Black renters and homebuyers struggling with high housing costs in Atlanta shouldn’t expect immediate relief from a new federal housing bill that became law over the weekend.
The measure, known as the 21st Century ROAD To Housing Act, took effect at midnight Saturday. It includes provisions that incentivize additional home construction, which supporters expect will lower housing costs over time by increasing the supply of available homes.
One of those supporters is U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Georgia, who negotiated a section of the law that puts a 350-unit cap on the number of single-family homes private equity firms are allowed to purchase nationwide. Companies that break the law have to pay a $1 million fine or three times the property’s purchase price for each violation.
The cap is a move housing affordability advocates in Georgia have been urging state lawmakers to make for several years. Metro Atlanta for years has been the epicenter of corporate-owned, single-family homes in the U.S. An estimated 25% of houses in Atlanta are owned by corporations, according to a 2024 Government Accountability Office report. Most of those homes (61%) reside in majority-Black neighborhoods, according to the authors of an Atlanta housing study released in March.
Still, affordability advocates say the ROAD Act doesn’t do enough to help Black Georgians in the middle of a statewide housing crisis. Metro Atlanta was the eviction capital of America last year. Those evictions are one of the reasons the city’s homeless population surged 6% in January and have risen for four consecutive years.
Black Georgians are struggling more than most to keep roofs over their heads. They made up 85% of the city’s homeless population this year despite representing less than half (46%) of Atlanta residents. Lack of more-permanent affordable housing has fueled a spike in tenants living in extended stay hotels.
“Even if there is a kind of positive change in making housing more affordable across the spectrum for renters and owners, it’ll be a number of years before we actually see any of those impacts,” said Georgia State University professor Taylor Shelton, who specializes in gentrification-related research. “The immediate impact is going to be essentially nonexistent for the entirety of the bill.”
Warnock previously told Capital B Atlanta that the ROAD Act’s 350-unit cap is “forward looking,” and won’t apply to the roughly 72,000 metro Atlanta homes already owned by private equity firms.
He told supporters in Atlanta’s Adamsville neighborhood on Monday that the ROAD Act will increase housing supply by cutting red tape, investing in local innovation, and reforming legacy housing programs.
“If you’re a single mom, if you’re the married father of two trying to buy a home, owning a small barbershop, you cannot compete with Wall Street,” Warnock told supporters Monday in Atlanta, according to Georgia Public Broadcasting. “They will outbid you every time. And so this is about fairness.”
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said the ROAD Act and the city’s Neighborhood Reinvestment Act share some of the same goals, including creating pathways to home ownership.
“The ROAD Act focuses on keeping legacy homes out of the hands of folks who put profits over people,” Dickens told GPB on Monday.
Forcing companies to sell their existing housing stock is a move supported by Alison Johnson, executive director of the Housing Justice League, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of low-income renters in metro Atlanta.
Johnson characterized the ROAD Act as “putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound.” She acknowledged the difficulty of getting more-progressive housing policy passed in a sharply divided Congress, but said politicians in Washington have to do more or risk being replaced by others who will.
“We can’t continue to participate in this system the way we’ve participated and think there’s going to be change,” Johnson said. “We’re going to have to continue to call on these firms to divest in their properties and give them back to Fannie Mae.”
The ROAD Act’s cap on corporate single-family homeownership has loopholes that make it much less effective, according to Shelton.
He noted the cap doesn’t apply to houses purchased from another corporate landlord or homes acquired via corporate merger or acquisition. He said the cap also doesn’t apply to build-to-rent or rent-to-own properties.
“All of the ways that corporate landlords are currently acquiring properties are exempt from being considered by this law,” Shelton said. “It is very unlikely that any of the provisions in the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act will have a meaningful effect on bringing down, or even slowing, the growth of rents.”
The new law also offers more incentives to banks to provide small-dollar mortgage lending and benefits to landlords who participate in the federal government’s Section 8 voucher program.
It streamlines Housing Choice Voucher program inspections, which advocates say will help qualifying Section 8 recipients use their vouchers more quickly.
It also directs the U.S. Housing and Urban Development secretary to create a $30 million pilot program that provides low-income homeowner grants to fund qualifying home repair actions.
Shelton and Johnson praised Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill for finally taking action on housing affordability. In addition to Warnock, the ROAD Act has been championed by U.S. Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Mike Collins.
President Donald Trump previously advocated for parts of the bill, but recently refused to sign the ROAD Act to try forcing lawmakers to approve a controversial federal overhaul of elections via the SAVE Act. The ROAD Act automatically took effect last Saturday without Trump’s signature or veto, in accordance with federal law.
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