The city of Atlanta’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund, formed to bankroll affordable housing initiatives, is now being used to cover housing bond debt and staff salaries — a shift that’s alarmed housing advocates and several city officials. “From the very beginning, this looked too much like a slush fund, and not enough like a housing trust fund,” said William McFarland, the vice-chair of the Atlanta Housing Commission, an independent body the city council created in 2018 to advise on housing matters. Balla cautioned that barring the city from using the housing trust for bond payments would sharply curtail its ability to secure new housing construction financing, such as the $100 million in Housing Opportunity bonds that Invest Atlanta issued at the end of FY 2023.