A $50,000 GoFundMe kept 5,500 families in their homes

An Atlanta nonprofit has kept more than 5,500 families in their apartments through an Eviction Relief Fund that began as a $50,000 GoFundMe during the pandemic. It has since raised over $16.5 million. Marjy Stagmeier, a landlord with three decades in affordable housing, founded the Star-C Program after studying why tenants fall behind. Often, she found, the problem is not simply income. "In one instance, we had a long-term legacy tenant, and her pension check was stolen," Stagmeier said. "Evicting her and her grandchildren made no sense." Star-C also covered rent for Atlanta TSA employees during a federal shutdown, when their paychecks were suspended. More than 330 apartment communities, representing 64,000 units, have now joined the platform. The fund connects tenants to after-school programs and food assistance too. Almost 100 families have moved from renting to owning. The fund is currently full, which is a strange sentence to write about a thing this good.