(Headline USA) Sen. Raphael Warnock’s, D-Ga., church has started evicting low-income residents from the apartment building it owns once again, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
The issue became a flashpoint during Warnock’s 2022 reelection campaign after it was reported that Ebenezer Baptist Church, from which Warnock still collects a paycheck, evicted six residents who were behind on their rent.
The criticism forced the church to temporarily halt its eviction efforts, but Fulton County court records show it is once again trying to forcibly eject residents. At least four residents who fell behind on rent by less than two months have been served eviction notices by the building, the records show.
One of the residents currently facing eviction is a Vietnam veteran, Phillip White. He was served an eviction notice in March over $192 in unpaid rent, according to court records.
Warnock has repeatedly denied that Ebenezer Baptist was evicting disadvantaged residents, saying in 2022 that reports about the notices were “vicious and venomous” attempts to “sully Ebenezer Baptist Church” and the “church of Jesus Christ.”
“There have been no evictions, full stop,” he said.
The Democrat even campaigned against evicting people who are struggling.
“Unemployment benefits have expired, rent is due today, and many Georgia families are at risk of eviction in the middle of a pandemic,” Warnock wrote on social media in August 2020. “My opponents are supposed to be serving the people in Washington, but they’re clearly only concerned with serving their own interests.”
“He said there would be no evictions,” White said in response. “He knew that was a lie. What he was really saying is there would be no evictions until after the election.”
The apartment building, Columbia MLK Tower, has received more than $15 million in federal and state funding to shelter the “chronically homeless.”
