Mayor Andre Dickens highlighted his administration’s efforts to address Atlanta’s affordable housing and homelessness crises in his annual State of the City address Monday morning.
Dickens told attendees inside Midtown’s Woodruff Arts Center that his administration is well on its way toward creating 20,000 affordable housing units by the year 2030.
That includes more than 9,000 affordable housing units that have been built, maintained, or are under construction since Dickens took office more than two years ago, he said.
Dickens used Monday’s gathering to focus on his plan to tackle inequality in the nation’s most unequal city, where an influx of new residents has coincided with a notable rise in median income and the cost of living. Elevated rents have also led to a growing homeless population, nearly 83% of which identified as Black last year. Black Atlanta residents have been desperate for rent relief in recent years, as housing prices surged and pandemic rent relief programs expired.
Defeating what he called a “Tale of Two Cities narrative” has been a priority for Dickens throughout his time in office. During his speech, he stressed the role affordable housing plays in accomplishing that goal.
“In our increasingly interconnected world, it is undeniable that what happens in your neighborhood impacts mine,” Dickens said. “And the foundation of this change starts with housing.”
Ongoing affordable housing projects
Dickens highlighted the ongoing redevelopment of 2 Peachtree Street downtown into a residential and mixed-use property as one of his key affordable housing projects.
In January, Invest Atlanta’s board chose Two Peachtree Partners LLC to develop the project after conducting an extensive developer search last year. The city’s $39 million acquisition of 2 Peachtree Street — a 44-story, 890,000-square-foot former office building near Woodruff Park — was announced in 2022.
The mayor’s office says the project will provide 200 affordable housing units when it is completed. The city hasn’t confirmed when the development will open. Construction was originally scheduled to begin some time this year.
“This mixed-use space helps breathe new life into downtown,” the mayor said Monday.
He also boasted about breaking ground on up to three affordable housing projects a week over the past year. They include turning roughly 200 apartments located at the former Herndon Homes public housing site into a 12-acre, mixed-income development known as Herndon Square, and opening the Residences at Westview, located downtown on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, in early March.
Battling homelessness
Dickens’ team has also worked hard at tackling rising homelessness in Atlanta over the past year. He said nearly 2,000 households have been rehoused through the LIFT initiative during that time. The $24 million project aims to secure apartments for 800 homeless people across the city.
In late January, the city touted the opening of The Melody, a project that turned 40 previously acquired shipping containers, set up in the 100 block of Forsyth Street downtown, into short-term homes for the unhoused to help individuals facing homelessness get back on their feet.
In December, the mayor’s office also broke ground on the Ralph David House, a project aimed at converting an old motel located in the 200 block of Moreland Avenue in Reynoldstown into 54 affordable apartments.
In October, Dickens unveiled the city’s new Housing Help Center, a resource agency designed to help Atlanta residents find and keep affordable housing. The center’s opening followed a surge in evictions through July of last year.
The city has also opened warming centers throughout the winter when temperatures dropped below freezing. Dickens said being homeless shouldn’t be a death sentence, noting that dozens of unhoused people died last year due to hypothermia.
“We will make homelessness rare, brief, and nonrecurring,” the mayor said.
