One of the easiest ways for low and middle-income people (and rich people) to build wealth is through homeownership — it’s like paying the rent but it builds equity, home values go up over the years and homeowners have a cheap place to live when they get old and the mortgage is paid down. Contrast this with most “affordable housing” — rental units where no equity is built. Traditional “Affordable Housing” is good to keep old people off the street but does nothing to build future equity for working people. The best bet for sustainable affordable housing is something like Invest Atlanta’s Southwest Atlanta Open House Tours and homeownership seminars: https://www.investatlanta.com/about-us/events
Homeless people are a whole other ballgame. Many of them are incapable of holding jobs and need supervision and regular meds to live orderly lives. There are many organizations in Atlanta with the compassion and kindness to deal with this issue, some listed here: Homeless Shelter Solutions.
WHAT ARCHITECTS ARE DOING: Buildings and residential housing need both “starchitects” to drive design to the edge of what’s possible as well as “architecture for all”. Most architects try to do as much good as they can while keeping creativity alive and making a living. Here are some sources trying to keep design alive while improving affordable diversity in the world’s housing stock to help people live more productive lives.
The Worlds Housing R&D Platform Highlighting the best & brightest solutions addressing housing affordability & homelessness. Subscribe: https://housinginnovation.co/subscribe/
https://housinginnovation.co/
https://housinginnovation.co/essential/
https://housinginnovation.co/issues/redefining-workforce-housing/
https://housinginnovation.co/essential/#leadingsolutions
Open Source Architecture Book: https://www.amazon.com/Open-Source-Architecture-Carlo-Ratti/dp/0500343063
Open Source Architecture is a visionary manifesto for the architecture of tomorrow that argues for a paradigm shift … to a collaborative, inclusive, network-driven process inspired by twenty-first-century trends such as crowd-sourcing, open access, and mass customization.
Open Source Architecture: WikiHouse is a digitally-manufactured building system: https://wikihouse.cc/
Open Source Architecture: 4 Incremental Housing Projects for free download : 2016, Alejandro Aravena, winner of that year’s Pritzker Architecture Prize http://www.elementalchile.cl/en/
Atlanta GA Competition: http://domesticity.org/ (sprinkle elf dust on everyone and this will work; where to get all the friendly/loving poor people who like to farm, shown in the winning projects? We had an urban garden in my neighborhood in Old Fourth Ward, no-one would work in it, it dried up and is gone.)