Atlanta passes halfway point to house 400 people by the end of 2025
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Partners for HOME CEO Cathryn Vassell, right, discusses the Atlanta Rising campaign with Axios Atlanta reporter Kristal Dixon. Photo: Courtesy of Melle Houston on behalf of Axios
An Atlanta nonprofit tasked with leading the city's homelessness response says it is more than halfway toward its goal of housing 400 people by year-end.
Why it matters: The housing affordability crisis is affecting people in nearly all income brackets, and is forcing local governments to shift their attention to helping people keep a roof over their heads.
The latest: Cathryn Vassell, CEO of Partners for HOME, the nonprofit that helps manage the city's strategy to reduce homelessness, told Axios the organization has housed 219 people this year as part of its $212 million Atlanta Rising project.
Driving the news: The progress report for Partners for HOME's initiative was unveiled Wednesday during Axios' Zoom In series examining successes and headaches in Atlanta's plan to expand affordable housing options.
- The series included discussions with Mayor Andre Dickens' chief of staff Courtney English and Katie Kirkpatrick, Metro Atlanta Chamber president and CEO.
What they're saying: Vassell said Atlanta Rising's overarching mission is to find housing for all unsheltered people in Downtown by the time next year's FIFA World Cup arrives.
Zoom in: The city next month will cut the ribbon on a project designed to help Partners for HOME reach its goal. Waterworks will include 100 units on city-owned property at the corner of Northside Drive and 17th Street.
State of play: An announcement from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development "completely dismantled and turned on its head" how organizations use federal dollars to fund supportive housing, Vassell said.
- HUD is moving away from a housing-first approach and will require Atlanta and other communities across the country to use federal money only for temporary solutions.
- Vassell told Axios this could affect about 600 households that are designated as permanently disabled in Atlanta.
- "Homelessness has continued to rise, and the direct corollary there, is housing affordability and the availability of it in a given community."
The big picture: The city has delivered 12,000 of the 20,000 affordable housing units that Mayor Andre Dickens wants to preserve or build by 2030, English said.
- English said the city will need billions of dollars to continue to build enough affordable housing to accommodate its growing population.
- It's why the city's Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative, which proposes keeping Atlanta's tax allocation districts active until at least 2050, calls for allocating $1.5 billion "to inject into the housing system," English told Axios.
- "You will see us pull big levers that allows us to deploy additional resources into the affordable housing ecosystem," he said of the city's strategy over the next four years.