Quentin Carey is a single father who lived with his 16-year-old son at a dilapidated apartment complex in College Park for three years. 

In March, the unemployed warehouse worker received a notice saying he had seven days to move out because the property was unsafe.

Carolyn Huitt, a retired home health aid, lived at the same complex for nine years, battling roach infestations, until she, her son, and two of her grandchildren got the same notice that month.

Jackie McQuerry’s family of three received their notice after having lived there for two years.

Collapsing ceilings, exposed raw sewage, roaches and rodents: Residents of the Chelsea Gardens apartment complex had to contend with these problems for years. But many resisted leaving in recent months because they felt they had nowhere else to go. And many were right.

“With the high prices and everything, how were we going to move if we didn’t have the money?”

Jackie McQuerry, former Chelsea Gardens resident

Several former tenants of the more than 470-unit complex no longer have a stable place to live as a result of the property’s closure June 1, joining the ranks of metro Atlanta’s growing homeless population, which has been on the rise for three consecutive years. 

Of the residents of 75 units that were occupied in March, nearly half still hadn’t found housing toward the end of May, said organizers with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which helps workers and renters unionize and form tenant associations to advocate for themselves.

Huitt, 71, is one of those still looking for stable housing. She’s been renting a room at a Live In Lodge extended stay hotel location in Jonesboro for nearly three weeks since being forced to move out of Chelsea Gardens at the beginning of June. The weekly rate is $339, almost as much as the $1,392 in rent she paid at Chelsea Gardens before moving out.

“It’s not a good feeling staying in this hotel not knowing how we’re going to pay the rent week to week or if we’re going to get permanent housing,” Huitt told Capital B Atlanta last week. “It’s like no help anymore, and it’s scary to me.”

Read More: If Atlanta Is a Black Mecca, Why Are 8 Out of 10 Homeless People Black?

Carey, 42, said he has been sleeping wherever he can find shelter since April. He spent multiple nights sleeping in an abandoned apartment at a complex in Decatur when Capital B Atlanta met up with him for a June 13 interview.

“I’ve never been in a situation like this,” Carey said. “I feel like God has stripped me from everything, teaching me a lesson, but this is a whole ‘nother different level here for me.”

Such is the state of housing in the metro Atlanta region that some would rather call a condemned building home than have no home at all. 

“We didn’t want to stay there, but with the high prices and everything, how were we going to move if we didn’t have the money?” said McQuerry, whose family of three landed in a rented town house after getting financial help. 

Chelsea Gardens’ new owner, Contour Companies, declined to comment on Friday. The company acquired the property in March after the previous owner defaulted on a loan, city officials said.

The company’s website said it has experience with real estate acquisition and rehabilitation, and during Capital’s B’s visit to the property on Friday, construction workers were seen repairing the roof. But it’s unclear when the renovations will be complete and what the new rents will be.

When Huitt moved to Chelsea Gardens about nine years ago, she said conditions were already bad there. She said her two bedroom, 2½ bathroom apartment was infested with roaches on the day she, her son, Antonio, now 50, and two of her grandchildren moved in. 

She said management was never quick to respond to her long list of maintenance complaints, which she said included mold, a rusty bathtub, a broken dishwasher that never worked, and worn carpet. 

Huitt’s rent at Chelsea Gardens was about $650 nine years ago. She said it was $1,392 when she moved out in early June.

“It was worth $13.95 if you want to know the truth about it,” she said. 

McQuerry, 54, said her family endured floors that flooded when it rained,  as well as mold and a cockroach infestation.

But not all the units were in poor condition, according to Carey, who said his unit had been renovated.  

In 2024 and early 2025, the city of College Park issued more than 2,000 building and health code violation citations against the complex’s former owners. 

After the owner failed to rectify the violations, the clock started ticking on shutting down the property, which city inspectors said was unsafe. Initially, residents were told that they would need to evacuate the property on April 22. Then College Park officials gave an extension, shifting the deadline to May 31.

Read More: Evicted and Soon Homeless: How Metro Atlanta Landlords Put Black Families on the Streets

Officials with the city of College Park said they helped find new homes for most of Chelsea Gardens’ tenants prior to the property’s June 1 closure, but some were forced to use “emergency shelter” options, according to a statement.

A spokesperson for College Park Mayor Bianca Motley Broom said Chelsea Gardens tenants were helped by nonprofits that received funding from the city. An estimated $86,000 had been allocated to provide relocation assistance.

“At this time, Mayor Motley Broom does not have any additional comments beyond what has already been publicly shared, including the direct support she has personally and individually extended to residents affected by the situation at Chelsea Gardens,”  spokesperson Kelli Ramsey said Tuesday in an emailed statement.

Elias Nail-Dupree, an organizer with Party for Socialism and Liberation, told Capital B Atlanta earlier this month that a lot of people are getting help from nonprofits without city funding. 

“A small handful of people have had to go to shelters, but the majority of those people are currently living with friends and family on a sofa or have received some sort of financial assistance from a third-party nonprofit that was not involved with the city of College Park to help with paying for a hotel,” Nail-Dupree said. 

As for Carey, the single father didn’t wait for the city’s June 1 deadline to vacate. He and his son moved out in April.

Carey said he recently lost his job working at Ashley Furniture because he was taking too many days off to find a new place to live.

“My job, they understood, but I was missing so many days,” Carey said. “They didn’t allow that.”

McQuerry’s family moved out of Chelsea Gardens on May 1 after College Park officials helped them secure enough money to rent another nearby town house.

“You think we’re poor, we’re Black, we’re uneducated, you just throw us away like trash.”

Jackie McQuerry, former Chelsea Gardens resident

She’s working with a Legal Aid Society attorney to recoup about $3,750, which includes the security deposit, last month’s rent — which she paid in order to stay at Chelsea Gardens even as the property was being shut down — and moving expenses.

“If you know you’re condemning the place, why did you take our money?” McQuerry said. “Because you think we’re poor, we’re Black, we’re uneducated, you just throw us away like trash. They know that Black people are not going to speak up about this issue.”

McQuerry, who works as a home health aid, moved to Atlanta from Minneapolis in 2019 because she found the weather here better and the cost of living here cheaper at the time. But she believes landlords in the Atlanta area get away with mistreating Black tenants.

“They’re just dogging the Black people out here,” she said. “I come from another state. I know the difference. I see the difference. It’s sad.”