Georgia Senators announce nearly $2 million grant to upgrade housing conditions in Atlanta

ATLANTA — U.S. Sens. Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff announced the delivery of nearly $2 million to the City of Atlanta from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to improve housing conditions for residents in the city.

According to a news release, $1.75 million will be provided from HUD’s Healthy Homes Production Grant to repair homes and complete remediation projects in order to keep families and children from living in dangerous housing conditions.

“Georgia children can’t grow and thrive unless they’re living in a safe and healthy environment. When we fight for the health of children across the Peach State, we fight for the next generations of leaders. I’ll continue working to ensure our schools and homes are hazard-free,” Warnock said in a statement.

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The grant program funds follow a previous set of funding with the same goal provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in December.

The senators said almost $3 million was also provided in May 2023 for the Athens Area Habitat for Humanity to go toward building more affordable housing.

“Senator Reverend Warnock and I are delivering these resources to help improve the quality of housing for Georgia families,” Ossoff said in a statement. “Working families in Georgia urgently need access to quality, affordable housing.”

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Ossoff has also been pushing the Federal Housing Finance Agency to address what he said was an inadequate supply of affordable housing across rural Georgia.

The funding from Georgia’s U.S. senators follows a recent report about how many Americans are currently cost-burdened, or who are paying more than 30% of their monthly income on rent or housing.

As previously reported by Channel 2′s Michael Doudna, in Atlanta, just under half of all metro area renters are cost-burdened, according to the study, and a full 25% of renters are spending more than half of their incomes on rent.

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