From 11 Alive:

Signs of the housing meltdown are everywhere. For 18 northwest Atlanta families, it means they’ll be without a place to live come this weekend — all of them are from the same apartment complex, and all because of foreclosure.

Virginia Coffer sat on the shaded stoop outside her apartment with 2-year-old Elijah snuggled in her arms. His chubby hand is pointing at a bird flying overhead.

“No, that’s not a red bird. That’s a black bird,” she said.
She says this with a smile on her face as tears roll down her cheeks. Elijah, the back of his head against her chest, is oblivious to his mother’s crying for the moment.

and:

Coffer lived with her mother in Decatur, working side by side at a family-run soul food restaurant. But her mother’s diabetes worsened, the restaurant closed and Coffer took care of her until she died on Christmas. It was a devastating blow. Her mother was the stable center of the 33-year-old woman’s life.

Unfortunately for Coffer, there was no money left over after all the medical bills and the funeral. She got a job at a local fast food restaurant and saved up. She searched endlessly for apartments, choosing the cheapest she could find. That’s how she and her three children came to Spring Valley Apartment Complex on Simpson Road in northwest Atlanta.

When Coffer moved in in February, business at the restaurant was already beginning to slow down and she was the newest employee. She was worried she would lose her apartment so she did what she thought was the safest thing, she paid six months rent in advance.

Three months later the landlord disappeared and the complex was foreclosed on. Three days ago she received the same eviction notice as the 18 other tenants saying they had five days to leave.

It’s not the first story of tenants being affected by a landlord’s foreclosure, and it surely won’t be the last.