More New Neighbors on English Avenue: Home on the Westside Welcomes Two New Homeowners
This August, two more neighbors turned the key to a home of their own through Westside Future Fund’s Home on the Westside program — both of them buying in English Avenue, and both of them already part of the fabric of the community they’ll now own a piece of.
Charlotte Haywood and Brandon Teal each closed on three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath homes on the historic Westside. One got there through years of patient preparation and a family already planted in the neighborhood. The other serves English Avenue every day and will now live blocks from the people he shows up for. Different paths, same result: two more households staying and building here.
Three years of preparation, and a family already here
Charlotte Haywood’s closing was nearly three years in the making. She entered the Home on the Westside pipeline in 2022 and spent that time steadily building her savings until she was ready to buy — the disciplined work that turns a goal into a set of keys.
She also joins family already rooted in English Avenue. Her mother, Colette Haywood, purchased her home through the program in 2024. Her father, Leonard Watkins, serves as chair of NPU-L. For the Haywood family, homeownership on the Westside is now something passed between generations rather than something out of reach.
Living in the neighborhood he serves
Brandon Teal leads programming at both the YMCA at Morehouse School of Medicine and the YMCA at Good Sam, housed inside the Good Samaritan Health Center right here in English Avenue. His work is the neighborhood — the kids, the families, the neighbors who walk through those doors.
Now he lives here too. Brandon closed on a home just blocks from the community he serves every day, trading a commute for a front door in the same place he’s been investing his time and energy all along.
What Home on the Westside was built to do
Both of these closings reflect the heart of Home on the Westside: creating real pathways to homeownership for the legacy residents and neighbors who are invested in the future of the historic Westside, and making sure they can stay and build here.
None of it happens alone. Down payment assistance from Westside Future Fund and our partners at Atlanta Housing and Invest Atlanta helped turn these aspirations into keys in hand.
To Charlotte and to Brandon — welcome home on the Westside.
Learn more about Home on the Westside and how the program creates pathways to homeownership for Westside residents at www.homeonthewestside.com.
