As the board of Atlanta Housing Wednesday voted to approve Terri Lee, chief operating officer of the authority, to be its next CEO. The standing-room-only crowd at the historic Roosevelt Hall cheered in jubilation.
Unlike many who have served in that role in the past decade, Lee will enjoy an alignment between the mayor’s office, the Atlanta Housing board and the community at large.
Plus, affordable housing is one of Mayor Andre Dickens’ top priorities. Dickens has said Atlanta will build or preserve 20,000 affordable housing units by 2030, and Atlanta Housing is tasked to deliver half of those units.
Lee was the top choice of the search committee, which was chaired by Duriya Farooqui, an Atlanta Housing board member.
“It was very competitive,” Farooqui said. “There were many people considered. Terri was viewed as someone who was absolutely right for the job.”
Dickens said many candidates were vetted during the nationwide search.
“Terri, you stood out in your interviews — your body of work and your knowledge of Atlanta,” Dickens said during the Atlanta Housing board meeting, the only time as far as I can remember that a sitting mayor has attended the meeting. “This is as much head work as heart work. There’s no question of your heart of service. There’s no question about your integrity.”
Then the mayor ended by saying: “Terri, let’s do it.”
Lee is well-known in Atlanta for her dedication to housing and planning. She spent 14 years in leadership positions working in Atlanta’s planning department before being appointed as the city’s first chief housing officer in 2018.
That’s when Eugene Jones, president and CEO of Atlanta Housing since October 2019, got to know Lee. He persuaded her to become Atlanta Housing’s COO in October 2020.
“You made a great decision,” Jones told the board at Wednesday’s meeting, saying he almost had to beg Lee to join AH, but he won her over by promising to teach her everything he knows about housing. “I groomed her to be my successor — head and the heart. She’s got the biggest heart.”
Jones, who announced his intention to retire last fall, said Wednesday he would still be involved in housing but not as CEO of an authority. “I’m going to have some fun and not be responsible.”
Lee will assume the post by mid-February. She will have a three-year employment contract as CEO of Atlanta Housing, which has had tremendous turnover and political drama prior to Jones becoming CEO.
“I have served several mayors,” Lee told the board. She will be the agency’s 20th CEO, serving at a special moment in time. “This is one of the most exciting times to be in the City of Atlanta as it moves forward with affordable housing… At Atlanta Housing, we will be intentional that our families and our youth will have a pathway to economic mobility.”
In a brief interview after the board meeting, Dickens commented on the edge Lee had because of her knowledge of Atlanta and housing.
“It was a national search. I saw a lot of resumes from a lot of quadrants, including the Atlanta ecosystem,” said Dickens, who has known Lee since he became a member of the Atlanta City Council in 2014. “One thing, the goal is so immediate, we don’t have time for someone to learn Atlanta and my mission.”
Lee echoed by saying there’s “the urgency of now” to build affordable housing.
“This is my life’s work,” she said. “We cannot afford to waste one hour.”
