Atlanta Housing Expands Efforts to Preserve Homes, Build New Homes

It was quite a turnaround for the Atlanta Housing Authority.

After years of relative inactivity, Atlanta Housing (AH) feels compelled to develop more affordable housing to meet its goal of adding 10,000 additional homes over the next six years.

Leading these efforts is Terri Lee, who became president and CEO of Atlanta Housing in February after serving as the agency’s chief operating officer since October 2020.

Lee is following a roadmap created by an Advisory Services Panel for the Urban Land Institute. A panel of experts came to Atlanta last December and met with about 50 stakeholders to explore how the agency can scale its output and impact.

The recently released final report outlines ways Atlanta Housing can build on best practices from other cities to regain its national leadership as an innovator in the social housing sector.

“With AH ownership, it became very clear to me that if we were going to be as aggressive as we needed to be, we needed to find the best minds and bring in different partners,” Lee said in a recent interview. “One of the things that was helpful was understanding the best practices in other cities and how they were addressing the funding gap for affordable housing.”

The report found a $500 million funding gap in Atlanta Housing’s plan to build new housing, but agency leaders were quick to say they are deliberately ambitious and are working to find creative ways to achieve those goals.

The ULI report confirmed that sentiment.

“AH is on the cusp of a transformative era,” the report concluded. “AH’s ambitious goal of creating and sustaining 10,000 affordable homes requires a strategic, multifaceted approach that transcends traditional financing models and emphasizes both community impact and financial sustainability.”

Throughout the interview, Lee continued to talk about the future. On the wall of her office hangs a painting by Janssen Robinson titled “The Regeneration of Bowen Homes.” Robinson created the painting when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development was in town in May 2023 to tour the 180-acre Bowen Homes site. HUD ultimately awarded Atlanta a $40 million Choice grant for the redevelopment of Bowen Homes.

“The painting tells where we’re going,” Lee said. “It means a lot to me.”

Sarah Kirsch, AH’s vice president, believes it’s time to be ambitious. Kirsch has been active in the housing sector for years. She was executive director of ULI-Atlanta, then co-chaired HouseATL, which presented 23 recommendations to the city of Atlanta in 2018. Now she’s at the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta as director of housing funds.

“The ULI report helps AH become a real leader in housing in our city and region,” Kirsch said in a phone interview. “There was a period of time where Atlanta Housing wasn’t producing a lot of housing, and you want your housing authority to be at the top of the spear. I think this helps reposition Atlanta Housing to be in a leadership position.”

When she joined AH’s board of directors two years ago, Kirsch realized that many projects under the agency were not going ahead due to funding shortages.

“We didn’t really understand what infrastructure was needed to prepare the land assets for mixed-income housing,” Kirsch said, adding that ULI experts emphasized the need for AH to be opportunistic to close financial gaps, leverage its land and bring in strategic partners. “We’ve set ambitious goals and we know we need the best solutions to help us achieve those and be the best stewards of our land.”

Lee, who had not yet been appointed CEO when the ULI panel was in town last December, has already taken many of the recommendations to heart. The report said the agency needed to bring in more expertise to kick-start development and put together new financing models. And it needed to develop ways to pay for infrastructure on its land to prepare it for development.

“The financing model we used before needed to be revised,” Lee said.

Larry Stewart, chairman of the AH board of directors, said the ULI report has been useful.

“We have already implemented a number of recommendations,” he said. “It was a new day when we got a new team and how we reorganized ourselves.”

The question is how AH can “boost the work we’re doing to help the process,” Steward added. “I’m excited about where we’re going. We’re working on converting soil.”

The agency’s reorganization, which included the appointment of Alan Ferguson Sr. as Chief Housing and Real Estate Officer, a new consolidated role, and Dwayne Vaughn as permanent Chief Operating Officer, has been “critical,” Lee said.

“We wanted to make sure we had the right capacity to advance the robust housing agenda that we’ve set out,” Lee said. “We knew we needed diversified funding sources and creative ways to close funding gaps.”

Lee said AH is 40 percent of the way toward its goal of preserving and creating 10,000 housing units. In its current budget for the fiscal year, 84 percent of its funds will go toward housing development and housing vouchers.

AH also plays a key role in Mayor Andre Dicken’s Housing Strike Task Force, which brings together government agencies including Invest Atlanta, the Atlanta Beltline, MARTA and Atlanta Public Schools to see how they can work together to develop more affordable housing.

“Through the Mayor’s Housing Strike Force, all agencies are being very aggressive,” Lee said, adding that the report helped identify best practices in other cities to see how they were addressing their affordable housing funding gaps. “The report also reinforced to me how important it is to connect with the people we serve, that we’re not doing this in a vacuum and that we’re planning for residents and communities. We want to make sure they’re part of the process.”

The report recommended that AH forge closer partnerships with MARTA and the Beltline to build affordable housing near public transit. It also recommended that the agency fully embrace green building practices to keep energy costs down for future residents.

The report praised Atlanta for its efforts to raise $300 million for affordable housing. In addition to the city’s $100 million Housing Opportunity Fund, the Community Foundation has raised about $150 million from philanthropic sources, Kirsch said.

Daphne Bond-Godfrey, current director of ULI Atlanta, called this kind of philanthropic investment “unprecedented” and it’s just one example of Atlanta leading the way.

“Atlanta continues to be a national thought leader in housing policy implementation,” she wrote in a statement, citing the Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership, the Atlanta Land Trust and Purpose Built Communities as organizations leading the way, among others.

“There are few other places in the country that are investing on this scale with a combination of public and private dollars to meet the need,” she said. “Leadership in housing requires strong political will, which we’ve seen in the efforts of HouseATL and Mayor Dickens’ laser focus on housing.”

Bond-Godfrey noted that ULI’s Terwilliger Housing Center will host the next Housing Opportunity Conference in Atlanta in February 2025. This is another example of the city being seen as a national leader.

“We are entering a transformative era,” Lee said. “I relish the opportunity to lead this agency into its next era. We have a tremendous challenge and opportunity before us. I embrace it wholeheartedly. I approach it with the full urgency of now.”

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