ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled against extending the nationwide eviction moratorium. According to a recent survey completed by the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 3 million Americans will be impacted by this decision.
The St. Petersburg Tenant's Union organized a protest and march in front of Congressman Charlie Crist's office on Saturday, in hopes of getting the moratorium reinstated.
"If Congress isn't going to act right away, we have to continue to fight because nobody should lose their home during a pandemic," St. Pete's Tenants Union organizer Karla Correa said.
Correa said the end of the moratorium impacts her. She struggles to make rent each month and is often late in paying.
"If I do get evicted and I'm not able to pay my rent one month, I don't really have anywhere to go," she said. "And that's the reality for so many working-class people."
The location of Crist's office is an area protesters say was hardest hit by evictions.
"In the zip code 33712, this is actually the hardest impacted area," event organizer William Kilgore said. "We've seen the most evictions in all of Pinellas county in this zip code. There's been well over 350 evictions."
The eviction moratorium applied to landlords with renters directly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It's not a law everyone agrees on because rental assistance is and has been available to renters and landlords through the American Rescue Plan.
"They should never have had an eviction moratorium as a part of this when they were giving money to pay rent," 33712 zip code resident Rhett Krulce said . "The eviction moratorium took away the motivation for renters to do what they needed to do to get their rent paid."
Protesters were hoping to get a response from Congressman Crist. He did not show up or comment, but recently tweeted about available rental assistance.