Addressing Atlanta's Affordable Housing Crisis:
Atlanta Single-Family Preservation Initiative
Why it Matters: Read why ANDP works to expand access to affordable single-family rental and homeownership opportunities for low- and moderate-income families. Learn More.
Nearly half of Atlanta residents are housing cost-burdened, meaning they spend over 30% of their income on housing costs. In some neighborhoods on the south and west sides of the City, historically ANDP’s service area, more than 70% of residents are housing cost-burdened, according to the City’s 2019 State of Housing Report. The bulk of land area in these neighborhoods is single-family residential, and much of Atlanta’s existing affordable housing remains, for now, in single-family rentals.
Nonprofit ownership of single-family rentals is critical in submarkets at risk of gentrification. As the City and metro grapple with housing affordability, nonlocal institutional investors are investing millions of dollars to purchase single-family homes for rent, acting as absentee landlords or flipping homes and displacing low- and moderate-income community residents. These activities transfer wealth away from local communities and exacerbate the affordability issues in single-family neighborhoods.
Nonprofit ownership of single-family rentals allows for long-term affordability in transitioning neighborhoods, reducing displacement. Long-term affordability also reduces neighborhood and resident instability, roadway congestion, student transiency, and perpetuated segregation. As the bulk of federal and state affordable housing subsidies are used for the production of multifamily affordable housing, which is increasingly expensive due to high land, labor, and construction costs, local funds and nonprofit organizations must step up to preserve single-family rental affordability. Finally, nonprofit ownership allows for possible tenure conversion to affordable homeownership over time.
To address this issue, ANDP created the Atlanta Single-Family Preservation Initiative (ASFPI) with capital from Invest Atlanta's Housing Opportunity Bond and Renasant Bank. The initiative also received one of the first investments from the then newly formed Atlanta Affordable Housing Fund.
To date, the initiative has preserved more than 60 affordable single-family homes.
Just the Facts
ASFPI is a $9M fund designed to rapidly acquire and rehab (as needed) single-family homes and duplexes in the City of Atlanta and beyond.
Since the program launched, more than 60 affordable single-family rental homes have been preserved.
The ASFPI fund has been supported by