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Vandals spray paint 'Investors go home' on South Atlanta house owned by a non-profit

The vandalism isn't stopping the work. Crews have been out all day trying to get the house ready for sale.

ATLANTA — Folks in the South Atlanta neighborhood discovered a new home under construction was vandalized, with bricks thrown through its windows and "Investors go home" scrawled across the side.

But, 11Alive's Kaitlyn Ross discovered that the message really missed the mark.

That's because the nasty note was spray painted on a home being built by a non-profit.

Katie Delp is the executive director of Focused Community Strategies, a non-profit dedicated to bringing affordable housing to South Atlanta. That group owns the house.

Delp said the vandalism isn't stopping the work. Crews continue to work to get the house ready for sale.

"It is a nasty message, but paint covers up a lot of things, and it will get covered up soon enough," Delp insisted.

Delp said she understands the vandals' concerns – the BeltLine is eventually scheduled to run right through the neighborhood, and Focused Community Strategies is trying to help as many people who already live there keep their homes after property values skyrocket.

"We're telling a different story, and we think we are a really special community, and we are an answer to a lot of people's fears about gentrification," Delp said.

Delp said her group has been in the neighborhood for 20 years, so to her, the message calling for "investors go home" is pretty ironic.

"This is a home being built by a nonprofit, by a minority builder," Delp explained. "This home is already under contract by a family who lives in the community and has deep roots there."

But Delp said she supports outside investors who want to come in, too.

"There are a lot of vacant homes that need to be renovated," she said.

The house that was vandalized will be on the market for $224,000 dollars. She doesn't get why someone would want to ruin that.

"No idea," she replied. "I'm going to guess that they came from outside the community and they don't know the good things going on here."

But Delp said the vandalism is not going to deter them. She said it's not even worth trying to track down who did it. They're just going to paint over it and move on.

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