A Virus and an Avalanche
What COVID-19 Means for Atlanta Evictions.
COLE THALER
AVLF
[email protected]
As of this writing, three things are clear:
First, the COVID-19 crisis has affected
all sectors and players in the American
economy, from large corporations to
minimum-wage employees.
Businesses
have transformed or shuttered. Previously-
reliable income sources have evaporated.
Debts have accrued. Court in March 2020, Fulton and DeKalb
County courts have declared a moratorium
on many kinds of hearings, including
dispossessories (evictions). Landlords are
still permitted to file dispossessory warrants,
but the filings are simply sitting on the
Courts’ dockets, waiting for the Emergency
Judicial Order to lift (currently scheduled for
May 14, 2020).
Second, the judicial system has not escaped
the spread of the novel coronavirus. Formerly
crowded courtrooms and hallways have
given way to restrictions on large gatherings.
In compliance with the Judicial Emergency
Order first issued by the Georgia Supreme Third, many Atlanta tenants are in a
precarious position. Families that have been
living paycheck to meager paycheck, making
$7.25 an hour stretch as far as it will go, are
suddenly without any income at all. People
who could never pay all the utility bills in
24
April 2020
full each month are finding that they can no
longer afford food. Workers whose hours
have been cut can’t afford to put gas in their
cars. Households that relied on a few extra
dollars from family members to survive are
now facing angry landlords, late fees, and
empty cupboards.
Together, these are the ingredients for a
perfect storm – or rather, for an avalanche.
Come May 14, and in the weeks and months
that follow, an avalanche of dispossessories
will make their way through the magistrate
courts. And since inability to pay rent due to
personal hardship is not a valid defense to a
dispossessory, many of those dispossessories