Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced an expansion of Atlanta’s demolition lien foreclosure efforts to accelerate the city's affordable housing development.
This new expansion allows for "the immediate development of the demo lien properties for for-sale affordable housing" to complement an existing deed-in-lieu of foreclosure initiative enacted in 2020.
Under the partnership of the Metro Atlanta Land Bank and Invest Atlanta, the foreclosure initiative allows the city to receive deed-in-lieu of foreclosure on properties with municipal demolition liens to abate reported nuisance, health, and safety violations.
The city will provide a conditional lien extinguishment for eligible owners in exchange for the development of for-sale affordable housing on-site. The program will be managed by the city's Office of Housing and Community Development (OHCD).
“The expansion of the demolition lien program will assist with the immediate development of affordable housing and will help prevent the displacement of our legacy residents,” said Mayor Bottoms in a statement.
Atlanta's affordable housing program is now entering the third year of its six years-plan. Since January 2018, the city has committed and invested over $497 million in the creation and preservation of 6,007 affordable homes that make up 65 percent of the whole plan.
"In 2020, we dedicated over $22 million to emergency housing assistance efforts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We also created an antidisplacement tax fund, set to launch in 2021, that will help legacy homeowners stay in their homes... we took action toward issuing $100 million in Housing Opportunity Bonds to build on the work we have begun," said Mayor Bottoms in her statement letter.