A Neighborhood in Need of a Hand

Mechanicsville — named after the mechanics that once worked the railway line — is one of Atlanta’s oldest neighborhoods.  

When Atlanta was still finding its roots in the early American antebellum the neighborhood became a hub for rail lines, rail yards and repair shops. According to the Mechanicsville official website, this served as “the impetus for the development and growth of the Mechanicsville neighborhood, as well as all of Atlanta.”

A neighborhood once the center of economic boom, fell on hard times in the 1960s and 1970s after destabilization efforts hit Mechanicsville. By the ‘90s the population had dropped to 25% of its previous size. Of those remaining residents, 80% of families were headed by women, 38% had completed high school and 78% lived below the poverty line.  

Due to redlining, the practice of selectively classifying neighborhoods as most likely to default on repayment of a mortgage, lenders would only offer mortgage loans for homes in Mechanicsville at above-average interest rates.

Atlanta Habitat, founded in 1983, was established due to a citywide need for housing and the unfair practices of redlining. Single parents, living in poverty, who would not have normally afforded a home were able to achieve homeownership through our program.  

Habitat purchased land in the neighborhoods that these single-income families were living in and introduced homeownership and stability. According to the CDC, safe and stable environments are essential to preventing early adversity in childhood, allowing children to reach their full potential.

By 1990, Atlanta Habitat had built 72 homes, 11 in Mechanicsville. Throughout the decade, Habitat added 441 more homes and had seen neighborhoods begin to transform.

“All these boys living in these old apartments around here use to steal people’s cars and break into people’s cars,” paid-in-full homeowner Java said. “I love flowers, I had a big pot in the front of the yard with my kid’s bicycle. [After going to sleep], they were gone, the hose to the house was gone.”

When Java, who built in 2000, first moved into her “dream home” she was unsure about the neighbors. She remembers feeling safe in her home but the apartment complexes near her home house some undesirable neighbors.  

She was concerned about how her grandchildren would grow up with those negative influences nearby.  

As more Habitat homes were built in the Mechanicsville neighborhood throughout the early 2000s, she saw a quick change.  

“Well, you don’t find any of that anymore,” Java said. “The place has cleaned up.”

Java and her family are just one of the many families who were able to join the Habitat program in the 2000s and move into Mechanicsville, Peoplestown and other neighborhoods.  

To date, Habitat has built 58 homes in Mechanicsville. Roughly 14% of Mechanicsville residents are homeowners while the remaining 86% rent. Within that 14%, one in every five houses was built by Atlanta Habitat.  

Although there has not been a study conducted on the correlation between Atlanta Habitat and neighborhood change, the statistics have significantly improved. Now, less than 40% of the neighborhood is living below the poverty line, 81% of residents have a high school diploma – at least a quarter of those residents have a higher education degree.  

As Atlanta Habitat brought homeownership to these neighborhoods, it not only changed the future of the families but of the neighborhoods themselves.