residents, giving them a way to express their […]
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‘We Shall Not Be Moved!’ Peoplestown Residents Celebrate After Eviction Hearing Postponed
An eviction hearing for Peoplestown resident Tanya Washington Hicks was postponed indefinitely, a momentary win for neighborhood locals in a decade-long eminent domain battle with the city. Washington Hicks, a law professor and married mother of two, has spent the last six years battling one of three total eminent domain lawsuits filed against her and […]
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After Mayor’s Promise, Peoplestown Residents Still Not Sure Where They Stand
It’s been three months since Mayor Andre Dickens met with Black homeowners in Peoplestown and committed to resolving their years-long eminent domain saga within the first 100 days of his administration. That self-imposed deadline expired two weeks ago with Dickens reportedly telling members of the media that discussions are still ongoing. This week, two of […]
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Locked Out of Legacy
EDITOR’S NOTE: Canopy contributor Nikishka Iyengar is the founder and chief ecosystem officer at The Guild, an organization developing equitable real estate and programs for communities of color. “If you really want to talk about the beauty of this city,you gotta start in the parts that nobody wants to go to,that so many people came from.”— […]
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A Renewed Hope for the Embattled Residents of Peoplestown
In the past decade, Robert and Bertha Darden have had numerous knocks on the door of their Peoplestown home by city officials. It usually meant bad news. But a recent knock at the door by one city official proved fruitful. It was Mayor Andre Dickens. He came alone. No entourage. No gaggle of media. Dickens […]