Big changes are underway at Atlanta Housing as the agency seeks to expedite the development of new affordable units.
Terri Lee, president and CEO of Atlanta Housing since February, is putting her mark on the agency, announcing the appointments of Alan Ferguson Sr. as chief housing and real estate officer — a new consolidated position — and Dwayne Vaughn as permanent chief operating officer. Both Ferguson and Vaughn will report directly to Lee.
“We are in the process of realignment,” Lee said in a telephone interview. “This is the beginning phase, so we can run as efficiently as possible. We want to build the capacity of our team.”
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, in a release, said he valued his partnership with Lee and commended her leadership.
“I applaud the bold decisions Terri has made in the early days of her tenure, setting the tone for the significant role Atlanta Housing will play in ensuring the affordability of our city for generations to come,” said Dickens, supporting the appointments of Ferguson and Vaughn. “I am proud to welcome them in their new roles and look forward to their collaboration as our offices work together to ensure that all Atlantans have access to safe, quality and affordable housing options.”
Before being named CEO in January, Lee served as Atlanta Housing’s chief operating officer for about three years, giving her an inside look on how she would want to run the agency.
The changes in leadership at Atlanta’s housing authority include the expected retirements of two longtime leaders — Ernestine Garey, senior vice president of Choice Neighborhoods and Trish O’Connell, senior vice president of real estate planning and development.
The restructuring also impacted executives who are no longer with the agency including Head of Transaction Management Mike Wilson, Chief Real Estate Officer Dejernette “Dee Dee” Beaty and LaConia Jenkins Dean, who served as the interim senior vice president of communications, marketing and public engagement.
Under the new structure all housing and real estate functions will report to Ferguson. He will oversee the agency’s housing vouchers — formerly Section 8 housing — the real estate planning efforts and asset management. Those functions are being merged in an effort to accelerate the development of affordable housing. Ferguson, who will join Atlanta Housing on June 3, has most recently been serving as president and CEO of Habitat for Humanity-Atlanta.
Vaughn has been serving as interim chief operating officer since February, when Lee became CEO. Before that, Vaughn was Atlanta Housing’s general counsel, leading the agency’s legal team. Before joining Atlanta Housing in 2021, Vaughn was vice president of housing policy and development at Atlanta BeltLine Inc.
In a telephone interview, Larry Stewart, chair of Atlanta Housing’s board, said the leadership moves “are intended to be laser-focused on strengthening our operations.”
Stewart said it is critical for Atlanta Housing and the city to speed up the planning and implementation of more affordable housing units.
“One of the problems we have is that we don’t move as quickly as the market,” Stewart said. “If we are going to build more housing to meet the market, we have to build it faster. Right now, a deal takes too long.”
Lee is clearly driving the changes at Atlanta Housing, working in sync with Stewart and the board.
“It’s all about the urgency of now. How do we prioritize and how do we expedite,” Lee said. “Where I’m leading the agency is from transactional activity to transformational leadership. We are going to be very focused.”
Atlanta Housing is seeking to regain its prominence as a national leader in public housing.
Stewart said Atlanta has been on the forefront of public housing since the building of Techwood Homes and University Homes in 1936 and 1937 respectively. Those were the first two federally-funding public housing developments in the country.
Then, in the mid-1990s, Atlanta once again led the country in the transformation of public housing with the development of Centennial Place, a mixed-income community, on the site of Techwood Homes. Centennial Place, a partnership between the Integral Group founded by Egbert Perry and the Atlanta Housing Authority — under the leadership of Renee Glover — was the first in the country to use the HOPE VI tool to transform a public housing project into a mixed-income community.
Stewart described both those initiatives as 1.0 and 2.0.
After Glover left the Atlanta Housing Authority in September 2013 (because then-Mayor Kasim Reed did not want her to be part of his administration), the agency entered a period of inactivity in new housing developments. The authority did continue to manage its Section 8 units and oversee its existing holdings.
Atlanta Housing began to restart its development pipeline when Eugene Jones became CEO of Atlanta Housing in October 2019. He brought on Lee as his COO in October 2020. Shortly thereafter, then-newly elected Mayor Andre Dickens replaced most of the members of Atlanta Housing’s board in May 2022, removing many members who had been appointed by former Mayor Reed. Stewart was elected chair that September.
As Stewart described it at the May 17 meeting of the Transform Westside Summit, Atlanta now has an opportunity to regain its leadership position in public housing, calling it a 3.0 moment.
“We have land, and we have money,” Stewart said. “Public-private partnerships are critical.”
Both Stewart and Lee spoke of the need to be innovative and transformative so Atlanta Housing can have a greater impact.
“We are excited about having renewed energy focused on these problems and looking at how to do things differently,” Stewart said. “I’m looking forward to us rethinking what we do. This is the time for innovation and new approaches to solving our affordability challenges.”
For Stewart, the goal is to help people who live in Atlanta Housing communities to be able to move on by becoming homeowners rather than becoming a permanent housing solution. Of course, he said there are exceptions, especially those who live in senior communities.
Lee said part of the new approach is to look at housing as being part of neighborhoods and as a way to transform communities.
“Housing is not just about housing,” she said. “It’s about how we can provide the best environment for people.”
The mayor has set an ambitious goal of developing or maintaining 20,000 affordable housing units in Atlanta by 2030. Atlanta Housing is responsible for delivering half of those units. Stewart said Atlanta Housing already has eight developments in the works, including the Civic Center and Herndon Square, where the former Herndon Homes was located.
The Atlanta Urban Development Corp., an affiliate of Atlanta Housing, also is part seeking to improve housing affordability in the city. It is working with other public entities that own land — MARTA, the Atlanta Public Schools, Invest Atlanta, the Atlanta BeltLine Inc. — to package public land in order to implement new housing developments.
Ferguson currently is chair of AUDC, and it is not yet known whether he will continue in that role now that he will be at Atlanta Housing.
Lee and Ferguson also co-chair HouseATL, an umbrella entity that includes numerous engaged entities, companies and individuals interested in housing affordability. It is not yet known how Ferguson’s new role will impact the leadership of HouseATL.
Those issues will be resolved by the governance of both entities, Lee said.
What’s most important for Lee is having Ferguson on the Atlanta Housing team.
“Alan and I have worked together for a long time in different capacities,” Lee said. “We share the same strong values. I hired Alan because he’s the best person to implement our mission. Our mission is to be transformative in building community.”
Under Lee, Atlanta Housing will not be the same-old, same-old public housing authority. It will seek to move quickly, to be nimble and execute as many deals as it possibly can.
“It’s more than just a job for me,” Lee said. “It’s been my life’s work. It is my passion. I’m really focused on what Atlanta Housing can be. How can we be the best housing agency in the country? I’m excited about the future and the opportunities before us.”
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