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 […]
Money
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 inEquity, Money
Killer Mike’s Bankruptcy Journey Highlights Black Wealth Gaps
Editor’s note: The following is excerpted with permission, from the book “Fifteen Cents on the Dollar: How Americans Made the Black-White Wealth Gap,” which examines the structural origins of racialized wealth inequality in the United States and what perpetuates it today. The authors, Ebony Reed and Louise Story, will be featured panelists at Capital B Fest in […]
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 […]
Posted inHousing
Reimagining Bankhead Courts: Former Residents Weigh In
Atlanta Housing has extended the deadline for public input on a project to revitalize Bankhead Courts, a former public housing project in northwest Atlanta that the city demolished in 2011. The agency, which is Georgia’s largest housing authority, said in an announcement last week that the decision to push back the original June 7 deadline […]
Posted inHousing
The Civic Center Redevelopment Could Start This Year. Is 1,500 Housing Units Enough?
This story was originally published on May 22 by the Atlanta Civic Circle. Subscribe to their newsletter here. Crews could break ground on the Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center’s long-overdue redevelopment before the end of the year, kicking off a potentially 13-year plan to bring new restaurants, retail, office space, a hotel, and around 1,500 […]
