Mayor Andre Dickens stood under a balloon arch reading 500 on Thursday at 405 Cooper Street in Mechanicsville. The Beacon at Cooper Street is the 500th unit of rapid housing completed under the city's goal of building or preserving 20,000 affordable housing units by 2030.
The Beacon was built in nine months on city-owned land, with two multi-story buildings holding 112 modular units that each measure over 250 square feet. The project targets Atlantans experiencing homelessness as part of an initiative that turns underused city and county land into permanent supportive housing.
From the start of my administration, I said that how we treat our most vulnerable neighbors would define us as a city, Dickens said at the ceremony. Through our rapid housing initiative, we decided to act with urgency. The administration has committed to delivering permanent supportive housing at pace, though the bigger 20,000-unit target still has four years and plenty of real estate to go.
