Building a better Atlanta: Affordable Housing Week

By Sarah Kirsch, managing director, Housing Funds

It is only fitting that we spent Valentine’s Day talking about innovation, collaboration, and acceleration of… affordable housing. As Mayor Dickens likes to say, affordable housing is our love language. After all, safe, stable housing is all about the highest form of love, agape, love of humankind. When you invest in providing safe, stable housing for residents of Atlanta, or any community, you are investing in the whole person, their families, and their future – a better education, better health, and expanded opportunities for our neighbors.

Without creating more diverse affordable housing options, the opportunity gap for Atlanta residents will continue to grow.

That is why a key strategy of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta is striving for a more equitable, prosperous Atlanta region through affordable housing. Addressing affordability requires all hands on deck. And by creating a platform for developers, foundations and businesses to solve the variety of issues that exist around affordable housing, we are taking a lead role as the connective tissue so that Atlanta, and all our residents, will thrive.

This week was the first-ever, affordable housing week at city hall, and the Community Foundation was a proud partner. While there was plenty of passion and enthusiasm about what can be, this week was about pragmatism – accelerating building permits, a new one-stop-shop to access funding, demystifying the varied public funding sources, making connections to solve problems. Every room was full of problem-solvers, motivated to move us more quickly toward our shared goals. I spent the day talking with our current and future partners about (1) how we are preserving existing affordable housing stock as a critical, near-term need and business opportunity and (2) how we are weaving together public, private, and philanthropic resources to advance affordable housing goals.

A few important observations from my fellow panelists:

• There may be no other city in the country that is dedicating a whole week to affordable housing. Atlanta is committed;
• Our partners at Atlanta Housing, Invest Atlanta, and Department of Community Affairs are innovating, partnering and bringing a level of sophistication to affordable housing that is unlike anything we have ever seen;
• There is an unprecedented level of collaboration across and within sectors in Atlanta. Every developer I heard from shared that they genuinely want to help bring along the next generation of developers and bring more development partners to the table.

It was a pleasure to share why affordable housing is so critically important to the Community Foundation and how we are helping to remove barriers. By offering lower-cost loans as well as targeted grant dollars, we are helping affordable housing development move forward and supporting the ability for mission-driven partners to scale. Our flexible capital is designed to (1) fill gaps in the funding ecosystem and (2) support deeper and longer terms of affordability that are really needed to meet the needs of Atlantans for generations. We recognize the need in Atlanta for flexible, concessionary capital while also recognizing the barriers for private funders to engage. In response, last year, the Community Foundation significantly expanded its platform to make it easier for private capital – corporate, philanthropic and individual donors and investors – to be part of addressing our affordable housing crisis. Through our GoATL and TogetherATL affordable housing funds, we connect capital to worthy projects and accelerate progress towards our goal of 20,000 affordable homes in the city.

We are committed to this work. We are committed to showing up for our city and all Atlanta’s residents to create a more equitable and prosperous future.

Photo credit: Atlanta BeltLine Inc.