Housing advocates want to know whether Gov. Brian Kemp will sign two bills to address long-running housing issues across Georgia: tenants’ rights and the state’s growing homeless population.
The first bill, HB 404, or the Safe at Home Act, would bar landlords from requiring more than two months’ rent for a security deposit and establish a three-day grace period before property owners can begin evicting tenants for unpaid rent or expired leases.
It also would require residential rental property leases in Georgia to include provisions confirming dwellings are “fit for human habitation,” in theory making it harder for slumlords to keep tenants living in unsafe conditions such as mold, rat infestations, or units with broken heaters and air conditioners during the winter and summer.
The second bill, HB 1410, or the State Housing Trust Fund for the Homeless Act, would establish a nine-member state commission of unpaid volunteers to oversee a new fund that local organizations could tap to provide safe, secure housing for homeless people.
Both issues remain top of mind for Black voters across Georgia, a state long regarded as one of the worst for tenant rights and that has also experienced a surge in overall homelessness in recent years. That spike has been largely fueled by Black men struggling with rising rent prices.
Kemp’s office declined to say whether he plans to sign the bills into law this year.
“All bills that reached final passage undergo a thorough review process,” a Kemp spokesperson said via email Wednesday. “We will provide an update following action being taken.”
Why the Safe at Home Act matters
Supporters of the Safe at Home Act say it’s long overdue. Georgia is the only U.S. state without a “warrant of habitability” outlining legal conditions required for humans to live in a dwelling, according to the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. The Peach State, as a result, has some of the weakest tenant protection laws in the nation.
The Safe at Home Act means even more for the overwhelming majority of Black people in Georgia who rent their homes instead of owning them. In 2022, only 15% of Black households in the state were owner-occupied, nearly three times less than 44% of white households who own their own homes, according to an Urban League of Greater Atlanta analysis.
Bambie Hayes-Brown, president and CEO of the affordable housing nonprofit Georgia Advancing Communities Together Inc., said the final version of the bill didn’t contain everything supporters wanted, but it’s better than nothing.
“I do think it is a good bill,” Hayes-Brown told Capital B Atlanta on Wednesday. “We’re talking about humans. We’re talking about people that need a safe, affordable, and sanitary place to live.”
Albany-based fair housing activist Diana Brown said she traveled to the Gold Dome three times this year to speak in support of the Safe at Home Act. Brown, the founder and CEO of Ossie’s Fair Housing & Homecare Inc., a fair housing nonprofit that also advocates on behalf of disabled tenants, said many of her clients are low-income Black folks who have developed respiratory problems due to mold in their buildings because Georgia’s weak tenant protection laws don’t do enough to hold landlords accountable.
Often, she said, Black renters fear eviction and homelessness more than living in horrific low-income housing.
“Tenants feel like they have no choice but to live in these types of conditions,” Brown said. “Because of their income bracket, they have no choice.”
More Help for the homeless?
Kemp is also weighing whether to sign the State Housing Trust Fund for the Homeless Act into law.
High rent prices in recent years contributed to a 33% surge in metro Atlanta’s homeless population last year, according to Partners for HOME. Black people made up nearly 83% of unhoused people identified last year.
In addition to the new fund and the commission to oversee it, the bill would also fund residential housing projects and accountability programs for the unhoused. Those programs would address mental health and substance abuse issues, in addition to ensuring access to stable housing, a path to stable employment, and ultimately self-sufficiency within 18 months, according to the bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Chuck Efstration.
The Republican, whose district includes Auburn, says the fund’s proposed budget includes $1 million in state money, but private companies could also contribute. Efstration noted that the trust fund received bipartisan support in both legislative chambers in response to the growing number of homeless people across Georgia.
“It’s an important bill to address homelessness in our state,” he said. “I think that in a few years, we’re going to see real success from this program.”
Black lawmakers, including House Democratic Caucus chair Billy Mitchell, said they supported the bill, which Democrats helped shape. Mitchell said Republican lawmakers who typically resist creating social safety net programs recognized the urgency of Georgia’s homeless and affordable housing crises.
“The reality is, if we don’t do something with the homeless population, it’s going to overtake us,” Mitchell said. “The Republican conservatives understand that can put a chokehold on our economic development.”
