A new housing complex where residents will be able to enjoy a dining room, offices, laundry facilities and even a dog park is nearly complete in a downtown parking lot.

But the community isn’t another expensive apartment high-rise to cater to the city’s booming population. Just a block away from the Greyhound bus stop, a cluster of repurposed shipping containers will provide 40 units of affordable housing to homeless Atlantans.

The idea was made possible by a crucial donation from the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Department: a handful of shipping containers that once were used in Macon as patient overflow facilities for hospitals crushed by a wave of COVID-19 cases.

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens toured the new affordable housing site on Friday and labeled the project an innovative solution for rapid-affordable housing that will also connect vulnerable populations with resources.

“This is going to be a dream come true for someone that’s out in the cold right now to be able to have a bed, a shower, a microwave, refrigerator and a community,” Dickens said. “All right here and contained in this area — a place for them to recreate and enjoy but also for them to get the social services that they need.”

The Forsyth Street site was able to be built from start to finish in just 60 days, according to the city. Each unit costs around $125,000 to build and outfit, meaning the total project price tag comes in at around $5 million.

Residents will be able to begin moving in next month.

“We are really looking at this as a concept particularly for those that are unsheltered to be able to quickly get housed,” the mayor said. “This is one site (and) we’ve got our eyes on other sites … across Atlanta.”

The units themselves look a lot like college dorm rooms with en-suite bathrooms and kitchenettes. The shipping container homes are also fully ADA compliant, including the shower facilities.

Atlanta isn’t the only city that’s landed on the idea of repurposing shipping containers to help ease homelessness. Cathryn Vassell, executive director of the nonprofit Partners for HOME, toured similar tiny community sites across Georgia and the country, including Savannah, Santa Barbara, California, and Austin, Texas.

“We need a diversity of housing types and properties in our portfolio,” she said at the construction site on Friday. ” …Having all different types of housing options for people that are coming into our system that they are able to access quickly is really, really critical.”

The downtown housing project will offer permanent housing for individuals and wrap-around services with two certified clinicians and two peer specialists. Clinicians can provide counseling support while peer specialists are usually individuals with their own personal experience struggling with homelessness, substance abuse or mental health problems.

Advocates say the number of Atlantans experiencing homelessness in the city has increased over the last year by about 30%. Levels of chronic homelessness, unhoused families and youth all increased from 2022 to 2023 according to the annual “point-in-time count.”

Vassell said that many factors contributing to the increase are tied to pandemic-era programs coming to and end, like eviction protections and shelters loosening their safety restrictions.

“What we know is housing is the solution to homelessness,” she said.

Dickens signed an executive order in August authorizing the millions in funding for the low-cost housing site. The project plays into his larger goal of creating or preserving 20,000 units of affordable housing by 2030.

The shipping container community on Forsyth Street and 2 Peachtree office to residential conversion, he said, all work toward that goal.

“For too long, people have said this housing challenge is a big problem and they stop right there,” he said. “Big problems require innovative solutions and rolling up your sleeves to get things done, so this is about being very intentional.”

The mayor said the city plans on expanding shipping container communities across the city.

The city’s homeless encampments have also proven a public safety concern for both those who take shelter in them and those who live around them. This week a fire broke out underneath a Cheshire Bridge Road overpass during one of the coldest nights of the year.

Investigators are still working to determine an exact cause, but advocates suspect that a community of unhoused residents trying to stay warm may have unintentionally caused the fire. The Forsyth Street shipping container site is also outfitted with fences, cameras and lights to help mitigate any safety concerns.

“We don’t want any more fires on the bridges and we don’t want anyone living out on the street. So what we have to do is continue to build the solutions,” Dickens said.

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