Warnock Denies His Church Evicts Tenants. Three Eviction Notices Were Filed Last Week.
Building has filed more than a dozen eviction notices during pandemic
Alana Goodman and Andrew Kerr • October 18, 2022 5:00 amGeorgia Democratic senator Raphael Warnock forcefully denied the charge that his church is trying to evict chronically homeless tenants, telling Georgia voters on Friday that those are "false charges" and an attempt to "sully Ebenezer Baptist Church." But just two days earlier, the apartment complex owned by his church filed eviction proceedings against three additional residents, with the goal of ousting tenants who owed as little as $115 in past-due rent.
Columbia Tower at MLK Village filed removal proceedings against three tenants on Oct. 12, one day after the Washington Free Beacon broke the news that the church-owned building had filed a dozen eviction lawsuits against residents of the building since the start of the pandemic.
Residents told the Free Beacon that Columbia Residential, the building’s administrators, has become more aggressive in its rent collection policies, and sent out a notice in September saying it would no longer accept late fees and would start removal proceedings after five days of non-payment.
"If you don’t pay your rent by the fifth, a dispossessory notice comes out that week," a resident told a Free Beacon reporter who visited the building in October. "They won’t accept the payment after the fifth."
The latest evictions involved tenants who were just days late paying their October rent, and owed as little as $115, according to Fulton County Magistrate Court records filed by Columbia Tower.
The records conflict with Warnock’s statements over the past week denying that Columbia Tower—which is 99-percent-owned by the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he serves as senior pastor—has tried to oust anyone. Fulton County marshals carried out two court-ordered evictions on residents at the property, one in August 2020 and the other in February 2022.
"There have been no evictions, full stop," Warnock said when asked about the Free Beacon report during a debate on Sunday. Warnock claimed the news was "one more example of Herschel Walker and his allies lying" and "trying to sully the name of Dr. King's church, John Lewis's church, for short term-political gain."
Warnock did not respond to a request for comment.
MLK Village filed the proceedings against the three tenants last week, asking for "possession" of their apartments, plus $250 in filing fees, $75 in late fees, and additional water and sewage payments. All of the residents were late on just one month of rent for October, according to the filings, with one owing $610 and the other two owing $115 each.
Two other Columbia Tower residents who received eviction notices in September responded in court that their landlord refused to accept their rent payments.
"I offered and had money to pay my rent on or before the date I usually pay, but my landlord refused to accept it," the two residents said in their answers to Columbia Tower’s dispossessory notices.
One of the residents informed the Fulton County Magistrate Court in response to his eviction notice that Columbia Tower "drills locks in door with no probal [sic] cause didn’t give notice to vacate," and that he was "evicted for 1 night by lock change, incurred hotel fee."
The resident who said a lock was drilled into his door did not return requests for comment.
Warnock’s claim that there have been no evictions from Columbia Tower during the pandemic is not true.
Fulton County marshals carried out two court-ordered writs of possession against Columbia Tower residents during the pandemic, court records show.
One was carried out on Aug. 17, 2020, against a woman who was sued in March 2020 for just $28.55 in past-due rent, court records show. The tenant had vacated the building when the writ of possession was carried out. She would have been forcibly ejected from the apartment, however, if she was there when authorities arrived.
The second resident wasn’t so lucky. Fulton County marshals reported that they "ejected" the resident when they carried out a court-ordered writ of possession on Feb. 1, 2022, court records show. The resident was sued in September 2021 for $423 in past-due rent. . .
https://freebeacon.com/democrats/warnock-denies-his-church-evicts-tenants-three-eviction-notices-were-filed-last-week/
