An upcoming Georgia State University survey commissioned by DeKalb County has found that 30% of families living in extended-stay hotels in the county are paying day rates that total $2,661 per month for their rooms — about $600 more than average market rent for a four-bedroom apartment.
Joy Monroe, founder and CEO of the Single Parent Alliance & Resource Center (SPARC), which led the study, and community advocate Sue Sullivan presented the findings at a committee meeting of the DeKalb County Commission on Tuesday.
Their presentation focused on an overlooked impact of the metro Atlanta housing crisis because, Sullivan noted, families living in hotels are not considered homeless by federal definitions even though “in every way they are homeless” and do not have permanent homes.
The numbers were stark. There were 714 families living in hotels, including 1,635 children under age 18. On average, four-person households lived in the same cramped hotel room.
Dr. April Ballard, a co-lead with the Georgia State University Center on Health and Homelessness, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that there were more than 4,600 people living in hotels countywide.
Under federal guidelines, a family is considered cost-burdened if it spends 30% of its household income on housing. It is considered severely cost-burdened if it spends more than 50%. Monroe said families living in hotel rooms spent 77% of their income on housing alone.
If they pay the average daily rate of $88.50 for a double room, that means their monthly bill would be $2,661, according to data shared from the survey during the presentation. If families choose to pay the average weekly rate of $475, they would still pay $1,900 for a double room.
Monroe said about half of families surveyed reported living in dangerous conditions and experiencing severe problems with pests, mold and poor ventilation, while squeezing their families into 200-square-foot rooms.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
With fees for everyday items like toilet paper or trash bags, and punitive fines for things like letting children play outside, families could end up spending upward of 80% of their income, Monroe told commissioners.
“I’m not sure what your budget looks like. But I think we all know that if 80% is simply spent on housing and you have 20% left for everything else, you’re completely upside down and that budget doesn’t work,” Monroe said.
She said the population surveyed was overwhelmingly made up of Black women, with more than 80% of respondents identifying as Black. Nearly 60% of respondents were single mothers.
Most families were working full time or part time or doing gig work, and the average monthly household income was about $2,400.
Daily rates are part of the reason families get stuck in a vicious cycle and are left scrambling day to day just to pay the average $88.50 needed to stay in their hotel rooms, Monroe told the AJC. That hand-to-mouth existence makes it increasingly difficult for families to save enough money for rent, security deposits or application fees.
In addition, having an eviction means hotel residents have a mountain to climb to persuade landlords to rent them a home, Monroe said.
“A lot of them are driving DoorDash. They’re renting cars to drive DoorDash just to keep that roof over their head that night,” Sullivan added.
Families who end up in hotels because of rent increases, job loss or overwhelming health care costs often end up staying for months or even years, Monroe said.
The survey found that schools and the federal government undercount the number of children living in hotels, something Monroe described as a “generational crisis.”
The study suggests children living in extended stays often have no space to do homework, limited Wi-Fi, nowhere to play, and are exposed to crime and violence. Monroe said because there are no kitchens in the rooms they are “living on what they can get from fast food or from the nearest gas station.”
“Nearly 25% of families lived in hotels as children. Families are in crisis today, but if we continue to do nothing, we’re building a crisis for tomorrow,” Monroe told the AJC.
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
District 2 Commissioner Michelle Long Spears said families living in extended-stay hotels “are devastatingly cost-burdened” and spend most of their money just to keep a roof over their heads, leaving little for essentials like food, clothing, school supplies and medications.
“I don’t know how anyone could survive,” Spears said.
A full report will be released next week. Officials suggested they would use the findings to develop a county-targeted strategy for extended-stay hotels.
Commissioned by DeKalb County, Georgia State University’s School of Public Health, through its Center on Health and Homelessness, and SPARC produced the study, which covered 50 hotels and 231 household surveys.
The study involved direct outreach, and researchers knocked on 3,546 doors.
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