Amid outcry, St Petersburg mayoral candidate Robert Blackmon halts evictions
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Tampa Bay community organizers take lessons as pandemic recedes
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Florida launches new emergency rental assistance program
Haley Hinds reports
TAMPA, Fla. - More help is on the way for people in Florida who are potentially facing eviction due to the pandemic. Monday, the state launched a new $800 million emergency rental assistance program. It could be one of the last remaining protections after a federal judge ruled the nationwide ban on eviction unconstitutional.
The pandemic forced millions out of work with no money to pay rent to landlords with their own bills to pay. We ve always seen them, it s always been a public health crisis, said William Kilgore, founding member of the St. Petersburg Tenants Union, as he described the issue of evictions. It kind of turned into this catastrophe where it s like, well, we can t be evicting people when there s this horrible plague.
St. Petersburg activists call for affordable housing
The St. Petersburg Tenants Union, Florida Rising and community members discussed evictions and funding in a Saturday press conference.
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Since April 2020, there have been 3,926 evictions filed across Pinellas County.
Thatâs according to the St. Petersburg Tenants Union, an organization that has been tracking housing data throughout the pandemic. About half of the evictions have taken place in St. Petersburg. And about a third of those
â 614 in total â have been
in the cityâs historically Black community stretching across zip codes 33705, 33711 and 33712.
On Saturday, the tenants union gathered alongside Florida Rising and other members of the community outside Osprey Point Apartments to call for a ban on evictions, an expansion of rentersâ rights, mandated rent control and more money for rental assistance.