My parents are immigrants from Jamaica. My mother worked for several years cleaning homes then transitioned to become a blue collar worker for Chrysler in Detroit, MI. Several years later my mother migrated to Miami, Florida along with my stepfather. During that time she worked for the school board as a head custodian and my stepdad had his own lawn service. They saved up enough money to purchase a second home in Macon, Ga. After graduating with my associate degree and struggling to make ends meet, myself and my three children moved to Macon, Ga into the home. I paid the mortgage, completed numerous remodeling projects in the home and the outside yard. After my daughter graduated from nursing school, my husband and I purchased a home in the suburbs of Atlanta. My parents agreed to rent the house out to section 8 tenants and hired a property manager to manage the property. Things didn’t work out with the previous property manager so I took over as the new property manager. I did not renew the contract with the tenant that resides in the home when the property manager had our home because she did not keep the property or kept the house clean. After spending over $10,000 to fix up the house, we decided to rent again to another Section 8 tenant. Three months in i did an external inspection and noticed that the house had garbage on the back patio and on the front lawn. After an internal inspection, I gave her a written notice to clean the property up inside and out. This was not done so I gave her a second notice, she became hostile, defensive and did not comply, so I followed the Section 8 Guidelines and gave her a 90 Day notice to vacate. The tenant left the house with garbage piled in the closet, trash on the floor, holes in the wall, feces on the floor, a bucket of dirty foul smelling water, the house smells like a garbage dump and fried chicken grease mixed with funk. I have heard horror stories of Section 8 tenants setting fires to our homes, pouring cement in toilet and sink, meth labs, punching holes in walls and busting out windows.

What I am asking in this petition: Section 8 Landlord have more rights than tenants. If a tenant messes up someone’s home they should automatically have their voucher taken away. Tenants should undergo classes on how to keep landlord property clean. The majority of these tenants don’t clean or don’t know how to clean. This is the most pressing problem with Section 8 Tenants. Last, a landlord to landlord directory needs to be implemented. If a tenant wants to rent a home from a new landlord, that landlord should be able to see the full history of that tenant. Previous landlords should be allowed to place comments good or bad on the landlord to landlord directory. In addition, this system should be in all states. If landlords are renting our homes blind to these tenants that are destroying our homes why not help us make good choices so we can save our money fixing up destroyed homes.