By Chenee Joseph, Executive Director, HDDC
Atlanta has spent a lot of time talking about why we need to invest in our neighborhoods. With the launch of the Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative (NRI), we now have an opportunity to turn that conversation into action. The need for affordable housing, thriving commercial corridors, support for small businesses, and more equitable development is well established.
The question now is not whether we should invest. It is how we invest well.
For more than four decades, organizations like ours have worked alongside residents in neighborhoods like Sweet Auburn, developing affordable housing, supporting local entrepreneurs, preserving historic places, and helping steward communities through both disinvestment and revitalization.
That experience has taught us something important: public dollars do not always work equally hard in every development.
Nonprofit community developers face the same construction costs as everyone else. We pay the same for land, labor, materials, insurance, and financing. There is no discount for choosing affordability over maximum return or for creating opportunities where the market alone has not.
The difference comes after the project is complete.
Market-rate developments are designed to maximize financial return. Community-based developments are designed to maximize community return. We intentionally preserve affordability. We create commercial spaces where local entrepreneurs can afford to open their doors. We protect neighborhood identity while investing in its future.
And then we stay.
We manage the properties, continue working with residents, and remain invested in the long-term success of the community. That distinction should matter when we think about public investment.
This is why the Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative matters.
The NRI presents an opportunity to strengthen neighborhoods by building on what already exists. One way to do that is by creating a formal advisory structure that includes experienced place-based organizations from across Atlanta. These organizations have spent decades earning residents’ trust, preserving neighborhood identity, supporting local businesses, developing affordable housing, and responding to challenges that no single project can solve. Their experience is more than institutional knowledge; it is practical insight that should help shape planning, investment priorities, and decision-making from the very beginning.
It is also an opportunity to recognize that communities already have capacity. Rather than creating new systems, we should strengthen the organizations that have demonstrated they can turn public investment into lasting neighborhood impact. Building the capacity of organizations that have been doing this work for years allows public dollars to move more effectively while leaving neighborhoods stronger long after a single project is complete.
We should begin by asking what outcomes Atlanta wants to achieve, and then determine what level of investment is needed to make those outcomes possible. Funding should follow the community outcome—not the other way around. Projects that preserve affordability, support legacy businesses, strengthen neighborhood identity, or address needs the private market cannot often require greater public investment because they deliver broader public value.
The Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative has the potential to become one of Atlanta’s most important investments in generations. I want it to succeed. How it is implemented will be a critical component of its success.
If we approach this moment with humility, partnership, and a willingness to learn from the organizations that have been doing this work for decades, we have an opportunity to build more than projects. We have an opportunity to strengthen the neighborhoods that have always been the foundation of this city.