The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Relocated residents say transition rocky
Moves away from Forest Cove fall short of promises for some.
Atlantans relocated by the city last year from the troubled Forest Cove complex detailed stories on Tuesday of rent payment problems and difficult living situations at their new apartments.
Some residents in tears implored City Council members on the Community Development and Human Services Committee to help them get back home after uprooting their lives without the help they were promised.
The City of Atlanta announced in October 2022 that every family at Forest Cove apartments in southeast Atlanta had successfully been moved into new homes after years of issues at the complex.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens made a deal with Millennia — the company that owns Forest Cove — to expedite the relocation process and signed legislation to invest more than $9 million in federal funds into the plan. The city said the last resident was moved on Sept. 30.
But more than four months later, former residents said the process isn’t going as smoothly as planned.
Nakeisha Copland lived in Forest Cove for years, where she
dealt with “no air, mold, crime, (and) rodents,” she said Tuesday.
“I was excited when I moved away. It was long overdue,” she said. “I am thankful for another apartment but I am literally in the same situation. It’s depressing.” Copland said she couldn’t cook on her stove for Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year’s. She also lacked heating and air-conditioning because her unit hadn’t been properly inspected beforehand, she added.
Other residents testified they didn’t receive transportation help when switching apartments and
lost some of their belongings when their previous homes were cleared out before they could gather all their things.
Former Forest Cove tenant Sharon North said the living conditions at the neglected apartment was “not fit for a dog,” but the uncertainty of the future compounds the stress.
“We don’t even know where we’re gonna be after this year,” she said. “We have not had any direct communication saying after this year, where are we going?”
The AJC last year investigated dozens of metro Atlanta apartments for its series “Dangerous Dwellings,” which highlighted rampant crime and unsafe living conditions at Forest Cove and other complexes.
City officials and the Fulton County District Attorney’s office responded with a plan to conduct a sweeping crackdown on 43 apartment complexes, including Forest Cove.
Some tenants said they hope to eventually go back to a renovated Forest Cove.
“I just would like to know, would you all please let us go back, please?” resident Felicia Morris said through tears. “They sent us out to different places around the area of Atlanta and it isn’t working out. I get a notice every other month about my rent not being paid and I don’t know if I’m going to get put out.
“I’m asking, please, let us go home,” Morris said.
Alison Johnson, executive director of Atlanta’s Housing Justice League, said she hopes the tenants’ testimony leads to change.
“I hope you all have heard the cries from the tenants of Forest Cove and you understand these stories are not just stories to be told, they are stories for resolutions,” she said. “For so many years, as we have built our relationships with residents in Forest Cove, the narrative is that the residents somehow caused these issues to happen to themselves. And we all know that’s not true.”
Atlanta city council members said they weren’t aware of the challenges during the relocation process but are willing to address the situation.
“I’ll be very honest with you, I had no idea that it had gotten so bad and that is on me,” said Liliana Bakhtiari, the District 5 council member. “So I’m really appreciative that you let us know.”
District 1 Councilman Jason Winston — who represents the area where Forest Cove is located — said he and Josh Humpheries, the city’s director of housing and community development, talked with tenants following the committee meeting.
“It was a myriad of different issues, most of them centered around a lack of communication in terms of what’s next for them, for a lot of folks,” he told the AJC. “A lot of that stems from what’s going to happen with the property of Forest Cove, which the city doesn’t have a lot of control over what that looks like.”
Winston said once he sat down with residents, most of the complaints were related to a lack of promised resources like MARTA cards and missing furniture items.
“None of them were about conditions that were anywhere similar to Forest Cove,” he said. “Some of it was just about the lack of resources that some of the people needed that they had been promised. And I think some of it just came down to communication.”