Anti-squatting ‘Frankenstein bill’ targets motel residents
A bill empowering hotel managers to more easily evict long-term guests sputtered out in the Georgia House before Crossover Day — but the substance of House Bill 183 has risen from the grave.
HB 183’s legislative language was transplanted into an unrelated proposal, House Bill 61, which still has a shot at crossing the General Assembly’s finish line. Policy wonks call this type of legislation a “Frankenstein bill,” because it’s cobbled together with parts from dead proposals.
The original version of HB 61, which passed the House by 165-0 on Feb. 11, authorizes the state to issue a $20 license-tag fee and special plates for hearses and ambulances. Those provisions are now gone.
The Senate Public Safety Committee approved a proposed new version of HB 61 that addresses squatting on Monday. It says anyone committing the misdemeanor of “unlawful squatting” — staying in a house, apartment, hotel, or vehicle without express permission — or criminal trespass “shall be subject to removal” by law enforcement officers within 10 days of being notified by the property owner, legal occupant, or landlord.
For extended-stay hotel occupants, that removal process could be triggered if a person falls behind on payments for a stay or overstays their contractual welcome, if they’ve signed an innkeeper-guest agreement specifying a specific time period for their occupancy.
Affordable housing advocates warn that the new version of HB 61 in the Senate is a thinly veiled effort to strip long-term hotel residents — who often have nowhere else to go — of their rights as tenants.
Here’s our full story.
Trump tariffs will boost housing costs
The Trump administration’s new tariffs on Canadian, Mexican, and Chinese construction materials spell serious trouble for American renters and homebuyers. They’ll especially hurt in cities like Atlanta, where institutional investors are already squeezing housing markets.
“Based on what we’re already seeing in the current data, and what we saw in the last set of Trump tariffs during his first term, there’s no question unaffordability for renters and homeowners is going to increase,” said Anthony Luna, the CEO for Coastline Equity, a California-based real estate investment firm.
President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war will likely hit hardest for families shopping for starter homes and renters seeking low-income housing. That’s because the profit margins are far thinner for lower cost housing than luxury properties, making developers who build entry-level or affordable housing particularly vulnerable.
The Trump administration has already enacted a 20% tariff on Chinese imports and a 15% tariff on worldwide steel and aluminum imports, with 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports impending in April.
Everything from small hardware — nails, screws, electrical panels, and power outlets — to structural building materials like steel beams and lumber will be heavily impacted by the tariffs, since China and Canada, in particular, are major suppliers.
Homebuilders, multifamily developers, and landlords will pass these rising costs onto consumers, pushing up home prices and rents, industry experts told Atlanta Civic Circle. Real-estate data provider CoreLogic forecasts the latest tariffs could add roughly $17,000 to $22,000 to a new home’s sticker price. And as new properties hit the market at higher prices, that will push up the price of existing residences as well.
Here’s our full story.
HEARD ON HOUSING
National shortage of affordable rental housing
The U.S. faces a 7.1 million affordable rental home shortage, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Only 35 affordable and available homes exist for every 100 extremely low-income renter households. Every state and major metro faces a shortage, with Nevada worst at just 17 homes per 100 renters.
Legislature mulls how to stymie local governments from opting out of new homestead tax exemption
A bill is rapidly moving through the state Senate that would require local governments that have already opted out of a new statewide homestead property-tax exemption to renew their decision annually. The cumbersome annual opt-out process under consideration would raise the barrier for cities, counties, and school districts that prefer to set their own property tax rules.
The move reflects the legislature’s recognition of widespread opt-outs across the state, particularly in metro Atlanta, and its bid for broader adoption of the policy.
Nearly two-thirds of 4.8 million Georgia voters approved a (confusingly worded) constitutional amendment in November that permanently caps any annual increases in the assessed value of someone’s primary residence at the annual inflation rate statewide.
The referendum, teed up last year via House Bill 581, was pitched as offering Georgia homeowners relief from skyrocketing property taxes in a heated real estate market — particularly for high-value properties.
But critics warned it could deprive schools — which rely heavily on property tax revenue — and other public services of much-needed funding.
The Local Option Homestead Property Tax Exemption took effect on Jan. 1, but the law gave city and county governments and local school boards until March 1 to decide if they wanted to opt out and stick with their own local property-tax codes. Local governments that missed the March 1 deadline are locked into Georgia’s homestead tax exemption for perpetuity, since it’s a constitutional amendment.
That tight timeline triggered a wave of opt-outs across the state, fueled by local governments’ dual concerns over losing property-tax revenue and their control over taxation. When the city of Atlanta opted out, for instance, it said it was “prioritizing local control over property tax policies to better serve Atlanta’s unique needs,” according to a press release. The city’s existing homestead tax exemption, enacted in 2019, caps annual taxable property assessment increases at 2.6%.
In response, Rep. Shaw Blackmon (R-Bonaire) introduced House Bill 92 — which he called “a cleanup to the homestead exemption piece,” according to Decaturish — to create a more cumbersome opt-out procedure.
HB 92 is under Senate consideration after overwhelmingly passing the House by a 173-1 vote on Feb. 18. It would make the opt-out process annual, requiring cities, counties, or school boards to hold three rounds of public hearings, then file an opt-out notice with the Georgia Secretary of State’s office by March 1 of each year.
The bill does not include any provision to allow local governments or school districts that already opted in by default this year to later opt out.
Here’s our in-depth look at HB 92.
Metro Atlanta has lost hundreds of thousands of affordable housing units
Metro Atlanta lost over 230,000 affordable housing units between 2018 and 2023, according to the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC).
In that timespan, 54,000 units renting for less than $800 a month and 178,000 with rent prices between $800 and $1,500 vanished across the 11-county region, ARC’s CEO, Anna Roach, said during the March 13 Atlanta Regional Housing Forum.
Roach and Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens blamed that staggering loss on rising construction costs — which, they said, will get worse, due to Trump’s trade war — and slow building permitting activity.
Watch the full discussion, which includes housing experts from Gwinnett and DeKalb counties, and Marietta
Today’s newsletter was written by Sean Keenan and edited by Meredith Hobbs.
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