As extreme cold grips the metro Atlanta area, Atlanta City Council approved an influx of cash to go toward rehousing individuals struggling to keep warm by taking shelter under bridges.
A December blaze that engulfed Cheshire Bridge in northeast Atlanta closed the roadway for a second time. In August 2021, Cheshire Bridge was closed for 15 months when another bridge fire required it to be completely rebuilt.
Although the cause of the most recent incident hasn’t yet been identified by investigators, advocates who work with Atlantans experiencing homelessness sounded alarms that the fire could be a unintentional result of individuals taking shelter under roadways to stay warm.
Atlanta City Council authorized a $2.4 million donation to nonprofit Partners for Home to help track down city residents and families who are living under bridges or highway overpasses and help them move into permanent housing or other housing assistance programs.
Council also OK’d $700,000 from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund to the Gateway Center to support shelter services for unhoused residents.
The legislation also requests that the Atlanta Department of Public Works and Department of Transportation “take actions to clean and safeguard the areas underneath bridges and controlled access highway overpasses from future risks to public safety.”
It was unclear at the time the legislation passed what extent the city plans on clearing and barricading such areas.
“There is coordination with administration working with Partners for Home to ensure that the impacted individuals will be transitioned to temporary housing through the continuum or care and then into permanent housing,” City Chief Financial Officer Mohamed Balla told council members.
One of Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens’ biggest challenges during his first term has been addressing the city’s high rates of residents experiencing homelessness and finding expedited ways to build thousands of affordable housing units.
The city has gone full in on projects like the office-to-residential development of the 2 Peachtree building downtown and standing up shipping container communities. But local elected officials say federal requirements used to dole out funds for housing projects come with too many strings attached.
“As we continue to struggle with our issues on homelessness on the local level, at some point the city would take a position to go back to HUD to ask them to revise some of their housing policies,” said Council member Julian Bond.
“If we don’t have federal subsidy to do a lot of this financing to build housing for Americans, then it will forever be on the backs of cities and it will forever be a challenge,” he said.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo visited Atlanta in December to tour the city’s 2 Peachtree project and hinted at future steps from the Biden Administration to add additional flexibility to “American Rescue Plan” funding package related to housing.
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