Warnock Wants to Help Young Atlantans Buy Homes, Pay Rent

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U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., introduced a set of new federal housing bills on Tuesday that may be a lifeline for Atlantans struggling to pay rent and purchase their first home.

The policy proposals face steep challenges to becoming law in the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, but GOP leaders in other states have supported taking action against Wall Street investors buying up homes in the past.

Warnock, who serves as pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, says he’s making a bipartisan push to help Americans dealing with higher housing costs — especially young adults.

“I hear from young people all the time that they don’t believe they’ll ever have a pathway to homeownership,” Warnock told reporters during a Thursday press conference. “They pay so much for rent, they aren’t able to save, and housing costs are just too expensive. Plus, there aren’t many houses available on the market to buy in the first place.”

One of the biggest obstacles to homeownership for Black Americans is saving for a down payment. Warnock’s Downpayment Toward Equity Act would create a new U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development program that gives grants to qualifying first-time, first-generation homebuyers to cover down payment, closing, and interest rate reduction costs.

The Rent Relief Act would provide credits to Americans who earn less than $100,000 per year and spend at least 30% of their income on rent, according to Warnock’s office. The median household income for Black Atlanta residents is about $28,000 per year in what remains the most unequal city in America, according to a 2024 Bankrate study. A 2022 Urban Institute study revealed that typical white Atlanta households earn more than $83,000 annually.

Warnock’s proposal would offer financial relief to the estimated 60% of Black metro Atlanta residents who the Atlanta Regional Commission says are “cost-burdened renters.”

A second bill, known as the Stop Predatory Investing Act, would make it illegal for investors who buy 50 or more new single-family rental homes to file federal tax deductions for interest or depreciation on those properties.

Metro Atlanta has been ground zero for investor-owned single-family homes, which researchers say drive up housing prices by reducing the supply of available homes for sale. A February 2024 Georgia State University study found three corporations owned 19,000 rental houses in the region, roughly 11% of available homes for rent. A follow-up Atlanta Regional Commission investigation released in December found 11 companies now own more than 51,000 homes in the 21-county area.

The practice resulted in Black Atlantans losing an estimated $700 million in home equity between 2011 and 2021, according to a 2023 Georgia Tech study. Warnock said the Stop Predatory Investment Act is a reversal of current U.S. tax policy, which incentivizes wealthy investors to purchase homes and makes it harder for hardworking Georgians to achieve the classic American dream of homeownership.

“That’s literally putting your finger on the scale in favor of the big guys,” Warnock said. “I think we ought to correct that and give ordinary people a shot in the marketplace.”

Local reactions to Warnock’s proposed bills

Warnock’s bills received mixed reviews from local and national housing justice advocates and researchers.

Renee Willis, interim president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, praised the ‘Stop Predatory Investing Act’, which she said will “help ensure investors do not buy up available properties only to raise rents and displace tenants.”

“The predatory practices of institutional investors who buy out single-family homes is a rapidly developing issue in affordable housing policy, and one that must be addressed head-on to protect the rights of tenants and help preserve the nation’s supply of affordable housing,” Willis said in an emailed statement that also was included in a press release.

Georgia State University associate professor Taylor Shelton — an expert on urban spaces and social inequalities who co-authored a 2023 study on how private equity firms prey on communities of color — described the Stop Predatory Investing Act as “one of the weakest measures out there with an indeterminate impact.”

“It’s all about tax incentives rather than direct regulation,” Shelton said in an email. “The other stuff just seems like super convoluted tax incentive and programmatic stuff that gives the appearance of doing something without being particularly inspiring or useful.”

Alison Johnson, executive director of the Atlanta Housing Justice League, has spent years struggling to get state lawmakers to support rent regulation and tenant protection policies backed by her organization.

Johnson applauded Warnock for pushing to bring financial relief to lower-income renters and aspiring homebuyers, but said additional action needs to be taken on tenant protections and public housing.

Georgia has long been regarded as having some of the weakest tenant protection laws in the country, allowing slumlords to take advantage of low-income Black tenants who often have limited options to find more suitable homes.

Johnson also encouraged lawmakers to take action to raise wages to help low-income renters afford to pay more for housing.

“We are optimistic about the ideas the Senator has brought forward,” Johnson told Capital B Atlanta via email on Thursday. “We remain cautious [because] we need to ensure poor, working-class people aren’t left out.”

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