ATLANTA — A low-income apartment building with ties to Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock has filed eviction notices against residents for failing to pay rent.
Republican Herschel Walker has spent months fighting off various scandals and missteps. Now, he is trying to make Warnock squirm over tenant eviction notices.
The apartment building is Columbia MLK Tower, a few blocks from the State Capitol. It’s mostly owned by the Ebenezer Baptist Church Foundation. Warnock is the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist.
Court documents outline eviction notices against residents in the building filed as recently as last week – for failure to pay rent of as little as $115.
"I don’t want anyone evicted," said Walker, trumpeting the eviction notices and tying them to Warnock during an event Tuesday outside the complex.
"The people behind us right now is being evicted. Yes it’s true, no one has left. But they got the eviction notice. And he knew about it," Walker said.
Behind him, nine men and women held placards that said “eviction notice” – though none of them had actually been evicted nor did they even live in Columbia Tower. When 11Alive approached some of them afterward, they walked away.
"It’s all a fabrication. Everyone that stood behind him, it’s the first time they’ve ever been in this neighborhood in their whole life," said Maceo Fletcher, a neighborhood activist who lives in an adjacent building.
Yet, he acknowledges that the eviction notices may be real. When asked about it at an Atlanta Press Club debate Sunday – which Walker didn’t attend -- Warnock said nobody there has actually been evicted.
"My church has no direct involvement in the day to day operations of that building," Warnock said during the debate.
While acknowledging the notices, Warnock said "there have been no evictions. Full stop."
11Alive News acquired copies of 15 eviction notices filed over the last couple of years. Walker and Warnock agree that none of those people have actually been evicted.