ATLANTA (AP) — Entering court using a walker, a doctor’s note clutched in his hand, 70-year-old Dana Williams, who suffers serious heart problems, hypertension and asthma, pleaded to delay eviction from his two-bedroom apartment in Atlanta.
Although sympathetic, the judge said state law required him to evict Williams and his 25-year-old daughter De’mai Williams in April because they owed $8,348 in unpaid rent and fees on their $940-a-month apartment.
They have been living in limbo ever since.
They moved into a dilapidated Atlanta hotel room with water dripping through the bathroom ceiling, broken furniture and no refrigerator or microwave. But at $275-a-week, it was all they could afford on Williams’ $900 monthly social security check and the $800 his daughter gets biweekly from a state agency as her father’s caretaker.
“I really don’t want to be here by the time his birthday comes” in August, De’mai Williams said. “For his health, it’s just not right.”