Here’s where shipping container homes to house the homeless will be built, according to new plan

WSBTV.com News Staff
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A recently announced plan to create rapid housing for Atlanta’s homeless population took a step forward Tuesday with an announcement of a land swap deal by Mayor Andre Dickens.

On Aug. 2, Dickens said he’d be taking part of the city budget to put $4 million in Partners for HOME to deploy quick-delivery housing to the homeless.

The plan announced that city officials would use shipping containers and previously used temporary hospitals from the COVID-19 pandemic from the Georgia Emergency Management Agency to create housing units.

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While the original announcement said the housing units would be placed on lots at 184 Forsyth Street in downtown Atlanta, Dickens updated the plan to now include two other areas.

According to the update from the mayor’s office, the City of Atlanta and Atlanta Public Schools will exchange two “key pieces of publicly owned land” to both advance the goal of more affordable housing and to better consolidate APS facilities in the city.

The location that will be used for the housing initiative after the land swap is a two-acre property at 405 Cooper Street SW. In exchange, APS will be given a 1.5-acre piece of land at 70 Boulevard, next to Hope-Hill Elementary School in the Old Fourth Ward.

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“I’m eager to work with Mayor Dickens and my District 4 constituents to shape the vision for this publicly owned vacant site, which represents a rare opportunity to meaningfully provide stable housing options for Atlanta residents currently experiencing homelessness,” Councilmember Jason Dozier, whose district includes the 405 Cooper Street SW site, said in a statement.

Dozier sponsored legislation in the Atlanta City Council to authorize the ownership transfer between Atlanta and APS.

According to city officials, the advancement of the rapid housing initiative comes after more than a year of “close coordination between APS and the City through the Mayor’s Affordable Housing Strike Force, a high-level partnership between local government and non-profit actors with a shared goal of activating public land to support affordable housing.”

“Thank you to APS for their enthusiastic support of the Affordable Housing Strike Force,” Dickens said in a statement. “This is just the latest milestone in an ongoing partnership, but significant in our efforts to ensure every Atlanta resident and every APS student has stable, dignified and high-quality housing.”

As previously reported, Dickens plans to make 20,000 units of affordable housing available in Atlanta through the rapid housing program.

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