Saporta Report’s Sean Keenan outlines changes to Atlanta’s affordable housing bond.
The City of Atlanta’s plan to issue a $100 million bond to boost its stock of affordable housing just doubled in size.
On Tuesday, during the Atlanta City Council’s Community Development and Human Services committee meeting, officials discussed the need and the road map for a $200 million bond issuance that would help the city develop and preserve affordable residences.
Though the move to multiply the bond’s size wasn’t in direct response to the coronavirus pandemic, Atlanta’s chief housing officer Terri Lee said at the meeting, “This housing opportunity bond program is needed now more than ever.”
“We are in the midst of a pandemic of a nature we’ve never seen before,” she continued. “But I will commit to you that the fundamentals have not changed. Housing affordability is still an issue, and if we think it’s an issue today, you can only imagine what it will be in the months to come.”
This was a nod to the staggering blow the public health crisis has dealt the global economy, spurring people to lose their jobs en masse and making it difficult to make rent or mortgage payments.
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