A Coalition’s Attempt at Eviction Prevention to Protect Citizen Health during the Pandemic

Tabitha Ingle, Georgia State University
Daniel Pasciuti, Georgia State University

The metro Atlanta region has one of the higher eviction rates in the country and Clayton County has the highest eviction rate in Georgia (Salviati 2017; Eviction Lab). In Georgia, magistrate courts are primarily responsible for dispossessory (eviction) cases and are governed by a single state law (GA 44.7.51) with almost no protections for tenants (Sudeall and Pasciuti, 2021). With more than 900 trial-level courts in the state, this makes the role of courts at the local level both ubiquitous and highly localized Our paper summarizes research and involvement with a unique eviction diversion program, the Renter’s Emergency Subsidy for Eligible Tenants (RESET) project, in Clayton County, Georgia. Originally built from a local coalition of organizations and government agencies prior to Covid-19 to address long-standing inequalities and shifts in housing precarity in a historically suburban community of metro Atlanta. We discuss the creation of, and gauge the success of, interventions and organizing during the pandemic to create new possibilities in response to the US Federal and CDC eviction moratoria. Finally, we consider the new landscape of housing precarity and the implications for organizing in under-resourced and marginalized communities in the future.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 219. Localized Governance: Eviction, Housing, and Advocacy