Under Scrutiny, Warnock Claims Without Evidence Walker Is Exploiting the People Facing Eviction From Ebenezer Baptist Church’s Low-Income Apartment

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.) claimed without evidence on Tuesday that his Republican opponent, Herschel Walker, is trying to “exploit” the disadvantaged residents who face eviction from the low-income apartment building owned by his church.

Warnock told reporters there have been no evictions from the building, a claim undermined by publicly available court records. It is the Democratic senator’s latest attempt at obfuscation in the wake of several Washington Free Beacon reports on the eviction lawsuits filed against residents of Columbia Tower at MLK Village, of which Ebenezer Baptist Church is a 99 percent owner. Warnock, who serves as senior pastor at Ebenezer, receives a $7,417 monthly housing allowance from the church.

Warnock accused Walker of sullying the name of civil-rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. for “short-term political gain.”

“This is an example of a candidate who has so little to offer to the people of Georgia that he has resorted to trying to sully the name of Martin Luther King Jr.’s church and John Lewis’s church,” Warnock said of Walker. “And what is also shameful is that the work that’s being done there is for people who struggle with mental illness, disabilities. Folks who are coming out of homelessness. And he is exploiting these people as he is good at for short-term political gain.”

Residents told the Free Beacon in October they had no idea that Ebenezer Baptist Church owned their home.

Warnock also misrepresented the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s reports on his church’s building, saying the outlet reported “there have been no evictions” from Columbia Tower.

In fact, the paper confirmed that the building’s one-percent owner, Columbia Residential, had filed dispossessory notices against the building’s residents during the coronavirus pandemic, one for just $28.55 in past-due rent. The paper also reported that Columbia Residential said it had not evicted tenants for not paying rent since June 2020, implying that evictions took place during the early months of the pandemic.

Publicly available court documents show that Fulton County marshals have carried out at least two court-ordered writs of possession against residents of Columbia Tower since the start of the pandemic.

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