The Children, Businesses and Families of West Atlanta Need You!!

 

The City of Atlanta has neglected Atlanta's Legacy communities and invested into luxury projects for corporate predators.  It has allowed Atlanta's Westside to be controlled and managed by corporations that have mismanaged the economics, culture, education and future for families living in West Atlanta.  When the Atlanta Falcons wanted to destroy several churches, homes and black communities to expand the Mercedes Benz stadium the City of Atlanta bowed down.  In return, for this huge sacrifice, black communities were given a small, peanut donation and empty promises about the potential growth in their community that would arrive later in future years.     Support the Legacy Prosperity Initiative to support communities that have been underserved by Atlanta's TAX Allocation District which was originally supposed to support struggling neighborhoods but it now has been given to wealthy developers for luxury hotels and entertainment districts.

Less than 1% of the billions of dollars in revenue produced in the Mercedes Benz stadium and Gulch projects benefits people and businesses based in West Atlanta.  However, blacks have received many opportunities in the low-income janitorial, ticket gate and food preparations department of Mercedes Benz Stadium but not the Executive Management division.    An HBCU is around the corner from the stadium but ironically they have not hired many of the students from these wonderful black legacy universities.  Our westside tax dollars are used to finance our assassination and elimination.  Why can't the homes, schools and businesses along Martin Luther King Drive be just as important as the 50-yard line of the Atlanta Falcons Stadium?   The entire anatomy and management of the TAD has to be more inclusive of legacy Westside organizations that are people-centered that are from, with us and for us.

When the downtown corporations and Chamber of Commerce told the City of Atlanta to destroy every single housing project in Atlanta without a legitimate replacement housing plan for legacy black families, they were obedient to the corporations.  Today, this must end.  Our schools are closings, our communities have lost most of their affordable housing options for legacy black residents due to the Atlanta Beltline, corporate developers and other City of Atlanta policies.  We did not ask them to lead us because they are the very people that have redirected and misallocated funding from our schools to hotel and luxury condominium projects in downtown and North Atlanta. 

For over 40 years, the Westside of Atlanta has been neglected, stripped of resources, and left to decay while billions of taxpayer dollars have been funneled into developments that primarily benefit wealthy, predominantly white neighborhoods in North Atlanta, Downtown and around the Falcons Stadium.  They have allowed the Atlanta Falcons and all of their Mercedes Benz companies to not pay any taxes at the stadium while 16 schools are proposed to be closed.  They have already closed over 10 schools in West Atlanta located in predominately black communities.  This is not just about injustice and inequality it is about respecting legacy communities around the former home of Martin Luther King, Maynard Jackson and Julian Bond. This is about intentional disinvestment in the very communities that built this city, that housed the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, and that continue to be the soul of Atlanta

We are writing to you today because we are tired. We are tired of being forgotten. We are tired of being told to wait our turn. We are tired of watching our schools close, our churches disappear, our businesses shut down, and our families pushed out while corporations and their nonprofit proxies get richer off our land. This letter is a call to action for every Atlanta resident who believes in fairness, justice, and the promise that this city should work for all of us, not just the wealthy few.

THE Story OF 4 ATLANTAS: Inequities and Disrespect YOU CANNOT IGNORE
Wealthy, Working Class, Low-Income, Homeless

Let us be crystal clear about what is happening in this city. Atlanta is divided into 4 separate cities: one that receives billions in public investment, infrastructure upgrades, and economic opportunities, and another that is left with crumbling streets, closed schools, and broken promises.

On the Northside, you will find Ponce City Market, a multimillion dollar mixed use development that has revitalized the Old Fourth Ward with trendy restaurants, boutique shops, and luxury apartments. Drive down Peachtree Road and you will see pristine sidewalks, functioning streetlights, and thriving business districts. The Beltline's Eastside Trail has become a destination for joggers, cyclists, and families, complete with public art installations and well-maintained green spaces.  Currently, we are fighting the City of Atlanta to open the MLK and adjacent streets for World Cup visitors to access visit our Westside community during the event.

Now drive to the Westside. Take a trip down Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, the street named after our most famous son, and you will see potholes so deep they could swallow a tire. Drive down Campbellton Road or Bankhead Highway and count how many boarded up businesses you pass, how many vacant lots sit undeveloped, how many streetlights do not work. Walk through our parks and try to find a public restroom that is open and accessible. Over 90 percent of Westside parks lack basic facilities while Chastain Park, Piedmont Park, and Grant Park on the Northside receive continuous upgrades and maintenance.

The data tells the story that City Hall does not want you to hear. According to the Atlanta Regional Commission, median household income in Westside neighborhoods like Vine City, English Avenue, and Bankhead ranges from $30,000 to $48,000 per year, compared to $75,000 to $120,000 in Buckhead and Midtown. Unemployment rates in Westside communities hover around 15 to 20 percent, more than double the city average. Educational attainment levels show that only 65 percent of Westside residents have a high school diploma compared to over 95 percent in North Atlanta neighborhoods.

These disparities are not accidental. They are the result of deliberate policy choices that prioritize corporate profits over community needs.

TAX ALLOCATION DISTRICTS: ROBBING the Westside TO PAY Corporations and Fake Non-profits

Let us talk about Tax Allocation Districts, or TADs. These are supposed to be tools for economic development that capture increased property tax revenue from new developments and reinvest it back into the community. In practice, TADs have become slush funds for billionaire developers and their corporate friends.

The Westside TAD, the Gulch TAD, and the Centennial Yards TAD have collectively pulled in hundreds of millions of dollars that should have gone to our schools, our infrastructure, and our community services. Instead, that money has been used to subsidize projects like Mercedes Benz Stadium, which received over $10 billion in public financing, and Centennial Yards, a $5 billion development downtown that promises 14,000 jobs but offers our community members only part time, low wage positions with no benefits and no pathway to upward mobility.  This City of Atlanta could demand that they pay a livable wage since we are giving these corporations millions of dollars in grants.

The billionaire owner of the Atlanta Falcons has received over $10 billion in tax free benefits and donations from the City of Atlanta. His foundation controls significant influence over Westside development through the Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative. Yet the jobs his organizations offer to legacy Westside residents are predominantly part time positions paying $12 to $15 per hour with no health insurance, no retirement benefits, and no opportunity for advancement. How are our families supposed to survive, let alone thrive, on poverty wages while Mr. Blank adds billions to his fortune?  He would not allow our students to have internships so that they could learn business techniques at the stadium rather than bathroom cleaning techniques.

Meanwhile, 16 schools are closing. Douglas High School, a historic institution in our community, is on the chopping block. Booker T. Washington High School has been threatened. Mayor Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr. Elementary School, located directly across from Mercedes Benz Stadium, was nearly closed because Arthur Blank needed the land for parking. Let that sink in. They wanted to close a school named after Atlanta's first Black mayor so a billionaire could have more parking spaces for his stadium. The school remains open today only as a temporary facility for wealthy Northside students while their schools undergo renovations. Our children get displaced while Northside children get upgraded facilities.

This is not development. This is displacement. This is not reinvestment. This is robbery.

THE Trick OF AFFORTABLE HOUSING by the Corporate Non-profits

City officials and their corporate partners love to talk about affordable housing. They put it in every press release, every public presentation, every glossy brochure. But let us examine what they actually mean by affordable.

When developers promise that 10 to 20 percent of new units will be affordable, they are using income qualifications that price out the very people who have lived in these communities for generations. Affordable housing in these developments is typically set at 60 to 80 percent of Area Median Income. For Atlanta, that means a family of four earning up to $60,000 per year might qualify. But the median income for legacy Westside residents is $30,000 to $48,000. That means the so called affordable units are still out of reach for the majority of our legacy community.

The result is predictable and devastating. According to research from Georgia State University's Fiscal Research Center, the resident retention rate for City of Atlanta redevelopment projects is less than 20 percent. That means more than 80 percent of the people who lived in a neighborhood before redevelopment are gone within five years. This is not community development. This is gentrification by design. This is economic cleansing.

We were told that the Atlanta Beltline would make us wealthier, more stable, more vibrant. Instead, property values skyrocketed, property taxes became unaffordable, and longtime residents were forced to sell their homes and leave the only neighborhoods they have ever known. The Beltline has brought craft breweries and yoga studios to the Westside, but it has pushed out the families who made this community what it is.

Allow the Westside to Win - LOSS OF OUR LEGACY: 20 CHURCHES, 16 SCHOOLS, AND 110 BUSINESSES

Over the past two decades, the Westside has lost more than 20 legacy churches, institutions that were not just places of worship but community anchors that provided social services, after school programs, and moral leadership during the Civil Rights Movement and beyond. We have lost 25 legacy schools, the places where generations of Black children learned to read, to think critically, to dream big. We have lost over 100 legacy businesses, the barber shops and beauty salons, the soul food restaurants and corner stores that were owned by our neighbors and reinvested profits back into our community.

This is the home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who preached from Ebenezer Baptist Church and walked these streets organizing for justice. This is the home of Ralph Abernathy, who stood shoulder to shoulder with Dr. King and carried on the movement after his assassination. This is the home of Julian Bond, civil rights leader and politician who fought for equality his entire life. This is the home of Maynard Jackson, Atlanta's first Black mayor who opened doors for Black economic participation in this city.

How dare we allow the neighborhoods that produced these giants to crumble into dust? How dare we stand by while the communities that changed America are treated like sacrifice zones for corporate profit?

CORPORATE CONTROL OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT - Should Corporations on the NRI Commission Control the Westside?

Here is where it gets even more disrespectful. The City of Atlanta has created a structure that puts corporations and their nonprofit proxies in control of Westside redevelopment while shutting out the voices of the people who actually live here.   Why are other communities allowed to manage the future of their neighborhoods without interference?   West Atlanta residents have never been allowed to dictate the future of downtown Atlanta, Ponce De Leon or 

The Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative, or NRI, is controlled by a commission appointed by the mayor and the outcome and decisions have already been determined behind closed doors. But the real power has been given to organizations like the Westside Future Fund, the Arthur Blank Family Foundation, Central Atlanta Progress, Downtown Chamber of Commerce, real estate agents and Cousins Properties that are shaping West Atlanta around their best interests. Tom Cousins, a wealthy real estate developer, has disguised his for-profit interests behind nonprofit entities like Purpose Built Communities and Purpose Built Schools. These organizations receive TAD funding that should be going to community-controlled development, and they make decisions about our neighborhoods without meaningful input from legacy residents, churches, or locally owned businesses.   Many of the members of the NRI Commission have received millions of dollars from the TAD which was intended to benefit vulnerable communities, new entrepreneurs and legacy communities.   North Atlanta is already flourishing and does not need TAD funding or grants.  The TAD was not intended to make wealthy billionaires richer and more powerful.

The Invest Atlanta board, which oversees TAD spending, is dominated by corporate executives and Northside elites. Legacy Westside community members, church leaders, and small business owners are systematically excluded from decision making power. When we do get a seat at the table, it is a token gesture with no real authority. The fix is already in before we walk through the door.

Let me be absolutely clear about what this means. Wealthy white corporations and individuals are serving as masters over Black communities, deciding what gets built, who gets displaced, and how our tax dollars are spent. This is paternalism. This is colonialism. This is unacceptable.

These same corporations told us we needed the Atlanta Beltline, and it pushed us out. They told us we needed Mercedes Benz Stadium, and it closed our schools. They told us we needed Centennial Yards, and it created jobs we cannot live on. Every single project they have championed has made our community weaker, not stronger. Why on earth should we trust them now?

Soul of Atlanta is more important than, CAMPAIGN DONATIONS AND POLITICAL INFLUENCE

We need to talk about money in politics. These corporations and their foundations have been major contributors to political campaigns in Atlanta. Cousins Properties and associated entities have written checks to candidates for Mayor, City Council, and the Atlanta Public Schools board. This is not charity. This is investment. And they expect a return.

When Atlanta Public Schools proposes closing 16 schools, and the mayor's office is muted and silent that is a problem.  The school closings include historic institutions like Douglas High, we have to ask who benefits. When the administration pushes forward with the Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative that puts corporate entities in charge of community development, we have to ask who is pulling the strings. When TAD dollars flow to billion-dollar developments while our streets remain full of potholes and our parks lack basic restrooms, we have to ask who is getting paid off.

Campaign donations are powerful influencers. When a billionaire writes a check to your campaign, you listen when he calls. When a major corporation funds your political operation, you do not bite the hand that feeds you. This is how democracy dies, not with a bang but with a series of backroom deals and quiet betrayals.

WHAT WE DEMAND from the City of Atlanta for our Children...

We are not asking for charity.  We desire parity and equality with North Atlanta.  We are not begging for scraps from the table. We are demanding what is rightfully ours: control over our own communities and fair treatment from our own city government and tax dollars.

First, we demand the elimination of corporate control over the Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative Commission. Community development decisions should be made by community members, not billionaires and their nonprofit fronts.

Second, we demand community control of Tax Allocation District boards. Legacy residents, church leaders, and local business owners should have majority representation and real decision making power over how TAD funds are spent in our neighborhoods.

Third, we demand that the City of Atlanta invest in Westside infrastructure at the same level it invests in North Atlanta. Fix our streets. Upgrade our parks. Install working streetlights. Provide public restrooms in every park. These are basic services that every neighborhood deserves.   

Fourth, we demand that affordable housing actually be affordable for the people who live here now. Set income qualifications at levels that match the actual median income of legacy Westside residents, not some inflated citywide average that prices us out.

Fifth, we demand protection for legacy institutions. No more school closures. No more church displacements. No more destruction of historic Black businesses. If a development threatens a legacy institution, that development should not move forward, period.

Sixth, we demand economic opportunities that provide real upward mobility. No more part time, minimum wage jobs. We want career pathways, living wages, health benefits, and retirement security.   We would like opportunities for our legacy business that desire contracts to perform services in the City of Atlanta.   Maynard Jackson established this plan over 20 years ago but the City of Atlanta has eliminated its DEI program in favor of a watered-down and weak One Atlanta program to satisfy the Trump Administration when they received $75 million from the White House.  

A CALL TO ACTION for Change of Policy, Principles and Equity

This letter is not just information. It is a call to action. We are organizing. We are mobilizing. We are building power. And we need you to join us.

We are launching a petition campaign to demand that Atlanta City Council and the Mayor's office end corporate control of Westside development and return power to the community. We need every resident who believes in justice to sign this petition and share it with their networks.

We are organizing community meetings to educate Westside residents about their rights, about TAD funding, about the corporate controlled Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative, and about how to fight back against displacement.  The Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative includes 70% corporate developers, North Atlanta non-profits, 

We are building coalitions with churches, labor unions, community organizations, and elected officials who are willing to stand with us against corporate greed.

We are researching and exposing the financial relationships between City Hall and the corporations that are profiting off our displacement.

We are preparing to vote, to organize, and to hold every elected official accountable for the choices they make about our community.

Change the Atlanta Way of Neglecting the Working Class in the Westside

The Westside of Atlanta is not a charity case. We are not a social experiment. We are not a blank canvas for developers to paint their vision of urban renewal. We are a community with history, with culture, with strength, and with dignity. We are the people who built this city, who made it a beacon of Black excellence and Civil Rights leadership, who put Atlanta on the map as a place where Black people could thrive.

We will not be erased. We will not be silenced. We will not be pushed out.

To our fellow Atlantans, we ask you to stand with us. This fight is not just about the Westside. It is about what kind of city Atlanta will be. Will we be a city that values all our residents, or just the wealthy few? Will we be a city that honors our history, or one that bulldozes it for profit? Will we be a city of justice and equity, or one of segregation and exploitation?

The choice is ours to make. The time to act is now.

Sign the petition. Join the movement. Demand justice for the Westside.

In solidarity and with determination,

The Atlanta Westside Legacy Coalition

 
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