After a year on the job, Atlanta Housing’s (AH) top real estate executive will step down at the end of July, the agency announced on Tuesday.
Alan Ferguson, AH’s chief housing and real estate officer, joined the housing authority in June 2024, after leading Atlanta Habitat for Humanity for two years. He’d previously served as the senior vice president of development and operations at the American Opportunity Foundation, a housing nonprofit, and spent eight years working for Invest Atlanta.
An AH spokesperson declined to say why he is departing, effective Aug. 1, but Ferguson told Atlanta Civic Circle via text that he’s leaving AH on his own accord to explore his “next chapter.”
“It was my decision,” he said. “I haven’t been fired from a job since I worked at Captain D’s in high school. And even they hired me back,” he joked.
Maya Hodari, AH’s senior vice president of real estate, will serve as interim real estate chief as of Aug. 1.
As AH’s real estate czar, Ferguson negotiated financing and development deals with lenders and private developers for affordable housing projects, including the massive mixed-use Bowen Homes project, and the Herndon Square and Sylvan Hills apartment complexes.
Most notable, perhaps, was Ferguson’s “pioneering” approach to The Proctor, a Westside mixed-income development under construction at 698 Oliver St., AH said in a press release. Instead of relying on Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, as is typical for affordable housing projects, the $56 million, 137-unit development attracted private support from Goldman Sachs, the Basis Investment Group, and real estate developer Windsor Stevens.
“Alan Ferguson is the most talented community investment banker of our generation. He’s earned the respect of everyone on Wall Street and the private developer community,” said Windsor Stevens managing partner Rod Mullice. “He understands how to marry public mission with private capital for the benefit of the community.”
Marc Pollack, the president of EQ Housing Advisors, one of the development partners for Sylvan Hills, said Ferguson was instrumental in advancing the affordable housing project. It broke ground on its second phase just last week, promising 233 apartments — all affordably priced for lower-income Atlantans.
“Alan and his entire team were invaluable to getting the Sylvan Hills deal to a closing,” Pollack said. “This will be a big loss for the housing authority, and a big gain for his next journey.”
Indeed, Ferguson is leaving at a turbulent time for public housing authorities across the country, as Congress considers slashing the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Section 8 voucher funding in favor of block grants for states to administer.
AH’s board of commissioners last month approved a conservative $453.3 million fiscal year 2026 budget that is $80.6 million, or 15%, slimmer than the $534 million allocated for FY25. More than 90% of AH’s funding comes from HUD.
“The FY 2026 budget recognizes the challenging funding expected from reduced Congressional appropriations during the federal fiscal year,” AH’s CEO, Terri Lee, said in a statement introducing the 256-page budget document.
One of Ferguson’s final acts as AH’s real estate boss was to instruct the Section 8 landlords under its purview to pause any planned rent increases, Axios Atlanta reported this week.