HUD Awards Atlanta Housing $40M to Transform Bowen Homes Neighborhood

A $40 Million Catalyst for Atlanta's Westside

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded Atlanta Housing and the City of Atlanta a $40 million Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Grant to transform the former Bowen Homes site and the surrounding Bowen Choice Neighborhood. Federal officials announced the award on July 26, 2023, calling it the second Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Grant received by the Atlanta partners and a cornerstone of Mayor Andre Dickens' neighborhood-revitalization agenda.

Atlanta Housing CEO Eugene E. Jones said the grant will be leveraged into more than $500 million in total investment to redevelop the long-abandoned public-housing site, which was demolished more than a decade ago and has sat largely vacant since.

Scope of the Revitalization

The Bowen Choice Neighborhood covers roughly 74 acres on Atlanta's Westside and includes the former Bowen Homes property, Carey Park, and portions of Almond Park, as well as segments of Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway and James Jackson Parkway. Plans call for more than 2,000 new rental and ownership units, a mix of affordable and market-rate housing, and significant investment in streets, parks, and commercial corridors.

Three-Part Strategy

Atlanta Housing structured the transformation plan around three coordinated pillars:

• Housing — more than $300 million for on-site redevelopment and new construction of mixed-income housing.
• Neighborhood — more than $200 million for blight removal, property acquisition, public-safety improvements, and commercial investment.
• People — roughly $42 million for health, education, workforce, and economic-mobility programs serving former Bowen residents and current neighbors.

Community Partners

Implementation will draw on a coalition of local organizations, including the Boys and Girls Club, Communities in Schools, Families First, Georgia Tech, Goodwill of North Georgia, Grady Health System, Morehouse School of Medicine, Quality Care for Children, United Way, the Urban League, Westside Works, and the YMCA.

What It Means for Homeowners and Future Residents

The Choice Neighborhoods grant is one of HUD's largest place-based tools and is designed to rebuild distressed public-housing sites as mixed-income communities with pathways to homeownership. For Atlanta's Westside, the $40 million federal award is the trigger that unlocks hundreds of millions more in private and philanthropic capital — funding new affordable rental units, for-sale homes, and supportive services aimed at keeping longtime residents connected to the neighborhood as it rebuilds.

Ground was later broken on the first phase of construction on March 5, 2025, adding 151 units — most of them reserved as affordable — as the opening move of the broader Bowen redevelopment.