Housing Savannah

12/25/2025

Wishing You a Season of Home, Hope & Community

This holiday season, Housing Savannah celebrates the true meaning of home—safety, warmth, and belonging. As families across our city gather around their tables, we honor the partners, advocates, and neighbors who work alongside us to expand access to safe, affordable housing.

May your holidays be filled with peace, joy, and the comfort of knowing that when community comes together, anything is possible.

✨ Merry Christmas from Housing Savannah! ✨

12/24/2025

Tonight, families across our community will gather in warm, welcoming homes; places filled with comfort, safety, and the people they love. As we reflect on the meaning of this season, we’re reminded that far too many of our neighbors still lack that same sense of stability.

This is a time for empathy, generosity, and renewed commitment. When we work together, we make room for more families to experience the security a home provides.

Wishing everyone a peaceful Christmas Eve and a moment to appreciate both the blessings we have and the work still ahead.

12/21/2025

Faith communities have always stepped up when their neighbors needed them, and this video of a church in St. Pete, FL is a powerful reminder of what’s possible when churches lean into that calling.

Across the country, congregations are finding practical, hopeful ways to use their land, buildings, and partnerships to create real housing solutions. Not as charity alone, but as stewardship. Not as a side project, but as a core expression of faith in action.

Here in our region, churches are uniquely positioned to do the same. Our congregations have trusted leadership, deep roots in our neighborhoods, and missions centered on care, dignity, and community. Small-scale housing, supportive homes, multigenerational living, or partnerships with local builders and nonprofits—these kinds of projects are achievable, impactful, and transformative.

If your congregation has ever asked, “What more can we do?”.... this is one answer. Housing is a foundation for stability, opportunity, and hope.

Take a few minutes to watch this story. Let it spark conversation, imagination, and maybe even the first step toward something meaningful right here at home.

A St. Pete pastor is moving forward with plans to put affordable housing units on the same property as a church.

12/20/2025

Home prices aren’t just rising in big cities. They’re increasing rapidly in rural and vacation-oriented communities and that trend is playing out clearly across coastal Georgia.

From barrier islands to small towns near the coast, places once considered “affordable alternatives” are now seeing intensified demand from second-home buyers, remote workers, and short-term rental investors. The result is predictable: prices rise faster than local wages, long-time residents get squeezed, and workers essential to the local economy are pushed farther away.

This isn’t a market failure, it’s a policy gap. Communities like ours need proactive strategies that balance tourism and investment with housing options for the people who live and work here year-round. That means allowing a wider range of housing types, supporting small-scale local developers, and planning intentionally instead of reacting once displacement is already underway.

Coastal Georgia is not unique, but we still have a chance to learn from what’s happening elsewhere and act before these pressures become irreversible.

12/18/2025

Savannah figured this out long ago.

From the Historic District south through DeRenne, alleys are a quiet but powerful design feature, handling utilities, access, trash, and parking out of sight, while keeping streets calmer, safer, and more people-focused. They weren’t an indulgence; they were practical, efficient, and cost-effective. Many older neighborhoods across our region share this same DNA.

As this article explains, the idea that alleys are “too expensive” is a myth. They fell out of favor during the era of suburbanization, when speed, separation, and car-centric layouts replaced human-scale design. Now, communities across the country are rediscovering what cities like Savannah already know: alleys make neighborhoods work better.

Good urban design isn’t nostalgia, it’s accumulated wisdom. As we think about infill, gentle density, and neighborhood-scale growth, it’s worth remembering that some of our best solutions are already right in front of us.

A careful apples-to-apples analysis shows that the classic urban pattern can actually cost less – but it mostly depends on the shape of the lots.

12/17/2025

“Gentle density” isn’t a buzzword, it’s just common sense.

This short video explains why adding small, well-designed housing options like duplexes, ADUs, cottage courts, and quadplexes within existing neighborhoods is one of the most practical ways to address rising housing costs, aging infrastructure, and car-dependent growth.

When homes are closer together in places that already have streets, utilities, schools, and shops, communities spend less to maintain infrastructure and get more value from what’s already been built.

Done right, gentle density strengthens neighborhoods rather than overwhelming them; supporting local businesses, improving stormwater management, and creating housing options for young adults, seniors, and working families alike.

The challenges we face won’t be solved by standing still. They’ll be solved through smart, incremental changes that respect neighborhood character while making communities more resilient and affordable.

Watch the video, then imagine a future where a few more neighbors can share in the community we already love.

Executive Director of Housing Savannah Laura Lane McKinnon discusses a “Gentle Density” housing strategy and how it impacts the community.

12/16/2025

The conversation around workforce shortages often circles the same point: we cannot close the labor gap without rebuilding respect for the skilled trades. These careers are essential, well-paid, and deeply meaningful, yet too many young adults are steered away from them.

And when we talk about housing, the reality is even clearer: most of the meaningful progress will come from small-scale developers doing incremental projects: duplexes, triplexes, rehabs, small infill, the everyday work that actually adds units. But these builders face steep barriers: thin margins, unpredictable approvals, financing hurdles, and ordinances that make modest projects unnecessarily difficult. When those obstacles pile up, projects don’t pencil, and small developers can’t offer steady, reliable work to the trades.

If we want a stronger housing pipeline and a stronger workforce, we have to make these paths more attractive and far less uncertain. That means removing the barriers that keep people out: confusing licensing processes, lack of affordable training, expensive tools and transportation, childcare gaps, and the inconsistent workflow that comes from a system stacked against small projects.

Communities like ours thrive when we empower local talent, the people building homes, repairing them, and keeping neighborhoods functional. Investing in the trades and in the small developers who rely on them isn’t optional. It’s the backbone of any real housing solution.

We should be doing everything we can to open these doors wider. The future depends on it.

Federal and state governments should prioritize funding for construction training, and the private sector ought to create clear career pathways for young workers and members of underrepresented groups.

12/15/2025

Local faith leader, Rev. Michael Chaney, offers a clear reminder that we don’t solve homelessness by making it less visible. We solve it by advocating for real options: safe shelter, supportive services, and pathways back to stability.

His perspective underscores what our community already knows: people deserve solutions that lift them up, not policies that just move them along.

A pastor to Savannah's homeless population calls upon his community to normalize small homes and cottage communities as a pathway to end homelessness.

12/15/2025

❄️ Cold Weather Holiday Resources

As temperatures drop this holiday season, we want to ensure every neighbor in our community has access to warmth, safety, and support.

If you or someone you know needs immediate shelter or assistance during cold weather, please contact the Chatham Savannah Authority for the Homeless Street Outreach Team:

📞 Call: (912) 813-4614 Ext. 1
📧 Email: [email protected]

OPERATING HOURS:
🕒 Regular Hours: Monday–Friday, 8:30 AM – 5 PM
🌙 After Hours: Tuesday–Friday, 5 PM – 9 PM
📅 Saturdays: 9 AM – 3 PM

No one should face the cold alone. Please share these resources and help us look out for our most vulnerable neighbors this season.

12/15/2025

Millions of full-time workers are doing everything “right” and still can’t afford a stable place to live. This PBS segment from late November highlights the hidden homeless; people working one or even two jobs who are still living in motels, cars, or doubled-up because rents have outpaced wages.

Brian Goldstone, author of "There Is no Place for Us," featured in this video lives in Atlanta, and his book follows families in metro Atlanta navigating this exact reality. That makes his perspective especially relevant here in coastal Georgia. The stories he tells could just as easily be unfolding in Savannah, Pooler, or any community in our region.

These aren’t fringe cases. They’re the workers who keep our economy running: cashiers, caregivers, hospitality staff, teachers’ aides, struggling to maintain stability while serving all of us.

And that’s the part we have to confront honestly: this won’t change unless we change how we plan, build, and resource housing.

We need to:
• Increase the supply of attainable homes of all types: rentals, microunits, ADUs, modest starter homes.
• Remove outdated local barriers that block small- and mid-scale housing from being built.
• Support wages with housing policy, not pretend the market will fix itself.
• Invest in preservation and repair, so existing affordable units aren’t lost faster than we can replace them.

This is a call to stop overlooking the people who are quietly falling through the cracks. We need to treat this with the urgency it deserves. If we want fewer families living on the edge, we have to make room for them, literally and figuratively.

The skyrocketing cost of living has left millions of people struggling to afford a place to live despite working at full-time jobs or a number of part-time jobs. Journalist Brian Goldstone, author of “There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America,” joins Ali Rogin to discuss this gro...

12/14/2025

Florida is weighing new legislation that would expand opportunities for Accessory Dwelling Units statewide and it’s a conversation worth following closely.

Some worry that ADUs *might* become short-term rentals. That possibility shouldn’t be ignored, but it also shouldn’t overshadow the broader public benefit. Most ADUs provide long-term benefits: multigenerational living, rental options for local workers, and gentle infill that strengthens neighborhoods.

We can set reasonable guidelines to prevent problems. What we can’t do is let the desire for perfect conditions keep us from taking any action at all. The housing need is too great, and balanced policy can get us moving in the right direction.

Senate Bill 48 is a proposal that would require all Florida local governments to allow accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in single-family neighborhoods.

12/14/2025

As Hanukkah begins, we honor a season defined by resilience, renewal, and the belief that light can grow even in the most challenging moments.

Tonight, we extend gratitude to every neighbor working to bring that same spirit into our community, by supporting one another, expanding opportunity, and helping ensure every family has a safe, stable place to call home.

May these eight nights remind us that small acts of hope add up, and that together, we can create a brighter, more welcoming future for all.

Wishing all who celebrate a peaceful and meaningful Hanukkah.