How to solve metro Atlanta's housing puzzle
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Finding an affordable place to live can feel like a second job for many metro Atlantans, particularly those living on low incomes.
- Solving that problem requires a building bonanza, fair and decent wages and community support, two experts told Axios.
Driving the news: On Thursday, Axios hosted a virtual discussion with Raphael Bostic, the president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and Joshua Humphries, the housing policy advisor for Mayor Andre Dickens to discuss what's working to increase affordable housing in metro Atlanta.
State of play: High interest rates like we're currently experiencing make improving housing affordability more difficult, Bostic said.
- Builders have a hard time securing construction financing at favorable rates, subsidies to fund affordable units don't stretch as far, and families looking to buy a starter home struggle to find a loan.
Yes, but: Bostic has said the Fed likely won't lower rates until next year at the earliest because inflation remains sticky — we're at roughly 4% now, though trending downward — and the economy is running strong.
- Hitting the Fed's 2% inflation goal would lead to lower rates, which could create a stronger economy and more opportunities for families, he said.
Zoom out: Affordable housing is a regional issue. And in Balkanized metro regions, including Atlanta's, progress can be difficult.
- "My experience really says that to solve affordable housing, you need every city council in America, every mayor, to be focused on this and everyone to understand their role," Bostic told Axios.
- "That's just a huge task," he said. "And when you have so much turnover in public officials and people in those positions, it just makes the task that much harder."
Reality check: Bostic's expertise in housing runs deep; his Ph.D. research at Stanford University focused on discrimination in housing lending, and he continues to co-author papers about the issue.
- From his vantage point, the U.S. hasn't made much progress on addressing housing affordability.
Zoom in: In a dense and growing place like Atlanta, leaders are looking to develop properties the city already owns to work around the high cost of land, Humphries said.
- Other strategies to meet a goal of building or preserving 20,000 affordable units include partnering with churches to construct housing on underused parking lots, supporting community land trusts and converting downtown's 2 Peachtree office building into mixed-income residential.
Elevator pitch: "I think that we all aspire Atlanta to be an inclusive place that's approachable and accessible to everyone, [live in] a quality neighborhood that we can all be proud of and have access to the amenities that we want to have," Humphries told Axios.
- "If we don't have the variety of housing that we need to have… I think we'll fail to be the best version of ourselves in the city."