ATLANTA REINVESTMENT CAMPAIGN 

We have begun work on our Protected Reinvestment Campaign, a local invest/divest initiative. We are focusing on getting Atlanta to divest $3 million from the city budget to be invested into safe, secure housing communities, resource centers, and wealth-building directives for residents who are most impacted by mass incarceration.

To get the broadest possible support, we are framing this campaign in terms of public safety: recidivism will decrease if people have housing, jobs, health care and other basic resources. This campaign phase will activate our incarcerated base  to write letters to the Atlanta City Council about returning home to Atlanta that might ask, “Where will I go? Where will I work?”

We have drafted the legislation with the ACLU of Georgia; the Southern Center for Human Rights (SCHR), which works for equality, dignity, and justice for people impacted by the criminal legal system in the Deep South; and Moms Rising, an advocacy group with experience crafting local and state legislation. We are continuing to train formerly incarcerated Black women to do deep canvassing and other work that builds community support for this campaign.

The Atlanta Reinvestment Campaign is using strategies similar to those that we used in the successful Protected Campaign: targeting the Atlanta City Council to get at least 8 out of the 15 votes needed to pass legislation; finding a champion and a secondary supporter to introduce the  legislation to the full council; deep canvassing and other strategies to increase community pressure on the council and expand justice-impacted voter registration; and base building and power building of formerly incarcerated residents.

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