by Arielle Robinson
A new program run by Cobb County Magistrate Court that intends to provide an alternative to eviction is up and running.
The Housing Stability Court’s first official participant had her court check-in date Friday, Feb. 9, Chief Magistrate Brendan Murphy told the Courier.
Murphy said there have been three participants so far. The other two participants are in various stages of the program.
Murphy said the program expects to have its first graduate by early April.
Why the court did not start immediately after the Commission’s vote
Last fall, the Cobb County Board of Commissioners voted in favor of the project.
The program is funded by a federal Emergency Rental Assistance allocation of $1.3 million.
Cobb’s Magistrate Court works with the nonprofit Center for Family Resources (CFR) to run the court.
Murphy told the Courier that the program was always intended to start when most federal ERA funds had been exhausted. He said the reason was that the court wanted to distinguish the ERA program, which intended to help renters during the height of the pandemic, from the Stability Court program.
“The Housing Stability Court program matches emergency rental assistance with required case management,” Murphy said. “Whereas the focus during the Emergency Rental Assistance Program generally did not have the case management focus, because during the pandemic, the goal was to make sure that landlords and tenants received the assistance as soon as possible to avoid evictions during the pandemic, and also to make sure that landlords had funds to stay solvent during the pandemic, those were the twin goals. So it was a very different program.”
Murphy said another reason the court launched at a different time than originally anticipated was because the state of Georgia launched another rental assistance program through Atlanta Legal Aid and the Georgia Legal Services Program that is ongoing.
Murphy said the…
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