'Please let us go back home': Displaced Forest Cove residents beg city leaders to keep promises
'Please let us go back home," displaced residents beg city leaders
300 families from a deteriorated apartment building in Atlanta said they were promised a smooth relocation to help them get back to their lives. Some of those residents said that promise was never fulfilled, so they made their own emotional appeals to the city.
ATLANTA - Of the three hundred families who used to live at Atlanta's Forest Cove Apartments, some of them claim that certain promises made to them were unfulfilled after Mayor Andre Dickens moved them out of the property.
The residents at the apartment complex said they were living in horrendous conditions - citing mold, broken windows, and a lot of trash. In 2021, the owners of the building were slapped with 150 violations.
The now-closed Atlanta apartments had deteriorated so badly, city officials had to step in with a pledge to have them rebuilt. At the same time, they were supposed to find temporary spaces for the tenants.
Dickens touted relocating the families temporarily as a big accomplishment during his first year in office.
"This is a historic milestone for the families of Forest Cove who have been left behind for too many years," Dickens said in a statement in October 2022. "I am proud that the work of the City — particularly under the leadership of Senior Advisor Courtney English — and so many of our partners helped these residents access new safe and quality homes. After meeting with the families at Forest Cove in my first weeks in office, I knew that even though the City wasn’t responsible for the conditions there, we had a moral obligation to act."
But those residents say the city's plan hasn't been working out.
In tears, former Forest Cove resident Felicia Morris begged the Atlanta City Council to do something.
"Please let us go back home," she said.
Sharon North, another former resident of the complex, said the promises that her children would be provided transportation in order to stay in the same school district were never fulfilled.
"I'm hurt," she said. "The communication is bad."
City Councilman Jason Winston met separately with every resident who shared a complaint at City Hall. He said the residents had "a myriad of concerns."
"Some were very specific - ‘I need a MARTA card,’ or 'I haven't had a lot of communications about getting furniture,' or other things about resources they've been promised," Winston said.
The councilman said he acknowledged their feelings and "won't forget them."
The project, which is under federal jurisdiction, faces hurdles before residents potentially could return, including the approval of tax credits for construction.