There were over 1,700 evictions in Columbus last year. How new law helps protect renters.

Columbus officials are hoping a new Georgia law that went into effect July 1 will help curb the number of evictions in the city caused by unresolved repair issues.

The law, created by the adoption of House Bill 346, means that tenants who seek repairs to their housing can be legally protected from retaliation by their landlords, including rent hikes and eviction.

Ashley Clark, eviction prevention project attorney with the Georgia Legal Services Program, said tenants have very few options when dealing with landlords who won’t make repairs to properties.

One is to have the repairs done themselves and to deduct that amount from their rent.

“Sometimes that will lead to an eviction if the landlord doesn’t agree to it,” she said.

Another option is to file a complaint with the city’s inspections and code department.

“However, in tenancies such as a month-to-month tenancy, that will subject the tenant to evictions as well because once the landlord becomes aware that the tenant has contacted the inspections and code department...all the landlord has to do to terminate the lease agreement is to provide 60 days notice,” Clark said.

According to Capt. Curtis Lockette with the Muscogee County Marshal’s Office, between July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018, the office served 8,854 dispossessory warrants, which means landlords filed with the court to evict a tenant.

Meanwhile, the marshal’s office performed 1,221 evictions, where marshals physically removed the belongings of the tenants from the rental properties.

The Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office said it performed an additional 489 evictions.

Clark said a large number of those can be attributed to unaddressed repairs like leaking sinks, broken toilets, mold and faulty heating or air conditioning.

According to the new law, if a landlord files a dispossessory action in retaliation to a tenant requesting repairs, the tenant can use that as a defense in court. If a landlord is unable to provide proof in court that an action was not retaliatory, the tenant may recover one month’s rent, plus $500, court costs and attorney’s fees.

Tenants can also sue if landlords take other retaliatory actions like increasing rent, denying the tenant use of the property, decreasing services to the tenant or otherwise interfering with the tenant’s rights under the lease or rental agreement.

Tenants still have to pay rent even if the landlord fails to make repairs or they can be evicted.

Louie Robinson is a property manager and oversees around 30 rental properties in Columbus and Phenix City. He’s been a landlord for many years, working with the local housing authority and offering Section 8 approved housing.

He said the law is a good step toward greater protection for tenants, even though he’s seen people evicted for many reasons other than complaining about repairs.

“But it will put landlords on notice they need to make sure this stuff is brought up to code,” Robinson said.

He said he recommends tenants request repairs in writing with a time stamp, such as a text or an email, or file a complaint to the inspections and code department in order to be protected under the law.

But a lack of decent, affordable housing is the bigger issue, he said.

“The tenants that are being victimized are the ones who can least afford it,” he said. “Anybody paying $500 or under per month rent is really subject to being in a substandard area or house.”

The new law should to empower tenants to know they don’t have to accept poor or deteriorated conditions in their housing just because the rent is a lower cost, according to Katie Byers, director of St. Anne Community Outreach in Columbus. The outreach runs a rental clinic supported by United Way that helps clients facing eviction to avert the crisis and change their situation.

The clinic has kept 462 families from being evicted in the four years it has been in operation, Byers said.

According a 2017 estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau, over half of Muscogee County residents are cost-burdened, meaning they pay more than 30% of their household income toward rent. Coupled with a shortage of affordable housing, that puts tenants in a tough spot.

“For a lot of our clients, one of the reasons that they have struggled to make their rent is because they often have really high utility costs because the places they rent are often not insulated or have poorly working furnaces or air conditioning units, so they get these large utility bills and they’re fearful (to ask for repairs) because there is such a shortage of affordable housing,” Byers said.

Most of the people who receive assistance from St. Anne Community Outreach are on fixed income, about $700 or $800 a month, Byers said.

“That doesn’t afford much in the way of rent, and rent is their biggest cost. So if they’re able to find a place for $500 or $400 a month, that’s unusual, and they know that if it’s in bad shape they feel like they have to accept it and live with it,” Byers said. “And that shouldn’t be, no one should live in substandard housing.”

Byers said a lot of the issue is a lack of communication between landlords and tenants, and that she hopes the new law will educate both sides.

“There’s a lot of great landlords out there,” she said. “And we find when we talk to landlords they’re very willing most of the time to work with the client...but at some point they have to get paid, they have expenses, and it’s unfair to expect them to be able to house people for free.”