Atlanta campaign accepts applicants to receive free rent for a year

An Atlanta investment group is working to help families deal with the rising cost of housing in the city by paying their rent for a full year.

Roots Real Estate Investment rolled out their Free Rent Atlanta campaign in November. It ends Dec. 8.

Online applications are open to anyone living within 20 miles of the Mercedez-Benz Stadium to nominate themselves or a friend. Roots will select nine finalists and allow the public to vote on the three winners.

Co-founder Scott Jacobsen said he noticed some alarming trends and wanted the company to make a difference.

“A large chunk of people's paycheck is going towards rent, making it harder for people to kind of grow financially, build wealth and, you know, move upwards in certain areas of their life,” Jacobsen said.

The top nine applicants will be selected by a third-party organization. Jacobsen said he would like to continue offering this program in coming years and encourage more people to address housing issues.

“Our goal is to grow this thing massively over the years and have a lot more than three families that get to benefit off this and hopefully other people catch wind of kind of some of these things that I'm talking about," he said.

Nominations can be sent in through the Roots website. Finalists will be announced Dec. 16, and a winner will be chosen on New Year’s Eve.