Progress Residential held its inaugural Safety Summit in Atlanta in September 2024, convening nearly 100 leaders from local government, housing authorities, law enforcement, nonprofits and the private sector to share experiences and ideas for creating greater housing opportunity for families in Atlanta and beyond.
The discussion focused on ways to expand access to affordable housing at scale, and provide safe and secure neighborhoods so residents can thrive. A recurring theme was that public and private sector leaders must align on shared goals and collaborate to address challenges in order to make both immediate and long-term positive change.
“We believe our industry plays a critical role in providing that access and partnering with each of you in this room to create ways in which we can solve this problem by creating housing solutions together,” said Dave Feldman, Co-President of Progress Residential, a professional property management services firm for more than 90,000 single-family rental homes in more than 30 markets across the United States.
Progress Residential is committed to creating more opportunities for renters to live in vibrant, secure communities with access to good schools, employment hubs, and transportation, he said.
“These are the amenities that each of us seeks for our families,” Feldman said.
The Housing Shortage
A major factor driving housing challenges is a shortage of housing units – a pervasive problem that extends across the country. The complex factors contributing to supply constraints are rooted in shifting demographics and a reduction of housing construction following the financial crisis and compounded by high interest rates, zoning and other regulatory restrictions, and inflationary costs for labor and building materials, among other factors. All of these issues are impacting both housing prices and rental rates.
About 100 million people rent homes in the United States, according to data by the U.S. Census Bureau, and there is already a shortage of at least 4 million to 5 million homes – a number that has increased by more than 50% in the past few years, data by Freddie Mac shows.
The housing shortage is intensifying as Millennials reach their 30s and 40s and start their own households and Baby Boomers live in their homes longer, said Josh Pristaw, Head of Real Estate at Pretium, a residential investment firm with more than $55 billion of assets1 and the parent company of Progress Residential.
“Independent research generally shows that in the age cohort of 35 to 49, people get married, they form partnerships, they have pets, and that's household formation. Overwhelmingly, this cohort prefers a single-family living experience at that moment in time,” Pristaw said. “What that data shows is we're going to need a lot more homes. We think about 6.5 million homes.”
Between higher construction and sale prices, interest rates, property taxes and home insurance, the total cost of owning an entry-level home can be more than $1,000 higher per month, or 44%, than renting a comparable home, Pristaw said, citing data from S&P Global, Attom, John Burns Real Estate Consulting, and Pretium’s own analysis.
Those factors make housing affordability more of a symptom of market forces than a cause, said Don Mullen, Founder and CEO of Pretium.
“We too often frame this affordability crisis around the question of affordability alone, instead of affordability as an output,” Mullen said.
One way that investors such as Pretium help alleviate the housing shortage and affordability is by providing capital — both equity and debt — to home builders and developers to mitigate their risk in accelerating construction of new homes, Mullen said. Pretium’s strategy is to also tackle the complexities and logistics of renting, managing, operating, and maintaining the homes it owns, he said. Additionally, Pretium provides residential credit, structured credit, leveraged loans, and legal finance.
“Our capital helps stabilize the inventory of home builders so they’re willing to take more risk in building homes,” he said. “We can play a very active role with our capital.”
Creating attainable housing at scale requires bringing together private capital to fund projects plus action-oriented public policy, Mullen added.
There is an opportunity “to balance our public policy needs with the private sector’s ability to bring efficiency and dollars to bear to solve problems,” Mullen said. “I think we can do it together as a partnership.”
Public-Private Partnerships Are ‘Critical’
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens was a keynote speaker at the Summit, where he underscored his goal of creating or preserving 20,000 units of affordable housing by 2030. The mayor announced that he has already delivered almost 6,000 units, with another 4,000 under construction or funded.2 The mayor also pointed to the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund, a new help center for people seeking assistance with affordable housing, and a recently enacted “blight tax” that penalizes landlords who neglect their properties.
“We have made great strides, but we do not kid ourselves about the scope of the affordable housing challenges,” Dickens said. “Our private and nonprofit partners are critical to our mission.”
For example, in 2022, Dickens and his staff worked with leaders of several companies and nonprofits to relocate numerous families that had been living in a dilapidated complex called Forest Cove to single-family rental homes that were close to public transportation and schools.3
“We partnered with Progress Residential, the Community Foundation, Open Doors Atlanta, and the APD Urban Planning organization to relocate all of the Forest Cove residents to safe and more secure housing,” Dickens said. “We needed many partners to make this happen. This was a real group project, to address all the challenges at Forest Cove.”
Many of those residents now live in Progress Residential homes with Housing Choice Vouchers.
The quick response and deep collaboration among public and private leaders to address the urgent need at Forest Cove can serve as a model of success for the future, the mayor said.
“That's how we will work moving forward, in a collaborative manner. Partnerships will be crucial if we plan to solve Atlanta's and the nation's housing challenges,” he said.
Catalyst for Progress + Removing Roadblocks
“Successful public-private partnerships include innovative and sustainable solutions that address the full spectrum of challenges related to housing affordability and access,” said Terri M. Lee, President and CEO of Atlanta Housing, the largest housing authority in Georgia and one of the largest in the nation.
“By proactively removing roadblocks to create or preserve more affordable housing, we catalyze the investments of hundreds of millions of dollars into the advancement of Atlanta’s communities,” she said.
Some things that public and private leaders could collaborate on to achieve positive results and facilitate more attainable and secure housing include:
- Expanding the Housing Choice Voucher program and making it easier to work with housing authorities
- Supporting nonprofits that finance affordable housing projects and initiatives at scale
- Removing developer and landlord barriers, such as permitting, density, lot size, and parking requirements
- Creating greater access to financial mechanisms that create or preserve affordable housing
- Cracking down on fraudulent rental listings and lease agreements that can result in unauthorized access to homes
- Addressing blight and illegal trespassing at unoccupied homes
- Stepping up police presence to protect public safety
Government agencies must work across departments, have access to funding and resources, and be empowered to act in collaboration with private sector partners, Lee said.
“If it’s a building permit problem, how can we unstick permitting in order to move forward? If it's a HUD regulatory issue, what can I do to work with HUD? If it's a funding gap, if a project only needs $100,000 to close, how can we look at what resources we have?” Lee said. “How can we use partnerships differently to be able to leverage those aspects?”
Atlanta Housing serves more than 26,000 low-income households and most of them make less than $30,000 per year. Based on the guideline by HUD and consumer credit counseling organizations that no more than 30% of income should be spent on housing, those families can afford less than $700 per month for rent — a figure that’s “almost impossible” in Atlanta, Lee said. The median rent in Atlanta is more than $2,000, according to data by Zillow.4
Atlanta Housing also offers a down payment assistance program that helps families attain homeownership.
“That is critically important because homeownership, especially among people of color, is one of the top tools for wealth creation,” Lee said.
Safe and Secure Communities
Ensuring neighborhoods are safe and secure is also paramount. Criminal trespassing leads to higher costs because those houses cannot be rented and there is often crime, theft of appliances, and damage to the property, said Stephen Davis, Senior Director of Government Affairs at the Georgia Apartment Association and Atlanta Apartment Association.
“There is a direct nexus between illegal occupancy and criminal activity. Narcotics, stolen weapons, we've had fugitives that we couldn't find anywhere else,” said Captain Nevel Phillips of the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office.
Progress Residential has forged partnerships with police departments in cities such as Atlanta, Dallas, Memphis, Las Vegas, Orlando, Houston and Phoenix to raise awareness of unoccupied homes that may have an elevated risk of illegal trespassing, minimize the risk of fraudulent leasing scams and illegal occupancy, and take a more collaborative approach when evictions are necessary, according to Matt Horace, Senior Vice President and Chief Security Officer at Progress Residential.
“We really can't talk about affordable and safe housing without bringing in the public safety and law enforcement component,” Horace said.
In the first nine and a half months of this year, Progress Residential, in partnership with local law enforcement, has reduced illegal trespassing in unoccupied homes by 97% across its portfolio, with the majority of those homes located in Atlanta, Horace said.
Progress Residential achieved that through closer monitoring of smart home technology inside unoccupied homes, tracking changes in utilities usage in unoccupied homes as an early indicator they may be illegally occupied, keeping alert for scam rental listings, and requesting more frequent police patrols in certain circumstances, Horace said. Progress Residential has also strategically deployed teams of corporate security investigators to remove trespassers, partner with police agencies, provide training to law enforcement and community, and refer criminal cases to police for further pursuit.
The state of Georgia recently passed the Georgia Squatter Reform Act, which streamlines the legal process to remove people who illegally occupy a home.5
Helping Residents Thrive
Beyond their work with governments, housing authorities, nonprofits and other stakeholders, owners and managers of single-family rental homes can often make immediate positive impacts for residents by simply reporting on-time rent payments to credit bureaus, which improves credit scores and can reduce interest rates when people rent furniture or buy cars, said Ali Solis, Chair of the National Housing Conference (NHC) and Founding Principal at S3 Advisory Services.
“Another thing that I love about the work that Progress is doing is that you're supporting residents through what seems like simple things, like positive rent reporting,” Solis said. “There are all sorts of ways we can promote financial stability.”
More than 8,100 residents of Progress Residential have established a credit score through its partnership with Esusu, and the average credit score improvement is 45 points, according to a May 2024 report by Esusu.
Owners can also work with residents to understand their life circumstances and support their efforts to make on-time payments and meet their commitments.
Progress Residential shared a video featuring a Florida resident named Keisha, a widow and mother of seven children who has a fixed income. While renting a home, she discovered that she didn’t meet the requirement of having income that is three times the rent, so she went to the Tampa office of Progress Residential to seek help.
“As soon as I opened that door, I was greeted, I was welcomed, and everybody again pitched in to solve my problem,” Keisha said.
A friend co-signed her rental agreement, paving the way for Keisha and her children to move into their home.
“The dignity in which they handled that…Progress didn’t want me to leave without a house. That’s something that’s going to stick with me for a long time,” Keisha said. “It became our haven, and we are in a season in our life where we really needed a haven. It feels like home.”
Working Closely Together
The summit concluded with participants across government, housing authorities, nonprofits, police departments, and the private sector agreeing that closer collaboration and a shared approach toward tearing down obstacles can create meaningful change and positive outcomes to put more individuals and families in attainable, secure, and stable housing.
“The challenges we are facing with housing are complex, and solving these problems requires that we all work together across the system to create scalable and sustainable solutions,” said Harish Ramalingam, Co-President, Progress Residential. “This is just the beginning of our work together. This is first of many conversations that we want to convene, and we look forward to working with all of you more closely.”