Kristin Allin, an urban studies master student at Georgia State, and her husband Billy love food and have been the force behind three Atlanta restaurants. Cakes and Ale, their first restaurant was a favorite Decatur spot for over a decade, earning Best Restaurant in Atlanta honors from Atlanta magazine in 2016. The pair closed Cakes and Ale to focus on family and their other spots, Proof Bakeshop and Bread and Butterfly.
Running the restaurants is what exposed Kristin to housing insecurity, “Seeing my employees struggle with housing is one part of my moving into this field,” says Allin. She joined the program as a student in 2018 and was recently hired as an intern for a six-month, project-based internship within the City of Decatur’s Community and Economic Development Department. The project Allin works on assists the Affordable Housing Task Force, a 26-resident volunteer group, in their charge to research and advise the Decatur City Commission on possible solutions to address Decatur’s shrinking housing affordability.
The Task Force is divided into seven topic-specific committees. Data analysis and demographics research are part of the project, as well as collecting information on potential housing solutions. Allin created a unified presentation of all Committee recommendations and presented it to the Decatur City Commission in December 2019 . Additionally, she assisted the Task Force in creating a full report of and implementation suggestions for each recommendation.
The final report was presented this week (February 2020) to the commission which voted to accept the report. To see the final report, click here or read the summary posted on Decaturish .