ATLANTA — An Atlanta city council committee voted on Wednesday on a land swap to obtain a plot of land on Cooper Street from Atlanta Public Schools.
Residents in Atlanta's Mechanicsville community raised concerns about whether the site, which is now home to an encampment filled with dozens of people, will become housing for those who are unhoused.
"We’re working with human beings who are in really challenging situations," Partners for Home CEO Cathryn Vassell said.
Vassell added supportive housing is one step toward a solution.
"(Housing) would ultimately eradicate a lot of the problems that are stemming from encampments like crime and trash and public health issues," she explained.
Vassell said she's been visiting the site for about a year now.
"It used to be smaller, and we have housed 63 people from this location, which has created a little bit of a magnet effect where individuals say, 'Hey, if you come over here, you can get housed from this location,'" Vassell said.
She estimated there are anywhere from 60 to 80 people calling the area home.
Vassell said the plan for the land is for it to become housing for people experiencing homelessness as part of the larger rapid housing initiative, which will create 500 new units of housing for people experiencing homelessness by the end of next year. She said this is just one of the sites they're working on.
"We’re actually looking at all different types of housing products for future sites," said Vassell when asked what the homes will be built out of. "We’re looking at traditional stick built, we’re looking at modular, we’re really keeping all options open right now."
The question she answered stemmed from curiosity among the community, who wondered if this could be another shipping container-turned-home site, like the city had previously opened.
"With this one, it’s a much larger site, and we expect to do more mixed-income, multi-family housing there," Vassell said, adding they have not determined how many units will be on the Cooper Street site.
Vassell said they are very much in the early stages, with nothing finalized. She said the team i open to hearing from the community and using their feedback in the future design.
"Continued neighborhood engagement, community engagement," Vassell said of the next steps for the site. "The city has to finalize the land swap, so I believe the city council approval was just one more step in that process. And furthering the conceptual design, architectural drawings, the site planning and development, so it’s still quite a ways off to coming to fruition."