“An Atlanta Neighborhood Tries To Redefine Gentrification”
“The model was this: Create mixed-income housing, but pair it with quality schools and services like job counseling and child care to help existing residents. A nonprofit, the East Lake Foundation, would lead the way.
East Lake led Cousins and other investors like Warren Buffett to create a nonprofit consulting group called Purpose Built Communities to take the idea national.
But the model in Atlanta needed a sustainable revenue stream. A lot of that came from the East Lake Golf Club, which helps fund the foundation’s programs. The course used to be a neglected landscape of dry patches, where golfers might have to dodge the occasional stray bullet. Now, it’s a PGA destination…
When East Lake Meadows Public Housing was torn down, residents were offered the chance to return to the new community, but they had to meet some requirements: no felony record and either employed or in training. The Atlanta Housing Authority says about 13 percent of families were not allowed back. In the end, only about a quarter of the residents returned, and that’s led to criticism that East Lake’s improvements stem from a strategy of cherry-picking residents.”
