The building has filed more than a dozen eviction notices during the pandemic
Posted BY: Teresa | NwoReport
Georgia 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.
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“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.
