Stephania Melton has been fighting to keep a roof over her head ever since she and her four children moved into their three-bedroom trailer in the Hunter Ridge Mobile Home Park more than two years ago.
The 44-year-old cook and kitchen supervisor from Alabama said the trouble began around March of 2024 after payments for several bills were deducted from her bank account simultaneously, leaving her $2 short on her $1,300 monthly rent.
The Hunter Ridge online payment portal locked her out.
“I wasn’t able to pay my rent,” Melton told Capital B Atlanta while standing outside her home near Jonesboro. “It’s been two years and they still say, ‘We can’t unlock the portal.’”
Melton said she’s been locked out of her online rental portal ever since and is forced to pay rent and utilities at local grocery stores at an added cost.
She estimates River Valley Communities, Hunter Ridge’s parent company, charges her $200 to $400 in added fees every month due to her being locked out of the company’s online portal system, which she said makes it impossible to pay her rent on time. That adds up to $4,800-$9,600 that she’s paid over the course of her two years living at Hunter Ridge on top of her monthly rent.
River Valley Communities played a big part in making metro Atlanta the eviction capital of the nation last year.
The property’s management hasn’t returned calls seeking comment.
The mobile home park, located in the 600 block of Tara Road in an unincorporated part of Clayton County, is home to an estimated 850 tenant households, according to online listing sites.
Most of Hunter Ridge’s residents are either Hispanic or Black, like Melton, according to tenants who spoke with Capital B Atlanta.
Experts say having an eviction filing on one’s record in Georgia makes it much harder for renters to find new apartments elsewhere, whether or not payment is eventually made in full.
The property’s owner has filed at least 13 separate evictions against Melton since June of 2024, according to Clayton County court records reviewed by Capital B Atlanta.
Her dilemma may explain why River Valley Communities filed more evictions last year (491) than any other landlord in the five-county metro Atlanta region, according to the findings from an analysis released in February by Eviction Lab, a nonprofit team of researchers that tracks eviction filings in major U.S. cities.
The same study revealed the 144,000 evictions filed in metro Atlanta led the nation, outpacing much larger cities such as New York and Los Angeles and the entire state of Virginia.
Hunter Ridge is the only trailer park community listed in Eviction Lab’s list of top metro Atlanta eviction “hotspots,” according to research specialist Sarah Johnson and Juan Pablo Garnham, the group’s communication and policy engagement manager.
Eviction Lab said landlords using evictions as a “rent collection tool” is a “really common” practice in the nation’s Southeast due to landlord-friendly laws.
“We call them serial evictors,” Garnham said. “It’s landlords that basically take advantage of the court system to use it as a rent collection system for themselves. In this case, it might be a little more problematic because of these junk fees.”
Melton theorizes other tenants like her receive similar eviction filings from River Valley Communities.
“They don’t give you a second chance,” Melton said. “If you’re locked out of your portal, you can’t get back in.”
Other residents, who declined to speak on the record, described similar problems paying utility bills at Hunter Ridge. Some say the property’s management also routinely ignores maintenance complaints they’ve filed and retaliates against tenants who complain.
Tamu Brooks, 49, and her disabled husband have lived at Hunter Ridge for 17 years. The couple owns a three-bedroom trailer, but pays River Valley Communities for lot fees and utilities.
She said management is “full of shit,” for the way it treats tenants.
“They’re always putting people out,” Brooks said Thursday. “And when they put people out, they never come out and pick up the debris or anything.”
Ana Ivory, 45, has lived in a Hunter Ridge trailer with her husband and their children since 2011. She said management has failed to fix the estimated 9-square-foot hole in the ceiling above her family’s kitchen table since it first emerged last August after a major storm.
A plastic tarp covering the hole is all that keeps water from leaking into their home. Ivory said management has forced her family to pay $100 for a neighbor’s uncut grass.
“They do throw up fees on you,” she said. “We’ve asked what the corporate number is. They won’t give it to anybody. You can’t speak to nobody outside that office.”
Melton said an attorney she consulted told her the late-fee terms are included in her lease and advised her moving might be her best option.
Despite the fees, Melton said Hunter Ridge is still cheaper than the $2,000 she was paying to live in her old apartment complex in Jonesboro, which she said had worse living conditions.
“This is a nice area,” Melton said. “I love it because I can go to work and not have to worry about nothing happening to my kids. … It’s worth that little sacrifice.”
Melton tried to find better housing for the money she’s paying every month, but the supply is low and it’s hard to get approved for a new apartment. She expressed frustration with paying $150 for application fees and the low supply of affordable housing.
“Georgia is just crazy,” Melton said. “It’s crazy how your rent is so high.”
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