Congratulations to Amy McCoy, My Hometown Realty Group, and member of the West Georgia Board of Realtors helped the AH Landlord Advisory Group in order to ensure the Housing Choice Voucher Program (HCVP) for affordable Housing stays at the heart of Atlanta Housing (AH) and offers the most robust incentives for attracting more and more Landlords to the program.

ATLANTA HOUSING (AH) One of the largest housing authorities in the country, Atlanta Housing prides itself on supplying affordable housing to nearly 25,000 households. The Housing Choice Voucher Program (HCVP) is at the heart of its housing solutions, and the partnerships that AH maintains with property owners are vital to its success. In order to keep the voucher program robust and efficient, AH has implemented key incentives and innovative resources for landlords. Several of these originated with the AH Landlord Advisory Group – which was established because a local REALTOR® stepped up with constructive suggestions. That REALTOR® was Amy McCoy, a member of the West Georgia Board of REALTORS® with experience in property management and clients who were willing to accept vouchers. Having grown up in military housing, with extended family in Section 8 housing, she also understood the tenant side of the equation. When she approached Atlanta Housing in 2014 with feedback from a landlord’s perspective, her offer dovetailed neatly with the organization’s effort to understand the position of the property owners they were trying to attract, says Ryan Creech, Atlanta Housing’s Manager of Landlord Services. “We formed the Landlord Advisory Group, and their input gave rise to some of our core best practices.” The volunteers helped AH identify and dispel some of the prevailing housing-voucher myths that were keeping landlords away. “We heard it all, from ‘They don’t pay market rates’ to ‘It takes months to get paid’ to ‘When you call customer service, you never speak to the same person.’ We addressed each one of these real and perceived barriers,” says Creech. “We also began to offer incentives to attract more landlords. From our Advisory Group, we learned that we needed to be giving them the kind of attention we were giving our participants.”