“Homes for all,” chanted nearly 50 people at a public forum convened by the Georgia For All Rent Stabilization Coalition at In His Image Church in Marietta. The forum on June 8 mobilized people to “fight for rent control and tenant rights in the Peach State” by making their voices heard at the state legislature.
“We have to move from these gatherings to pushing the people under the Gold Dome and supporting those bills,” state Rep. Terry Cummings (D-Mableton) told the group. “We really need everybody in this room.”
Attendees included members of tenant unions in Savannah, Albany, and metro-Atlanta, as well as Georgia state Sen. Donzella James (D-Atlanta) and state House candidate Gabriel Sanchez, a Democrat in Smyrna.
“We’re opening eyes, people are listening,” James said. “It’s time for us to come together, because there’s strength in numbers to fight this – lift the rent control, but also to help get good landlords in who will understand.”
Current Georgia law bans rent regulation, allowing landlords to raise rents by any amount between leases. Rent stabilization would allow cities and counties to pass ordinances regulating how much landlords can raise rent each year.
The legislators updated the group on their efforts to improve tenant protections. In the last legislative session, James sponsored Senate Bill 125 to lift the rent regulation ban, but it did not pass. James said she will reintroduce the bill next year.
However, the legislature did pass a new law, House Bill 404, which mandates rental properties be fit for human habitation and adds other tenant protections. The law is an important first step, the legislators said, but they pointed out it does not define “fit for human habitation.”
The Georgia for All Rent Stabilization Coalition has scheduled a tenant workshop on June 29 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
