This is a weekly feature called Community Notebook, filled with snippets of information, conversations, and reporting about the communities where we work. Canopy Atlanta Fellows and other community residents may contribute to this weekly reporting. The Community Notebook is featured in our newsletter Voices — sign up to find this in your inbox every week.
Bowen Homes groundbreaking
By Genia Billingsley, Canopy Atlanta Fellow
Atlanta Housing, city officials, and their partners will mark the first step in the multi-phase revitalization of the historic Bowen Homes site next week in a groundbreaking ceremony.
Built in the early 1960s and demolished in 2009, Bowen Homes embodied complexity and contrast. What was a once-thriving community and significant Black voting block in Atlanta later became known as a high-crime area. Several well-known musicians, rappers, and boxers came from the community, including Shawty Lo and Evander Holyfield. It was almost a city within itself, a self-contained part of Atlanta with its own nursery and elementary school.
Atlanta Housing has said former residents of the public housing community will be given an opportunity to return when the planned $63.6 million redevelopment is completed.
Forest Park: special election for council seat
The City of Forest Park will hold a special election on March 18 to fill the Ward 2 city council seat. The seat has been vacant since September 2024, when former Council Member Dabouze Antoine resigned. Whoever is elected will serve until December 31, 2025, the unexpired term date.
Five candidates are vying for the seat: Delores A. Gunn, Ann Keith, Clifford Pellegrine, Tommy Smith, and Rhonda Wright.
Polling locations can be confirmed using My Voter Page or by contacting 404-366-4720.
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