Beautiful, Affordable Homes

Combating housing insecurity through real estate development coupled with social programming.

Our Mission

To build affordable housing as well as develop and implement programs that ensure households have access to owning a quality home in a thriving neighborhood.

Our Vision

We envision a United States in which each resident’s home is safe and beautiful, and serves as a springboard that unlocks and inspires creativity, ingenuity, rich experiences, economic progress, wellness, and love.

The Problem

In large part due to exclusionary zoning laws, the current market is 3.8M starter homes short of demand, especially in U.S. cities. Only 25% of families who need housing assistance are resourced and, in most cities, wait times for placements are decades. Many families spend more than 70% of their income on housing, contributing to cycles of poverty and housing instability. 

Housing instability and evictions have long-term consequences for our communities and societies at large. Children are displaced from and fall behind in schools; communities experience instability; individuals who are housing insecure may experience job loss, depression for 2+ years, and exclusion from qualifying from public housing. Thus, eviction is both a cause and condition of poverty with a detrimental impact on the psyche and soul, despite the fact that more than 50% of evictions are due to defaults of less than $940. When families are displaced, we begin to see why the average age of a homeless person is 9 years old.

More than 3.7 million in the US people report housing insecurity. In Atlanta, roughly 40% of house­holds in earn less than $45,000 per year and 26% of city house­holds earned less than $25,000 a year as of 2018. These households require rent of $1000 or less to meet all of their familial needs comfortably. Yet, only 3,301 of the new units built between 2010–2018 were priced under this threshold. The results: millions of families living paycheck to paycheck and unstable communities. Approximately 50% of all Atlanta renters spend 30%+ of their income on rent.  

Our Unique Solution

Dignity Homes is a non-profit development firm that builds homes exclusively for the housing insecure. Applicants apply to become part of Dignity Communities, a 10-year program during which residents live, work, and learn alongside their neighbors. During this period, rents are capped at 30% of the resident’s income.

Communities consist of a central clubhouse with access to interfaith-based counseling, vocational training, finance courses, parenting classes, park/green space, health and nutrition seminars, and a community garden. Once a family becomes part of the community, individuals older than 16 are expected to volunteer within the community.

In instances of job loss or other trauma, community members can work within the community to pay their rent. Upon living in the community for 7 years, Dignity will lock in the sales price of the residents’ homes. At year 10, rent converts to a low-interest mortgage on the property with prohibitions against selling the property in a certain time frame.