A Milestone Years in the Making

Earlier this year, OaksATL reached a significant milestone: we fully repaid the interest and principal on all twenty of the impact investment loans that helped launch our work in English Avenue.

Before foundations are poured or renovations begin, our housing projects often require years of work behind the scenes. There are community engagement meetings with neighbors and residents. There are site surveys, architectural plans, engineering reports, permits, and funding applications. There is the long, careful work of turning a vision for beautiful, safe homes into something viable.

When OaksATL began in 2017, it was a young organization with a clear conviction: English Avenue needed high-quality, affordable housing that reflected the dignity of the people who live here. But conviction alone does not acquire dangerous properties, stabilize blighted buildings, or move a project from idea to reality. We needed capital that could move quickly and flexibly.

Twenty individuals and families stepped into that gap.

Together, they provided nearly $1.4 million in impact investment loans that gave OaksATL the ability to acquire properties and begin redevelopment at a critical moment. Through promissory notes, OaksATL committed to quarterly interest payments and full repayment of every loan balance.

In January 2026, we fulfilled that commitment.

We are deeply grateful to each family and individual who chose to invest in OaksATL’s work when we were just beginning. Their support was an act of trust in a place, in a mission, and in the long-term renewal of a neighborhood that has endured decades of disinvestment.

Those loans helped catalyze the work we continue today. They allowed OaksATL to act early, before we had a long project resume, and when the need for safer, high-quality affordable housing was urgent. They helped lay the groundwork for the homes we have created since then and for the hundreds of adults and children who have been housed in our community to date.

This is one of the quiet truths of community development: the earliest dollars are often the hardest to find, and some of the most important. They make room for the unseen work. They create momentum. They help transform possibility into place.

To the investors who helped OaksATL begin: thank you. You will always be part of rebuilding places, restoring dignity, and renewing our community in English Avenue.

With gratitude to our (paid in full!) impact investors:

Abbie and Todd Rapoport
Brian and Rachael Fitzgerald
Carter Pope
Chad and Robin Merrill
The Chafin Family
Dave and Cathy Bowman
Drew and Diane Henley
Eric Stribling, Austin Hurd, Josiah Laminack, and William Laminack
The Francis Family
Larry and Cindy Horst
Lecrae Moore
Mark and Sherry Maxwell
Matt and Kellie Maxwell
Terry and Patti McHugh
Tom and Pat Maxwell
The Weik Family
Woody and Vicki Johnson
Anonymous Investors

Over the course of each impact loan, these investors collectively donated more than $115,000 of their principal and interest. These donations have made many of the supportive services that help us stabilize families in housing possible.