Update evicted but not defeated

GreetingsI have secured an apartment for me and my children. Securing an apartment was the easy part for myself. But what about those families who have limited resources, no support and not able to find an apartment that they are able to rent.These factors contributes to the fact why communities are transient, why schools are transient Corporate landlords are making decisions about communities where they don’t even reside and controlling the communities.The Cobb County Magistrate Court caseload for evictions on Friday December 20, 2919 was 141 people at 9am and the majority of the people were black and brown.There is no defense for when an apartment complex does not want to not renew your lease which in legal terms no- fault non renewal. There is no defense for job changes, lack of income. Corporate landlords file eviction at alarmingly high rate. Cobb County does not have public housing and the apartment complexes located on Riverside Parkway are not low income apartments. The apartments rates are market rate rents. There are 25 apartment complex/ mobile park homes in the Pebblebrook cluster area.Only 30 percent of the households receive a section 8 voucher which equates to about a total of 300 families in the Pebblebrook cluster area that receive a voucher. Which is the highest community in Unincorporated Cobb County. So that means majority of the renter occupied homes are paying more than 50 percent of their income on rent.The average rent for a 2 bedroom apartment in a corporate landlord apartment is topping $850 a month. It’s not just renters who have challenges, 80 percent of the households in the Pebblebrook Cluster area with school age children that attend public schools are classified as economically disadvantaged because they qualify for free or reduce lunch. The Pebblebrook area has a combined renter occupied rate at about 51 percent and if you include family households who have adults residing with them the rate increases to about 55 to 58 percent. So yes that means a person like myself, raising two kids, single income household, can be an advocate and have challenges but that does not mean that they can’t not be at the table to be a decision maker, because you have to be at the table at the same time pressing through the challenges in order for change to happen.I am doing the best I can with the cards I have been dealt. I am grateful to return to an apartment complex where 12 years ago I moved to Cobb County with my 2 young children at the time and the apartment complex was my home for 7 years and I am able to be apart of the community again and be apart of the transformation.Thank you to everyone for your prayers phone calls donations and supportMonica DeLancyWe Thrive in Riverside And the beat goes on