Metro Atlanta is the eviction capital of America, with Black residents making up 70% of cases.
With affordability and housing instability major issues heading into the midterms, Georgia gubernatorial candidates Keisha Lance Bottoms and Rick Jackson have rolled out plans to lower the eviction rate.
Their proposals came in response to recently publicized data showing the five county metro Atlanta region has had more than 142,000 evictions filed this year, according to Princeton University’s Eviction Lab nonprofit.
Metro Atlanta remains on pace to match or exceed last year’s more than 144,000 eviction filings, which led the nation in 2025. The data shows Black tenants living in Fulton, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, and Gwinnett counties have faced the bulk of the displacement, making up roughly 70% of eviction cases despite only being 52% of the renter population.
These statistics have created an uproar on social media since being widely shared a month ago following an invite-only meeting in Atlanta between Eviction Lab researchers and local elected leaders looking for ways to address the problem.
Bottoms’ campaign told Capital B Atlanta the former mayor would enact policies that prioritize eviction prevention if she’s elected governor.
Her plan includes promoting tenant-landlord mediation services before eviction cases reach court, building more affordable housing, and “giving communities the tools to address housing emergencies.” It also includes expanding rental assistance, holding corporate landlords accountable, providing legal resources for at-risk families, and helping families recover when evictions can’t be avoided.
Bottoms’ mayoral record on housing includes creating or preserving at least 7,000 affordable housing units, providing more than $5.7 million in down payment assistance for Atlanta families looking to buy homes, and creating $140 million in new housing opportunity bond funds to help the city build and restore thousands of affordable housing units.
“By 2022, she invested over $700 million to support affordable housing initiatives,” Bottoms campaign spokesperson Joetta Appiah told Capital B Atlanta via email. “Keisha believes every Georgian deserves a safe, stable place to call home, and no family should lose that because of temporary financial hardship.”
Jackson’s plan to address the eviction crisis includes slashing the state income tax by 50% during his first term as governor and eliminating the state income tax on tips to put more money back in the hands of renters. He also wants to expand apprenticeships and work-based learning programs to help increase people’s income.
Jackson campaign spokesman Garrison Douglas noted that landlords paying higher property taxes typically pass those costs on to tenants in the form of higher rents. He said Jackson’s plan to combat evictions lowers property tax burdens and eliminates hidden increases.
Douglas accused Bottoms of fueling higher rent prices during her time as mayor by raising fees on new home construction. Those added fees helped pay for road and sidewalk improvements, public safety infrastructure and other city services, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“Rick Jackson grew up in public housing and takes metro Atlanta’s eviction crisis seriously,” Douglas said via email. “He knows the way to bring evictions down isn’t to add more regulations that drive up the cost of ownership and management, which ultimately get passed onto renters, it’s keeping families from reaching that point by raising what Georgians earn and keep by cutting taxes, eliminating government delays built into every rent check, and creating higher, good paying jobs in Georgia communities – no matter their ZIP code.”
Neither candidate directly addressed the issue of eliminating junk fees, increasing tenant protections, increasing the cost of eviction filings, and the time allowed for tenants to catch up on late rent before their landlord can file an eviction notice.
State lawmakers need to take action on these issues to help solve the renter housing crisis, according to Georgia State University professor Taylor Shelton, who specializes in gentrification research.
“With so few tenant protections across the board here in Georgia, landlords, both corporate and local mom and pop … are really able to just kind of do whatever,” Shelton told Capital B Atlanta previously.
Currently, Georgia requires landlords to wait only three days before filing an eviction notice. The cost of an eviction filing in metro Atlanta ranges from about $50 to $75, versus states like Alabama, where the typical cost is about $270, according to Eviction Lab.
“The laws on the books in Georgia make the eviction process really fast and really cheap,” Eviction Lab collaborator Peter Hepburn told Capital B Atlanta previously. “Landlords are rational actors. When there is a tool that’s available to them that they think is going to help them collect rent efficiently, they are going to turn to that.”
Affordable housing advocates say these solutions and repealing the statewide ban on rent regulation would create the most immediate relief for low-income renters in metro Atlanta, where evictions have caused the homeless population to grow for four consecutive years, according to Partners for HOME.
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