Latest news with #NationalCommunityReinvestmentCoalition
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘Black Mecca' no longer? Atlanta prices cause families to move out of the city
The City of Atlanta is not considered 'The Black Mecca' any longer, according to a national study. The reason - Black people can't afford to live in the city anymore or don't want to pay inflated prices. We spoke to several Atlanta natives and those who moved here for college and didn't want to leave. They all feel forced out of the city, like Latresa Chaney. 'I grew here – I wasn't trying to leave OK ... Hey if you ain't rich – you can't live here – you got to go somewhere,' said Latresa Chaney. She told Channel 2's Tyisha Fernandes that for the first time, she had to move her family out of the city - to Decatur. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] 'I'm transitioning my children from school to school behind trying to have stable housing,' said Chaney. She lived in the Forest Cove Apartments until city officials condemned the complex and tore it down. She told Fernandes, elected officials promised to relocate her in the city using her Section 8 voucher, which she says never happened. 'You displaced 300 families ... I felt so let down – like I've invested my life here,' said Chaney. Civil Rights Activist Devin Barrington-Ward says people who made up the Black Mecca didn't move out to the suburbs because they wanted to. He said a lack of policy displaced them. For the past two decades, Ward says elected officials have made it easier for out-of-state investors to afford homes, rather than homegrown people. He says it's the reason why investors own 30% of single-family homes in the city. 'When we see what type of money is being given to corporate developers – as far as tax breaks from the city and the county - of course Black folks would no longer be able to afford to live in the city of Atlanta. These are policy decisions being made by people who are in elected office,' said Ward. According to data from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition - Atlanta had the second highest amount of census tracks to flip from majority Black to white between 1980 - 2020. Only Washington, D.C had more. 'Everything that I liked, everything that I could see myself in, it was just impossible,' said Clark Atlanta Graduate Jahmel Terrell. Jahmel has a different situation, but the same struggles owning a home in Atlanta. 'It makes you feel unworthy – undeserving – you can't afford this,' said Terrell. After he graduated from Clark Atlanta University, he worked as a civil servant for 25 years and still couldn't afford a home in the city. His plan is to rent outside the city until he can save enough money to buy a home. Maja Sly is an affordable housing advocate and realtor who has been helping Terrell achieve his dream. 'We have home prices that have gone up $100,000 for the same size unit since 2021. In Summerhill a 1,200 square-foot townhome is $600,000,' said Sly. Sly says the prices won't change. However, she says Atlanta is different than other cities because it offers resources people don't know about. 'We have the best programs, not just in the state of Georgia but in the city of Atlanta – to make home ownership affordable. It's gentrification on paper, but there's a bigger story that has to be told about this,' said Sly. A city spokesperson told Fernandes that programs like InvestAtlanta are designed to help legacy residents on a case-by-case basis. Many rights activists say that's not enough to solve the systemic issue of racial and wealth inequality in Atlanta. 'Until we see that the level of funding that is given to invest in people – everyday working class people matches that of what we're giving wealthy out of town developers – it is just a Band-aid on a bullet wound,' said Ward. OTHER RESOURCES: Georgia Dream Homeownership Program Atlanta Housing [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Brookings Metro Unveils Dashboard To Help Cities Track And Close Gaps In Black Business Ownership
Brookings Metro's Center for Community Uplift recently revealed its new Black Business Parity Dashboard, a tool that it will use to help policymakers, organizers, and other community members to make the potential impact of Black residents entrepreneurship a reality through providing data that shows what those businesses would look like if they were equitably funded in proportion to their population share. According to Brookings, the tool examined Atlanta, which is seen as one of America's Black Meccas, and found that if the population share of Atlanta was matched by Black businesses, its 14,000 Black-owned businesses would become 63,000 Black-owned businesses, a dramatic increase. Similarly, in Detroit, where there are almost 2,800 Black-owned businesses, if that number was adjusted along the lines of Detroit's Black population share, it would result in more than 23,000 Black-owned firms which would create approximately 460,000 jobs for Detroit's metro area, which could contribute to the city's economic recovery from decades of job and population losses. The tool helps prove what a group of researchers asserted in their 2021 analysis of a deadly precondition for Black businesses for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, the racial wealth divide, which also affects how Black businesses are invested in and discouraged from scaling up because they don't have the capital necessary to expand their footprints. According to the analysis from Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, Dr. Jared Ball, Jamie Buell, and Joshua Devine, 'To produce more personal and community wealth from Black entrepreneurship, public and private sector spending should be intentionally channeled to Black-owned businesses.' Although the findings of their research focus on the pandemic, their findings dovetail with the stated aims of the Black Business Parity Dashboard, which are to give city and community leaders the tools to visualize what a greater and more targeted investment in Black-owned businesses could produce in their metro areas. Indeed, according to a 2024 analysis of the economic impact of Black-owned small businesses by The Reynolds Center for Business Journalism, per data from the 2021 Census; 161,031 Black-owned businesses produced $206 billion in revenue, which suggests that if these businesses were quadrupled, which some of the models in the dashboard say would be the case, that revenue number could become even more impressive. As Brookings advised in 2020, the key to unlocking the American economy lies in increasing investments in Black-owned businesses, as they noted, 'the underrepresentation of Black businesses is costing the U.S. economy millions of jobs and billions of dollars in unrealized revenues,' but their prescription for solving that problem then, as the Dashboard makes clear now, is to create parity for the nation's Black-owned businesses. According to Ashleigh Gardere, senior advisor to the president at PolicyLink, solutions for how to address the racial wealth gap can also be applied to Black-owned businesses. 'DBE programs and small business training will never be enough to close the racial wealth gap in America—that's just tinkering at the edges. We need racial equity standards in the private sector: from greater access to capital beyond traditional debt to new and reparative financial products, from private sector business opportunities to narrative change strategies that center and celebrate Black businesses.' RELATED CONTENT: OPINION: Tariffs Are Squeezing Black-Owned Businesses—Here's How We Fix It
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Demanding slavery reparations now is proof Democrats have lost the plot
Even for a party as troubled as the Democrats, the decision by a group of lawmakers to introduce a congressional resolution demanding reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans is particularly hairbrained. It's not that African Americans, like myself, do not deserve formal recognition for the centuries of labour our ancestors were forced to contribute to building this nation. But reparations? It's the wrong solution from the wrong party at the wrong time. The specific legislation on the table is not new. Officially known as the Reparations Now resolution, the bill was first introduced back in 2023 by former Representative Cori Bush – then a leading member of the Democrats' ultra-progressive 'Squad', whose best-known figure is New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Last August, Bush was defeated in an unusually-costly Democrat primary race dominated by her aggressive criticism of Israel and its war with Hamas in Gaza. This time, the reparations push is being led by Pennsylvania Democrat Summer Lee, another vocal Israel-critic and 'Squad' member. 'Black folks are owed more than thoughts and prayers. We're owed repair, we're owed restitution and we're owed justice,' said Lee at a press conference announcing the bill. Bush, who also attended the event, added: 'For over 400 years … America has been cashing checks written in black blood.' Reparations Now calls upon the federal government to allocate trillions of dollars – $14 trillion in Bush's original version – for reparations atoning for slavery, as well as for the legacies of Jim Crow, housing discrimination and the effects of America's decades-long war on drugs. With African American household wealth still roughly one-sixth that of their white counterparts, according to data from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, few could deny that there is a problem. But Reparations Now is not the plan to address it. Beyond the logistics of such a scheme – funding, eligibility, disbursements – is the timing behind the idea's resuscitation. Lee has made clear that she is picking up where Bush left off as a direct response to the Trump White House's assaults on race-based preference programmes such as DEI. Such thinking was also behind the reintroduction of a similar bill – HR 40 – by Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass) and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker in February. HR 40 would establish a federal commission to examine the long-term effects of slavery and explore possible reparations programmes. Pressley was even more biting in her critique of the president and the necessity of reparations now than her fellow Squad-members, branding Trump's second term 'a moment of anti-Blackness on steroids'. While it might make for easy headlines, tying reparations directly to the return of Trump makes no sense. For one thing, the relative poverty of African Americans is nothing to do with the current president: black Americans have been poor under both Republican and Democratic administrations. In fact, many African American leaders, such as Republican South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, believe that Democratic efforts to eradicate poverty among black communities through handouts – most notably President Lyndon B Johnson's 1960s'-era 'Great Society' campaign – have done more harm than good. 'What was hard to survive,' said Scott during his short-lived run for the presidency back in 2023, 'was Johnson's Great Society, where they decided to put money – where they decided to take the black father out of the household to get a check in the mail. And you can now measure that in unemployment and crime and devastation.' Although Scott was skewered by progressives such as 1619 Project author Nikole Hannah-Jones, data from Pew reveals that Scott is likely to be speaking for a not-insignificant proportion of African Americans. Roughly 20 per cent do not support a reparations push, with higher-educated and higher-earning black Americans leading such opposition. Overall, 70 per cent of Americans believe reparations schemes are a bad idea. It isn't particularly difficult to see why. In California, reparations commissions at both the state level and in the city of San Francisco spent years – and millions on research and task forces – but have yet to take any concrete actions. And this in a state that never had slavery. A San Francisco plan was particularly ambitious, floating a $5 million payment to every eligible black resident — a process that the Hoover Institution said would cost every local non-black family $600,000. Unsurprisingly, the scheme has been stalled by budgetary constraints. Although such figures have yet to be considered on a national level, the price tag for bills like Lee's Reparations Now would be difficult to stomach even for most Democrats – and face almost certain legal opposition from Republicans. A modest reparations scheme in Evanston, Illinois, for instance, was sued last year by the conservative group Judicial Watch, which claims that it is unconstitutional because applicants must qualify by race. The programme – which launched in 2022 – provides $25,000 in housing grants to direct descendants of black residents harmed by historic housing discrimination. Rather than focus on reparations schemes that spend decades in development but inevitably go nowhere, Democrats would be better served — and better serve their constituents — fixing their party and focusing on efforts that are actually likely to improve the plight of black Americans. But that would involve confronting some hard facts and making some difficult decisions. Like with their support for preferred pronouns or Pride flags, it's far easier to embrace virtue-signalling and anti-Trump bluster. The Democrats thrive on distraction – and reparations fit this mold perfectly. David Christopher Kaufman is a New York Post columnist Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
If Nashville is a welcoming city, why are so many of its residents struggling?
Over the last two weeks, with ICE agents and Tennessee highway patrol officers arresting and detaining hundreds of undocumented immigrants, metros government has repeatedly emphasized one key message: Nashville is for everyone. It's a honorable position to take, and one that is incredibly important in this era of dividing and ostracizing, when it seems that many on the right want nothing more than to Make America Whiter Again—both demographically and culturally. Yet two key reports released this week reveal that Metro's messaging is, honestly, just that: A message. A narrative. An approved talking point or soundbite meant to be repeated, even if not realized. Indeed, all may be encouraged to come to Nashville, with its leftist sensibilities. But whether those who come will be afforded the same opportunities and advantages of all other residents remains another story altogether. After all, Nashville is still struggling to care for the people who already live here, and whose families, in many cases, have been here for generations. On May 14, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, an organization that advocates for economic justice, released a study examining gentrification rates across the country, from 2010 to 2020. In its findings, Nashville exhibited the most "intense" gentrification of any American city. Put differently, from 2010 to 2020, there were more historically Black neighborhoods transformed into predominantly white enclaves in Nashville than anywhere else in the U.S. Here in Nashville, we tend to call this 'progress,' or 'growth.' We get excited about the new restaurant helmed by the James Beard Award-winning chef, now open in another one of Nashville's historic neighborhoods. And we bemoan the hikes in property taxes and costs of living now impacting the city's more affluent residents, those who are being shoved aside by the influx of moneyed out-of-towners. But never do we acknowledge that a lot of folks were already priced out of this city—their city—decades ago. Opinion: It will take strong leadership to address gentrification and affordable housing Also on the 14th, Metro Social Services released its annual 'Community Needs Evaluation' report, its yearly analysis of Nashville's socioeconomic health. The theme of this year's report: There's a 'High Cost to Low Wages,' and, well, you can probably guess the demographics of the Nashvillians who most frequently face that reality. Those low wages don't just make it hard to cover bills. They impact every aspect of life—from health outcomes (low-income workers are more likely to suffer from chronic disease and die prematurely) to education (low-income earners are also more likely to be zoned for underperforming public schools). If you're keeping track, you may be starting to piece together the cyclical nature of marginalization. Low-wage earners are often confined to neighborhoods zoned for Nashville schools, which will drastically increase the likelihood of their children also working low-wage jobs. Moreover, a neighborhood full of low income, Black and brown earners is also likely to have depressed property values—the kind of smoke signal that beckons to overzealous developers and the buyers of those properties, the ones happy to plant roots and Black Lives Matter signs in 'transitioning' neighborhoods in order to get the greatest return on their investment. But the people forced out, low-income earners as they often are, aren't just pushed out of their homes. They're often pushed out of the city. Mayor Freddie O'Connell attended the Metro Services-hosted event to mark the release of the 'High Cost of Low Wages' report. He also spoke before the presentation and subsequent panel, noting that the average Black and Hispanic residents of Nashville cannot afford to buy a home in 99% of the city's neighborhoods. It's a startling truth, and one that runs directly counter to his earlier assessment that, 'broadly speaking, Nashville has been an amazing success story.' I wrote recently about O'Connell's eagerness to tout the record-high graduation rates of Metro Nashville Public Schools during his State of Metro address. The idea that the number of graduating Nashvillians is higher than ever, and therefore some indication of district success and student achievement, may be accurate. But it's not completely honest. The statistic doesn't reveal how, for many students in this majority-ministry district, those diplomas are little more than certificates of participation. Those students aren't prepared for the careers or post-secondary studies that will allow them to buy a home in their hometown—or, at minimum, to break or avoid a cycle of low-wage living. More: How many in Nashville earn less than a living wage? New report details the 'high cost of low wages' But it is the kind of thing you say when you lead a city that is more concerned about optics than reality. It's no different than saying that Nashville welcomes everybody, even though it hasn't done a good job caring for the citizens who've been here all along. 'Those of us in policy areas, we generally know these things because we're always getting reports, we're always getting questions about income,' said State Rep. Harold Love, D-Nashville. 'But to see the numbers in this report, I think, really brings it home because the data is the data. And you can look across the city, look at the football and hockey and soccer teams, and it gives an illusion that it's a different city. 'But then, when you look at the data, you really get to see what is underneath that beautiful skyline.' Andrea Williams is an opinion columnist for The Tennessean and curator of the Black Tennessee Voices initiative. She has an extensive background covering country music, sports, race and society. Email her at adwilliams@ or follow her on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @AndreaWillWrite and BlueSky at @ This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Reports reveal truth that Nashville's 'It-City' status hides | Opinion
Axios
19-05-2025
- General
- Axios
Atlanta ranks fourth in gentrification wiping out majority-Black areas
A new report reinforces what many in Atlanta have already witnessed, researched and experienced: Black residents are disproportionately displaced once gentrification takes hold in their neighborhoods. Why it matters: While the findings of " Displaced by Design" won't surprise anyone who's attuned to how Atlanta's racial makeup has changed since developers began breaking ground on shiny new projects, it does provide insight into just how much these changes have affected longtime residents. By the numbers: According to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition's report, metro Atlanta ranks fourth among areas where gentrification eliminated majority-Black census tracts from 1980 to 2020. Out of the 31 tracts that were majority-Black in 1980, 42% no longer fell within that category in 2010. What they're saying: Bruce Mitchell, principal researcher at the Coalition, told Axios the report debunks myths floated by some scholars that gentrification and displacement aren't occurring. "This report shows that, indeed, there are strong indications that it certainly is occurring, and that people on the ground are correctly perceiving the situation in their neighborhoods," he said. He also said people living in gentrified areas often feel a sense of cultural loss, as they no longer feel what the report describes as "social cohesion" with their communities. Yes, and: Atlanta also ranks fifth in the number of majority-Black Census tracts that became majority-white. From 1980 through 2020, 22,149 Black residents were displaced from 16 majority-Black census tracts. During that span, 22,965 white, 2,414 Asian, and 1,672 Hispanic people moved into those same areas. Mitchell said Atlanta's Old Fourth Ward neighborhood is an example of a community that's undergone a complete racial transition. Neighborhoods like Edgewood and East Atlanta are following suit, he said. Context: Mitchell said two types of gentrifications typically take place: one where a person moves into a neighborhood and rehabilitates property, which in turn can attract new businesses and increase property values. That almost always leads to legacy residents being displaced from their communities. More intensive displacement takes place when "developer-driven gentrification" revitalizes larger areas. In those cases, Mitchell said, cities and developers have to ensure the community is involved and "that there be provision for affordable housing to be retained." The big picture: The city of Atlanta and the region are now playing catchup to stop the steady decline in affordable housing units and introduce programs to help residents stay in their homes as redevelopment projects move ahead. This month, Atlanta officials announced the city would expand its Anti-Displacement Tax Relief Fund program, which pays for any property tax increases above a qualifying homeowner's base for the next 20 years. Gwinnett County created an affordable housing development fund for households at or below 65% of the area median income (around $55,000). The city of Brookhaven last year purchased
