WTVM.com and WTVM News Leader 9, Columbus, GA | Out of Money; Out of a Home

Out of Money; Out of a Home

By Zaneta Lowe  - bio | e-mail

COLUMBUS, GA (WTVM) - Just last week, the economic crisis hit home when the unthinkable happened in the Columbus.

A local real estate agent was murdered and it's speculated it stemmed from an angry tenant potentially facing eviction.

For the last couple of months, the ConsumerWatch team has been tracking evictions with the Muscogee County Marshal's Office.

We rode along with them and witnessed what's become a sad and harsh reality for many people.

"I mean it just make me angry!"

That's one of the few words a young woman, who doesn't want to be identified, can find to describe her feelings about seeing her furniture sitting on the curb.

A couch, even baby belongings and old ballons that seem quite ironic on a day when there's nothing to celebrate.

She and her roommate are getting evicted.

"I actually lost my job, I was having a lot of complications with my pregnancy and I was kind of in and out of the hospital and I was temporary where I working and so they let me go," says the woman.

It's the type of story Corporal Rick Bowers hears every day.

"Some get mad, some people blame us, some people blame the landlord, some people blame the economy, some people blame God," says Bowers as we ride in his vehicle.

Bowers has been in law enforcement for nearly 20 years, five of them with the Muscogee County Marshal's office and he spends most of his time on evictions.

"Some days we'll have four or five, some days we'll have 20 or 30," says Bowers.

But the process begins long before the actual eviction. 

We go to one house where the renters have abandoned the property, but left a mess inside.

It becomes apparent when the items make it to the outside as bugs fall from much of the furniture.

As bad as it looked, Bowers says he's seen worse.

"We've had several instances where weapons were involved, one in particular where a man committed suicide as we were about to enter the property," adds Bowers.

"You were asking earlier if it's stressful, you never know what's on the other side of the door," he says. 

And for the people on the other side of this situation like the young woman we met being evicted, "It's embarrassing and then it's hard and it make you angry, especially, I'm a single young parent and that, then for me to get fired from my job, it's makes things a whole lot harder," she says.

Unfortunately, officers like Corporal Bowers see one after the other, and move on to the next.

"You feel bad for anyone that has to go through that, unfortunately it's just part of our job."