In the next decade, the homes we build, where we build them, and how they are financed will greatly determine metro Atlanta's future. With increasing need for affordability, declining federal resources, and existing programs that are light on funding and heavy on restrictions, advocates say now is the time to solidify the vision for housing affordability in metro Atlanta. The region needs a new, flexible and permanent source of local funding.
As of March 2015, there were nearly 20,000 apartment units under construction or planned. Nearly all are Class A luxury units - with virtually no attention to affordability for low- and moderate-income households. Contrast the current development trend of luxury units with the need for affordability: 27 percent of all metro Atlanta households experience severe housing cost burden; only one in four families that qualify for a housing voucher will get one; and Atlanta is almost solely dependent upon scarce federal and state resources to fund affordable housing development or preservation. From 2010-2013, the City lost nearly 5,000 low-cost rental units according to a study by Georgia Tech professor, Dan Immergluck.
Our primary tools for creating and preserving affordability - the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, Beltline Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and the HOME program - are underfunded or at risk of total defunding, overly-restrictive, and produce far fewer units than needed in our region. While Atlanta has a number of promising opportunities in the Mayor's call for affordable housing in highly visible developments such as the Beltline, Civic Center, Turner Field and the Westside, the lack of municipal funding all but ensures that little affordability will be accomplished in these projects.
Complicating matters, HUD's recent final ruling on 'affirmatively furthering fair housing' has practitioners debating the merits of continuing to use affordable housing to improve distressed and transitional neighborhoods or push for increasing housing affordability in high opportunity neighborhoods - or both?
Regardless of interpretation of policy, models to leverage, priority of development locations - advocates agree that the time has come for a new call to action, a new vision for housing affordability. We can look to models like Florida's Sadowski Act, which created a dedicated revenue source to fund affordable housing in that state, one which supported both homeownership and rental housing goals.
Join us Wednesday, December 2, 2015 for a special Atlanta Regional Housing Forum.
