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Seeking reelection and dependent on conservative political forces insisting on the balancing of the federal budget and cutbacks in domestic social programs, Republican President Bush deplored the devastation and did nothing. He refused to sign emergency aid and enterprise zone measures enacted by the Democratically controlled Congress shortly before the election and then vetoed them after his defeat (Gale, 1996, pp. 112-133). It was left to his successor, Bill Clinton, to produce a belated federal response.

Housing conditions headed the list of grievances neighborhood representatives reported to the mayor in the riot's aftermath. In the spring after the riot, Emmaus House, an agency of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, was founded as a settlement house at Capital Avenue and Haygood by the Reverend Austin Ford. Emmaus House Atlanta 39 operates a community action center that has helped catalyze organizing in Peoplestown and political action on Model Cities, highways, stadium construction, local tax policy, and the death penalty.

In contrast to the Johnson anti-poverty and Model Cities programs, however, the CDBG program was never touted as a federal effort to eliminate slums or seriously address poverty in blighted neighborhoods. Its funding and impact have waxed and waned over more than two decades, but CDBG funding priorities generally have not been targeted locally to the poorest neighborhoods or the neediest residents. Instead, the tendency of local governments has been to spread the benefits as widely as possible (Rich, 1993).