A nonprofit aiming to change the way people think about affordable housing is working on a new residential development in Atlanta.
The newest project from MicroLife Institute is planned for 2903 Metropolitan Parkway SW in the Hammond Park neighborhood. It includes one approximately 4,250-square-foot building with eight units and an approximately 1,243-square-foot building with two units. The project is expected to take about two years.
“By December of 2025, we should be putting the last nail in,” MicroLife Institute founder and executive director Will Johnston told What Now Atlanta.
Johnston became interested in the tiny-house movement – what he calls his gateway into housing advocacy – when traveling, embracing a non-traditional working schedule, and discovering the freedom of owning a minimal amount of things. That grew into an interest in nonprofit work and affordable housing development.
“There’s so many ways to do it wrong, and we seem to keep doing that,” he told What Now Atlanta. “We should be focusing on the community that needs to be built, establish the area and the community that needs to be reworked. There’s so much more to housing than just the structures, and we forget that.”
Not all MicroLife Institute projects will be demographic-focused, Johnston said, but for the Metropolitan Parkway development, the focus will be on women out of incarceration.
Partnering with Hope Springs Housing, they were awarded a $2.5 million grant from the American Rescue Plan and the State Fiscal Recovery Fund in 2022. Hope Springs Housing will be working to place residents in the completed units. The organization works to provide stable housing for women reentering society after incarceration to allow for reunification with their dependent children.
The units will be at or below 30% AMI. The builder for the project is Atlanta-based Middle Housing Company, which focuses on housing that falls…
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