Tyler Perry, concerned about the impact of rising real estate taxes, is donating $2.75 million to senior citizens in the city of Atlanta to ensure they stay in their homes.
Perry, who this week came in third among the world’s top 10 highest paid entertainers by Forbes, reached out to Atlanta Mayor Andrew Dickens a few weeks ago to provide assistance for those residents on fixed incomes who could lose their homes if they couldn’t pay their taxes.
He is going to pay the back property taxes for 300 low-income seniors in Atlanta. The assistance will cover city, county and school taxes. Perry will also cover any increase in taxes over the next 20 years for 100 low-income seniors. He has already donated $750,000 for the first year to cover the back taxes and any increase in property taxes, and has pledged $500,000 each year over the next four years to ensure the seniors don’t pay any more in such taxes.
The funds will be administered by Invest Atlanta Partnership, the nonprofit wing of Atlanta’s economic development authority.
The mayor’s office released this statement from Dickens to thank Perry for his generosity: “Atlanta’s growth and prosperity should not come at the expense of our legacy residents — many of whom have been priced out of their homes in previous years. Tyler Perry has been engaged in our ongoing conversations around legacy resident retention, and he told me he wanted to do something to support these efforts. Thanks to his generosity, more Atlantans will be able to remain in the communities they built.”
AJC reporter Riley Bunch contributed to this article.
