As eviction filings resurge to pre-pandemic levels, the Atlanta Housing Commission is urging the city of Atlanta to increase protections for low-income renters and lobby state legislators to change the laws that make Georgia so landlord-friendly.

The extra-governmental commission of planning and development experts called out the “unscrupulous practices by too many property owners who take advantage of a legal environment in Georgia which maintains an imbalance of power steeply favoring owners over tenants,” in a letter sent last week to the Atlanta City Council and Mayor Andre Dickens.

Atlantans facing eviction need greater access to free legal aid and at least a full-week grace period to cure lease violations before getting kicked out of their homes, the letter said. In Georgia, renters currently have just three days to resolve disputes with their landlords before the landlords can file in court to evict them, so the commission called on the city to advocate for state-level reforms.

Atlanta Housing Commission chair Andy Schneggenburger said the city council’s Community Development and Human Services Committee will consider its full list of recommendations in July.

Eviction filings in metro Atlanta plummeted during the COVID-19 pandemic, from 14,181 in January 2020 to just 6,717 in January 2021, according to the Atlanta Regional Commission. But they shot back up starting in summer 2021, and escalated to 14,211 filings last January. 

The Atlanta Housing Commission said the onus is on city officials to shield Atlantans from the surge in efforts to evict them. “We were intentional about putting some [recommendations] on the table that are within the city’s independent ability to enact,” Schneggeburger told Atlanta Civic Circle in an email.

Feasible fast changes

For one, the city could quickly expand its eviction-prevention pilot program to cover all Atlantans. The city created the partnership last July…