There were a plethora of issues on the top of Americans’ minds as they headed to the polls this month, but in Fulton County, inflation and the cost of housing appear to be the top concerns.

College Park resident Marius Jackson had his own doubts about whether voting could make an impact on his cost of living. 

“To be honest in terms of voting, I don’t know where on the ballot I can affect change in terms of housing,” Jackson told Canopy Atlanta prior to the election earlier this month.  “It always feels like with any candidate or politician there’s not enough right now. It’s always ‘here’s what I will do in the future,’ and over time their policies, ideas, and ability to affect change in the White House change, and voters are left waiting in the wind.”

Canopy Atlanta surveyed hundreds of community members in Fulton County this summer and most residents voiced concerns about the economy, the cost of groceries, and the ever-rising cost of housing. In an Election night survey, respondents said they wanted elected officials to focus on  affordable housing and infrastructure in metro Atlanta.

Unfortunately, many residents surveyed during our Voting Barriers and Bridges project expressed that they had lost faith in these issues being solved at the voting booth, with about a quarter of those respondents telling us they didn’t believe their vote matters.

Much of the legislative action needed to mitigate rising housing costs, would need to happen at the state level. While several bills have been proposed for rent control and some strides have been made in building new, affordable housing, many residents still struggle with rising housing costs with little help where it matters: the Georgia General Assembly.  The state legislature will begin session on January 13, but it’s unclear what bills will be proposed on rent and housing costs.

Since 2019, Atlanta’s monthly rent prices have ballooned more than 35 percent while wages have grown around 12 percent, according to a study released by Zillow earlier this year.  Across the country, rents have grown about 30 percent as wages have increased by only 20 percent. Rental costs have outpaced wages in 44 of the 50 largest U.S. metro areas.

“I just moved into the area, and it’s hard to rent here,” said new South Fulton resident Angela Fitzgerald. “I know they passed a law about landlords not charging more than three times the rent, but I don’t have any resources right now to help me figure out what else is going on.”

The law Fitzgerald is referring to is House Bill 404, which was passed in March. The law helps protect renters from subpar living conditions and places limits on the amount of money that can be charged to a prospective tenant in security deposit fees, capping the amount at no more than two-months’ rent. 

Monica Johnson, an organizer with Housing Justice League, a nonprofit organization that fights to preserve affordable housing in Atlanta, says this bill was a small but necessary step in helping Georgia’s renters protect their right to housing. However, voting alone will not solve the current housing crisis.

“It is really up to us to organize in order to see the housing policy we want to see,” Johnson said. “It’s pressure that brings about any kind of social change. That comes from masses of people. So people shouldn’t feel like the election is the end all be all, but they should feel like there is something they can do, and that’s organize, get with their neighbors and fight back against this corporate control, and government inaction at all levels.”

“[The Housing Justice League] did a lot of work spending time at the Capitol in particular to push for HB404 and bring that to the finish line which was a small step; not enough for the crisis we’re facing, but a huge step forward in getting some form of tenant protections on the books,” Johnson says.  “We plan to continue bringing tenants together to go to the Georgia legislature to protest and rally and fight and make their voices heard in the new year because it’s unacceptable. People have been made to believe that nothing can change, so we want to really empower people in that way.”

Aside from HB404, not much more has been passed by the Georgia General Assembly to protect renters from rising housing costs. State Rep. Kim Schofield, (D-Atlanta), says that this is not due to a lack of effort on behalf of Georgia Democrats. 

“We’ve fought for a number of sessions,” Schofield says. “ We have at least, I believe, 11 housing bills that can impact change. We’ve had multiple hearings in which we have brought people down to tell their stories about how the cost of housing has impacted them and put them at risk for houselessness.”

Schofield says the Georgia General Assembly simply does not have enough elected legislators who prioritize affordable housing to get something substantial passed. 

“[The Governor and the legislative body] are totally against rent control,” Schofield said. “We have fought for rent control for years, and Georgia has vehemently opposed any form of rent control. Nationally, on people’s agenda right now is housing. Housing is a public health crisis.”

Fellow State Rep. Debra Bazemore, (D-South Fulton), who represents parts of Union City and Fayetteville, says a major deterrent in providing affordable housing to Georgians are large institutional investors who come in and build large blocks of homes in communities they have no connection to.

“Most of the issue comes from investors that are coming from out of state, Bazemore says. “Businesses with a lot of money are purchasing blocks of homes. In my district alone they have purchased 60 percent of the homes. They purchase them, put renters in, and they drive the cost up.”

There have been attempts by the Georgia General Assembly to prohibit this behavior, as recent as 2023. However, each bill proposed has failed to pass. 

House Bill 490 made an attempt to decrease the number of large corporate investors buying and quickly building blocks of single family homes. It aimed to do this by eliminating a crucial tax benefit that reduced landlords’ tax liability, but it never got a committee vote.

Johnson says that corporate tax breaks like these are taking away money that could be used to help the people of Georgia. 

“Any sort of demotivation for corporations to be able to come in and just completely change neighborhoods is something we’re in favor of because really these corporations are stealing from the people of Georgia,” she said. “There’s the recent story about The Gulch, and the developers getting a $20 billion tax write-off. They {originally} said they would build some affordable housing and then they were like “never mind,” and all they have to pay is $8 million. This is money that can be used for the people of Georgia. Property taxes for regular people often go up but there’s so many ways for corporations to get out of paying taxes.

Another housing bill introduced last year in the Assembly was House Bill 517, which was sponsored by Republican State Rep. Dale Washburn of Macon. This bill would have prohibited city governments from regulating certain housing design elements, like; roof design, building materials, and minimum lot sizes, which would theoretically allow developers to build more houses for less. However, this bill also stalled in a House committee. 

Unfortunately, today Georgians continue to struggle with soaring housing costs. They also struggle to understand why bills like these that will seemingly help low and middle class citizens on both sides of the aisle are so hard to get passed.

“Prices of food are high. Rent is high. They don’t really want to give us support. They’re giving money it seems to people who already have it,” said Union City resident Kemlyn Herrington.

Johnson says that a major issue is that many of Atlanta’s legislators hold a distinct bias when it comes to pushing progressive housing legislation.

“We know that a large amount of our state legislators are landlords [themselves], so it is in their best interest to keep prices going up and up and up,” Johnson said. “It’s not even a secret really that people in government write deals, kickbacks, and things like that to developers who then turn around and help fund their reelection. That’s become normal in our society, and it shouldn’t be.”

Unfortunately, this does nothing for Jackson, who’s rent increased by 22 percent in October. 

“That’s the highest percentage my rent has went up in years, and I know it’s directly affected by the fact that there are developers and people who are refurbishing houses around me,” Jackson said. “But nothing in my apartment, absolutely nothing, has changed to justify the rent increase. It’s just the fact that more people want to live around which is a good thing, but I don’t understand why that makes it so that my rent goes up 22 percent.”

Jackson has voiced a desire for some sort of regulation on the amount and frequency at which his rent can be raised. Unfortunately, according to experts, that cannot happen until more seats are flipped in the Georgia General Assembly.

“Specific to rent stabilization, I think the challenge there is less the city council and really more, state law preempts the city from doing it,” said Ernest Young of Abundant Housing Atlanta.  “So even if the city council was super candid about it, their voting would have literally no impact because [rent control] is explicitly forbidden by the state of Georgia.

Johnson says trusting private companies to deliver on affordable housing is risky, and that direct public funding for affordable housing is crucial.

“I think it’s a crime and a travesty that Atlanta got rid of its public housing back near the financial crisis,” she said. “Dealing with all these public-private partnerships has left regular people in the lurch for the most part. We need to be funding housing directly.”

One of those public-private partnerships is the upcoming Heritage Village at Westlake in Dixie Hills. Over the summer, the Atlanta Housing Board of Commissioners announced the rehabilitation of the vacant Job Corps building on West Lake Avenue. With construction expected to be completed in 2025, these new apartments will include 102 affordable units that will only be offered to households earning no more than 30% of the area median income. 

Although little has been done politically to fight rising housing costs in Georgia, Bazemore wants her constituents to know that she is still fighting to bring more affordable housing to her district and hopes they remain engaged. 

“The conversation has not stopped,” Bazemore said. “The work has not stopped, and we are looking forward to a change this session for what we now know as a housing crisis. We’re looking forward to giving more affordable homes to our citizens in Georgia.”