When the Atlanta City Council passed legislation in June to fund a Housing Help Center, lawmakers billed it as a one-stop shop for intown residents’ housing needs—but the ordinance shed little light on the $600,000 pilot program.

Almost two months later, however, the city is preparing to open the help center; it’s set aside office space at City Hall and hired a director, Donnell Q. Woodson, from Woodson Consulting Partners, which helps clients cultivate community spaces. Now it’s training staff and coordinating a network of local nonprofits that provide housing resources.

Atlanta Civic Circle spoke with Joshua Humphries, the mayor’s top housing advisor, about the Housing Help Center on Wednesday to find out how it works, who it’s for, and when it will be open to serve the city’s lower-income renters and homeowners. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Atlanta Civic Circle: What will the Housing Help Center look like? We’ve heard about a hotline, an online portal, and a physical office at City Hall, right?

Joshua Humphries: Right. We’ve got four full-time positions allocated for it and already have three staff in place, including Donnell Woodson as the director.

They are going to physically work out of the Office of Constituent Services [on City Hall’s ground floor], so people can just walk into the building if they need help with anything housing-related.

But we’ll have a digital presence as well, meaning a website and phone lines, so no matter by what means you’re trying to reach out, you’ll be able to access us.

When will the Housing Help Center be open for business?

The goal is to launch the Housing Help Center publicly by October. We just got the new staff onboarded, and we are doing really intensive meetings with all of the public and private partners that provide housing resources.

We think it’s really important that this team knows that,…