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 over the past two years, homelessness has been on the rise, as prices still sit well above pre-pandemic averages.
In January, Partners for HOME, a nonprofit organization that tallies Atlanta’s unhoused residents every year, discovered a 7% year-over-year rise in homelessness; that census found that 86% of the city’s unhoused people were Black. The prior year, overall homelessness jumped by 33%.
“This is a crisis in our community,” said Cathryn Vassell, CEO of Partners for HOME. “Until we get a hold of our affordable housing crisis, we will continue to have people coming into our homeless system.”
Although the mayor’s office hasn’t framed his proposal as part of his public safety plan, Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that 1 in 8 people booked into the city jail in 2022 were unhoused.
Unhoused people are often arrested for misdemeanors like trespassing, panhandling, shoplifting, and public drinking — quality-of-life offenses that cannot be solved by a stint in jail.
The city has begun to address this by partnering with Policing Alternatives and Diversion (PAD), an organization that offers wraparound services to people arrested on low-level offenses with the aim of keeping them out of the criminal justice system.
The overwhelming majority of people PAD engages are experiencing homelessness, according to Executive Director Moki Macias.
In 2023, PAD provided housing support to 380 people, less than 15% of the more than 2,500 unhoused people living in Atlanta.
“Policies and investments that expand options and provide safe places to live are the clear answer,” said Macias.
The mayor’s proposal would create 500 new units by the end of 2025 — including on-site wraparound services through his Rapid Housing Initiative — and 200 units distributed throughout new or renovated apartment buildings across the city.
“We must act with urgency to rehouse our homeless, to stop the displacement of low-income renters and to [protect] our legacy residents from being priced out,” Dickens said.
The majority of funding for the mayor’s proposal would come from a $50 million Homeless Opportunity Bond with $10 million from the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund over the next six years, both of which need to be approved by the City Council.
