ATLANTA — Cynthia Diamond has had quite the journey to get from the Mechanicsville neighborhood she grew up in to the community where she currently lives -- just of Forsyth Street in Atlanta.
She calls herself a diamond in the rough, and for Diamond, rough meant eviction. Rough meant losing her job, living on the streets and reaching rock bottom.
"The streets won't do nothing but get you dead, and I know that," Diamond said. "People have a tendency to look down on you when you're homeless."
Now, life for Diamond is looking up. She recently moved into the Melody, a 40-unit complex made of shipping containers. She and her neighbors, at one point in time, had no place to lay their heads.
"No one is telling you when to wake up, when to go to sleep, when to eat, when to sleep," Diamond said. "It's really beautiful here."
Affordable housing complexes like the Melody are part of the city's Rapid Housing Initiative, first instituted by Mayor Andre Dickens last year. The initiative aims to build or create 2,000 affordable homes by the end of 2025. Cathryn Vassell, CEO of Partners for HOME, called the situation involving Atlanta's unhoused population an emergency that needed an immediate response. She said at any given time, up to 3,000 people in their system are unsheltered or are living in emergency or transitional housing.
"We want to be as flexible as possible about what we develop, so we’ve been evaluating everything from whether the units will be long-term, permanent housing or whether they would operate as short-term, temporary emergency housing," Vassell said. "If we don't get a handle on that, we'll continue to see our inflow or the number of people coming into our system rise, and we won't be able to keep pace as a system."
Vassell said Partners for HOME will connect eligible people, usually homeless for more than a year, with services that will help them get a job and help with other needs. On Monday, Atlanta City Council authorized $3 million to help build 500 units of affordable housing in the next two years. People who live in these homes won't pay more than 30% of their income in rent. They would be located near public transit and close to grocery stores as well.
For Diamond, whose life was once in the rough, her reality is looking a little brighter. She'll be allowed to stay at the Melody for up to a year before she looks for other options.
"I'll be ready. I'm pretty independent," Diamond said. "Having this home means I can go on with my future and look forward to my dream of having my own little restaurant."