Every day I open Instagram and see desserts I want to eat from businesses around the city. Here’s a slice of ube cheesecake, almost fluorescent purple, from Anthony Fisher of Seven Fingers Baked Goods. There’s a trio of towering biscuits from the husband-and-wife team behind Sugar Loaf ATL. The page for Choux Maker reveals a colorful assortment of eclairs and “all things pâte à choux,” while Galette Atlanta posts a picture of neat rows of savory pastries to entice customers to their stall at the Avondale Estates Farmers Market.  What unites this eclectic array of ..read more

Half of the renters in metro Atlanta can’t afford their rent. Atlanta is experiencing a cost of living crisis: Gentrification related to the BeltLine and other development projects has driven home prices up, we have few policy controls in place, and there just isn’t enough housing, let alone affordable housing. But that’s not the only problem: The affordable housing we already have isn’t cutting it for a lot of folks. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) sets the standard for what governments and housing programs can consider “affordable” for the average person ..read more

Editor’s note: Last week, Sophia Qureshi checked in with Women Behind the Wheel, which she’d first written about in December. According to Sarah Karim, the executive director of the nonprofit that operates the program, it had been put on hold due to lack of funds. However, since Qureshi published her story, Karim’s organization has seen an outpouring of support and donations, enabling it to restart Women Behind the Wheel. “We are incredibly grateful,” said Karim. “It will move slowly, but at least we are up and running.” Women Behind the Wheel, a one-of-a-kind program that provides free drivi ..read more

“2/1 at the corner of N Druid Hills and Briarcliff was $650/mo in 2004. I was able to support myself as a barista before going to law school around the corner. I often think that had I moved to Atlanta today, I wouldn’t have made it. Which makes me think about how many other people our city is missing out on because of the lack of affordability.” @mbizzle.realty “I shared a 3 bedroom apartment with 2 other roommates for $350 near Kensington MARTA station. I had the room with its own bathroom. I thought I was living the dream.” Brent Douglas Brewer “$600 for a three bedroom in Decatur in 2003 ..read more

Not long ago, a woman named Kay showed up at the Memorial Drive offices of the Georgia Harm Reduction Coalition. Unable to secure a job in Atlanta, where she’d recently moved to escape domestic violence, Kay had initially turned to the GHRC for help managing her substance use disorder.  Shortly after her visit, Kay (we’re using a pseudonym to protect her privacy) enrolled in a medication-assisted treatment program and began to take advantage of other services. Meshaya McClung—who, until recently, was a lead linkage specialist at the center—connected clients like Kay to resources lik ..read more

Visiting Roswell on Monday, U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff listened as a series of metro Atlanta tenants and housing attorneys described unsanitary and even dangerous conditions in the places where they lived. Ossoff, who chairs the Senate’s Human Rights Subcommittee, was collecting testimony on what he described as the “mistreatment of Georgia families and children by landlords”—who, rather than make needed repairs to their units, sometimes retaliate against the tenants who request them. Cost of Living Fellow J.P. Irie also attended the meeting. Below, he shares quotes that stood out most to him.&n ..read more

When he delivered his State of the State address last month, Gov. Brian Kemp made a boast that, by now, might ring familiar. For the 10th year in a row, Georgia has been ranked the “top state for business,” Kemp said, continuing: “New jobs are headed our way on a daily basis, existing businesses are looking to expand, and companies all over the world look to the Peach State to locate their next headquarters.” “Top state for business” isn’t just generic rhetoric—it’s an annual designation bestowed by Area Development magazine, the publication for corporations trying to decide where to loc ..read more

A decade ago, Ed Hall’s property taxes were the equivalent of lunch for two at McDonald’s. For much of the 2010s, the annual bill for his three-bedroom brick bungalow in southwest Atlanta was around $20, he said. That changed when the Atlanta BeltLine popped up a few blocks away. The 22-mile loop of multiuse trails and adjacent projects—like nearby Lee + White, a sprawling redevelopment with breweries, restaurants, and shops—triggered real estate speculation that is driving up housing costs. “It used to be like a deserted village here, but it’s very different now,” said Hall ..read more

In spring 2020, when the nonprofit We Love Buford Highway launched a program to give free groceries to families along the BuHi corridor, the source of the need was clear: the Covid-19 pandemic. Just as unemployment was spiking and supply chains were going haywire, families found themselves disconnected from usual sources of sustenance—kids who qualified for free or reduced lunches at school, for instance, couldn’t easily get them when schools were closed. We Love BuHi partnered with other nonprofit organizations to deliver meals to some 17,000 families between April and July. The group—f ..read more

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