ATLANTA — Local renters, housing advocates, elected leaders and other allies are launching a new campaign to challenge the ever-increasing number of corporate landlords.
The group of advocates and allies said large corporate investors are moving in, destabilizing neighborhoods and driving housing prices up.
Channel 2’s Steve Gehlbach spoke to the ETCT campaign on Monday, who said this is an issue all over the metro Atlanta area.
ETCT stands for “End the Corporate Takeover,” which the organizers said was a problem from Vine City to the heart of Atlanta, as well as further out in areas like Douglas, Henry and Paulding counties.
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The Housing Justice League are leading the new campaign, with the organizers calling the metro Atlanta area ground zero for large investors buying up homes.
In the Atlanta area, corporate landlords now own 33% of single-family rental homes and about a quarter of the multi-family apartment buildings.
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“These levels of market concentration have allowed these companies to come in and establish local monopolies that allowed them to dictate the terms on which renters experience the rental market,” Taylor Shelton, a geographer, told Channel 2 Action News.
The ETCT campaign’s goal is to educate renters, get them more protections and push for state lawmakers to pass reforms next year that limit, or even ban, corporate landlords in the state of Georgia.
“To put pressure on our legislators, to see, look, people are struggling and we need change,” Foluke Nunn, American Friends Service Committee, said.
The group wants to stop hedge funds and corporations from buying what are typically considered starter homes and raising rents, all while pricing out first-time homebuyers.
“Legislators on both sides of the aisle and in every district around this state now realize that things have to change,” Matthew Nursey, Housing Justice League, said. “That’s why we have to organize. We have to mobilize.”
Organizers told Channel 2 Action News they’re not just going to wait for the next legislative session, but plan to hold a renter’s town hall meeting at the end of May.
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