History

The Vine City Health and Housing Ministry, Inc. (VCHHM) is a nonprofit community development corporation formed in 1986 by neighborhood churches with the purpose of revitalizing the Vine City neighborhood.  VCHHM (formerly known as The Vine City Housing Ministry, Inc.) was organized in large part in response to an unpopular decision by the State of Georgia to locate a government building on a land parcel that had previously been targeted for residential redevelopment.  With advocacy from community churches, the decision to build the building was reversed and housing was eventually built on the site.  The Vine City Health and Housing Ministry had also been born.

The Vine City neighborhood is located in the Atlanta central business district immediately west of downtown and faces a host of development pressures that threaten its historically residential roots.  The World Congress Center, the Georgia Dome, MARTA, Atlanta University and other schools and their expansion needs all place the residential future of Vine City in jeopardy.  This concern is not unfounded.  Numbers of predominantly African-American communities throughout Atlanta have literally been removed from existence, Buttermilk Bottom and Vine City’s sister neighborhood, Lightning, are but two of the more notable communities to be lost.

Years of disinvestment and neglect have eroded the livability of the community.  The neighborhood is interspersed with vacant lots, substandard housing, inappropriately placed and poorly maintained apartment complexes and an entrenched criminal element.  Yet, in spite of these difficulties, the community has maintained its vision, continued to be highly energetic in its efforts to improve the quality of life and staunchly assertive of its desire to retain the residential character of the community.

Toward that end, significant efforts have been made to improve the community, spearheaded by the activities of the Vine City Health and Housing Ministry, which has provided both the moral and technical leadership in the rebuilding of the neighborhood.  A host of redevelopment initiatives have been undertaken which have laid the groundwork and begun to put into place the eventual structure of Vine City’s future look.  These include the following:

Northside Plaza Apartments (126 unit new construction)

Courtyard at Maple Apartments (184 unit new construction)

The Vineyards (44 unit apartment renovation)

Tyler Place Homes (7 new SF homes)

Georgia Pacific’s Project HOPE (32 new SF homes)

Vine City Police Precinct (3,400 square foot new office facility)

Bethune Elementary School (totally retrofitted)

Tyler Place Community Development Corporation (12 new and 3 renovated SF homes)

Vine City Housing Ministry (32 new SF homes, 44 renovated MF homes)

Magnolia Park Apartment Homes (444 unit new apartments)

Historic Westside Village (Redevelopment of 12 acre site at Martin Luther King/Ashby Street Business District with a mixed use complex.

Northyards Business Park (Redevelopment of a 90 acre rail yard into a business park)

Georgia World Congress Center Phase IV Expansion

The community also has an active civic association that is spearheading a public safety initiative in conjunction with VCHHM and its mini police precinct facility.  VCHHM has also produced an excellent collaborative effort to coordinate community health care and services out of the local churches and other neighborhood based facilities.