page_title: Atlanta Housing Authority
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Atlanta Housing Authority / History / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Beaver Slide, Atlanta
context_page_description: The Atlanta Housing Authority is an agency that provides affordable housing for low-income families in Atlanta. Today, the AHA is the largest housing agency in Georgia and one of the largest in the United States, serving approximately 50,000 people.
  The AHA was founded in 1938, taking over from the Public Works Administration. Due to the lobbying of Charles Palmer, an Atlantan real estate developer, Atlanta had been the site of the first public housing project in the country in 1936, Techwood Homes. Early public housing projects such as Techwood and its sister project, University Homes, were built for working-class families on the sites of former slums. Charles Palmer became the AHA's first chairperson, and under him and his successors, the agency continued to clear slums and build public housing complexes. The first phase of construction lasted from 1938-1941, and was financed with funds from the Wagner-Steagall Act. The second phase was from 1951-1956, using grants funded by the Housing Act of 1949. The final phase took place from 1962-1973, with only a few smaller projects completed after that date.
context_section_description: The movement to construct public housing in Atlanta began during the early 1930s. Charles Palmer, an conservative real estate developer, became concerned with the threat to property values posed by shantytowns so close to downtown. Similar concerns were being expressed among the African-American elite, who disliked the physical proximity of Atlanta University to the slum known as Beaver Slide. Palmer embarked on several tours of European countries to examine their public housing programs, and heavily lobbied Washington to begin constructing public housing in the United States.  Despite his opposition to the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, it was only with the creation of the Public Works Administration (PWA) in 1933 that Palmer was able to win approval for a public housing project, to be built in Techwood Flats. 
  Techwood Flats was a mixed-race community located between Georgia Tech and downtown Atlanta, with buildings that often lacked running water or electricity. Charles Palmer claimed that he selected Techwood Flats specifically because it lay on his commute from northwest Atlanta into downtown. At this point in time, slum clearance was seen as necessarily tied with public housing, despite the fact that public housing was not intended for habitation by the poor. Rather, public housing was meant to be a temporary aid to middle- or working-class families hurt by the depression. Thus, when the Techwood Homes public housing project was completed in 1936, few residents of the former slum were able to move back in. Furthermore, the old community had been racially mixed, whereas the new public housing project was all white. This set a precedent of public housing in Atlanta being used to shape the racial and economic composition of communities in areas of interest to the elite.
  Not only was Techwood Homes the first public housing project in Atlanta, it was also the first permanent public housing project in the United States. It received recognition across the country, and in 1935 FDR gave a speech to dedicate the project.  Following Techwood Homes, Atlanta's second housing project would be University Homes, intended for African-Americans and built over the demolished Beaver Slide. Even more so than with Techwood, this inhabitants of this project represented a sharp increase in income for the area. While the previous community was made of mostly unskilled laborers, University Homes was home to the black middle class, or even the upper middle class. While touted by John Hope (President of Atlanta University) and other black elites as a victory for the black community, it was emblematic of the desire of those same elites to separate themselves from the black poor. It also represented part of the serious disconnect between the goals of the black elites and middle class and the interests of the black poor.
caption: Housing for the poor in early 20th century Atlanta: Beaver Slide near Atlanta University
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