On August 17, DeKalb County hosted a community showcase on its Comprehensive Housing Plan, the county’s first long-term strategic framework for housing across the full continuum, from homelessness and rental housing to homeownership, production, and preservation.
CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson opened the evening, with Chief Housing Officer Dr. Alan Ferguson leading the presentation.
“Housing is more than a roof over someone’s head. It is the foundation upon which families build stability, children succeed, seniors age with dignity, and communities thrive,” said CEO Cochran-Johnson.
The vision: a DeKalb County where everyone has access to safe, stable, quality housing that fosters community and creates pathways to success.
From that vision flow five goals and 39 strategic actions:
- Make homelessness rare, temporary, and non-recurring
- Facilitate more quality rental housing that meets residents’ needs
- Support more attainable and lasting homeownership
- Strengthen housing development relationships, systems, and processes
- Optimize and increase resources to sustain housing production and preservation
“My role is to help connect that strategy to implementation, bringing together county departments, housing agencies, municipalities, community partners, developers, and service providers around a shared housing agenda,” said Dr. Ferguson. “This plan does not exist in isolation. It connects housing to DeKalb County’s broader land use, infrastructure, transportation, economic development, and long-range planning priorities.”
Dr. Ferguson also emphasized that preservation matters as much as production. “A lot of people talk about how we build more housing, but the preservation effort is just as important,” he said, noting that without intervention, DeKalb is projected to lose approximately 5,600 affordable units over the next ten years.
Residents shaped the plan’s core values through community conversations and focus groups, naming inclusivity and belonging, equity, individual agency, and sustainability.
“We’re thinking about long-lasting impact, the long game, not Band-Aids, not quick fixes,” said Bithia Palmer, Director of Housing Solutions at Enterprise Advisors.
Launched in November 2025, the plan is led by Eva Chauveau of Planning & Sustainability at Enterprise Advisors and Sycamore Consulting. It goes before the Board of Commissioners in November for final adoption.
