Tyler Perry made a $750,000 donation to assist low-income seniors in Atlanta

Tyler Perry is as soon as once more serving to the town he has referred to as residence for many years. The filmmaker and actor is donating $750,000 to assist low-income seniors in Atlanta now that property taxes have been elevated. 

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens announced the generous donation this week, saying rising property taxes have displaced many residents – particularly seniors, who’re on fastened incomes, and will really feel the results of even reasonable will increase. 

“Atlanta’s progress and prosperity shouldn’t come on the expense of our legacy residents—a lot of whom have been priced out of their houses in earlier years,” Dickens mentioned in an announcement. “Tyler Perry has been engaged in our ongoing conversations round legacy resident retention, and he advised me he needed to do one thing to assist these efforts. Thanks to his generosity, extra Atlantans will be capable of stay within the communities they constructed.”

His $750,000 donation will assist repay again property taxes for the greater than 300 low-income seniors who at the moment owe taxes. The donation may also fund a pilot program that can repay the distinction between present taxes and the rise for greater than 100 low-income seniors. 

Invest Atlanta Partnership, the town’s financial growth authority with a aim of accelerating “alternative and prosperity for the individuals of Atlanta,” will administer the funds. 

Perry has launched into numerous philanthropic endeavors to assist his neighborhood. In 2009, he created The Tyler Perry Foundation, which helps a variety of initiatives all over the world. 

During the pandemic, he paid the grocery invoice for aged and at-risk customers at 73 grocery shops in Atlanta and his hometown of New Orleans. He has additionally used his platform to induce individuals to get protected agains COVID-19 with the vaccine. 

Perry usually covers funeral and different bills for households who’ve suffered tragedies. In 2020, he paid for the funeral of Rayshard Brooks, a black man killed by Atlanta law enforcement officials in a Wendy’s parking. That identical yr, he donated $100,000 to the authorized protection fund of Kenneth Walker, the boyfriend of Breonna Taylor. Taylor was fatally shot by police inside her residence and Walker was sued by one of many Louisville Police Department officers who was wounded through the taking pictures.

At the 2021 Academy Awards, Perry was offered with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for serving to the meals insecure through the pandemic. He used his speech to urge individuals to “refuse hate.”

And in 2019, he opened 330-acre film studio complicated in Atlanta, which employs 1000’s of individuals.