When critics claimed the city of Atlanta’s proposed budget for the 2024 fiscal year shortchanged its affordable housing trust fund by nearly $4 million, Mayor Andre Dickens’ office blamed inflation and pointed to potentially $300 million in additional affordable housing funding from local foundations and a municipal bond issue to assuage concerns.
Atlanta’s $790 million draft budget, released ADD APRIL DATE, allocates just $8 million to the new affordable housing trust for its second year of operation. While this represents a 15% increase over the $7 million allocated in FY23, it falls significantly short of the $11.85 million called for by the Atlanta City Council legislation that established the trust in 2021. The establishing legislation directed that the housing trust be funded with 1% of the general fund in its first year, FY23, then 1.5% for FY24, and ultimately 2% for FY25 and onward.
Currently valued by the city at about $26 million—which includes FY 2023’s $7 million infusion and an initial $20.9 million from CIM Group in exchange for tax breaks worth about $1.75 billion over 30 years for its downtown Gulch redevelopment—the affordable housing trust fund pales in comparison to the expected $300 million in housing funding announced May 2.
That would come from a proposed $100 million city bond issue and as much as $200 million from the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta–including $75 million it’s already received from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, $25 million from the Joseph B. Whitehead Foundation and another $100 million that it plans to raise.
But the two funding streams are used differently. The $300 million in grant money and bond revenue would be squarely focused on housing construction and rehabilitation; it will fund a new GoATL Affordable Housing Impact Fund that provides low-interest construction loans and a TogetherATL Philanthropic Fund to finance…
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