Protestors pin 'eviction notice' on Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco mansion to demand she pushes for extension to eviction moratorium which expired Saturday night
A group of about 40 housing and homeless advocates marched to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco mansion on Saturday to hang an 'eviction notice' on her door, demanding she reconvene Congress to pass legislation extending the eviction moratorium.
The moratorium expired at midnight on Saturday, and the House Speaker was unable to garner enough support to pass a resolution extending it before Congress adjourned for summer break.
She has instead demanded that the Centers for Disease Control, which initially started the moratorium extend it, despite a Supreme Court ruling requiring Congressional authorization.
'Dear Speaker Pelosi, you are hereby given notice that millions of Americans will face eviction tonight when the eviction moratorium expires,' the 'eviction notice' read.
'We call upon you to immediately call Congress to session to vote to extend the eviction moratorium and keep people in their homes. We're in the midst of the second-worse COVID surge to date, and this is not the time to allow evictions to begin.'
'Housing is a human right,' the letter concluded.
It is unclear whether the House Speaker was home at the time of the protest, but the following day, she passed the blame onto the CDC.
'The CDC has the power to extend the eviction moratorium,' she tweeted. 'As they double down on masks, why wouldn't they extend the moratorium in light of [the] delta variant?'
'It's a moral imperative to keep people from being put out in the street, which also contributes to the public health emergency,' she added.
'The virus is still a threat, the moratorium must be extended and the funds Congress allocated to assist renters and landlords must be spent.'
Her spokesperson also told FOX News that Rep. Patrick McHenry's move on Friday to block a resolution that would have extended the moratorium until October 18 was 'an act of pure cruelty.'
'Ensuring every American has a roof overhead is a fundamental value that unites the Democratic Party and that personally drives the Speaker,' the spokesperson said in a statement.
'Speaker Pelosi led a relentless campaign to extend the CDC eviction moratorium,' the statement continued. 'Republicans blocked this measure - callously leaving children and families out on the streets.'
The protesters hung an 'eviction notice' on the speaker's front door
It is unclear whether Pelosi (pictured) was home at the time of the protest
The speaker lives in the affluent Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco
The next day she seemed to pass the blame on the Centers for Disease Control, which originally created the eviction moratorium and has been extending it for nearly a year
The protest came one day after the House adjourned for summer recess without passing a resolution to extend the nationwide ban on evictions, which the Centers for Disease Control first instated in September 2020 - in part to prevent the spread of the coronavirus through crowded shelters.
It expired at midnight on Sunday, after the Supreme Court ruled that the Centers for Disease Control could not unilaterally renew the moratorium as it had been doing for nearly a year.
Instead, the Supreme Court said, Congress would have to pass a resolution to extend it, leaving House Democrats scrambling Friday to pass the resolution by unanimous consent.
They were unsuccessful, however, without support from both sides, and left for a seven-week summer vacation without a resolution.
If they want to extend the moratorium now, the House would have to do a roll-call vote.
'The reason that we're at her house is that she has a beautiful mansion in Pacific Heights in San Francisco, and it shows how out of touch she is with the people that are facing a situation [of eviction],' Christian Evans, one of the protesters, told FOX News.
It called upon Pelosi to reconvene Congress to pass legislation extending the moratorium that has been in place since September 2020
A group of about 40 housing and homeless advocates marched to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's house on Saturday as the eviction moratorium was set to expire
He said the issue of housing and homelessness was already a problem in the city, but the pandemic made the situation worse with people losing their jobs and facing medical emergencies.
In 2018, a United Nations official visited the city on a world tour examining housing conditions and concluded that San Francisco's treatment of the homeless 'constitutes cruel and inhuman treatment and is a violation of multiple human rights, including rights to life, housing, health, water and sanitation.'
The number of homeless people has since grown to more than 8,000 people in the city, NPR reported in June, and as of January 2020, California had about 151,000 people experience homelessness.
'We wanted to essentially send her a message that we want her to reconvene Congress to take a vote [to extend] the eviction moratorium,' Evans said.
But this wasn't the first time protesters came to Pelosi's San Francisco mansion - in January, her home was vandalized with a pig's head surrounded in a pool of red paint, with her garage door defaced with graffiti reading: '$2k cancel RENT! We want everything,' an apparent reference to the stimulus check negotiations at the time.
The eviction moratorium was first started on September 4, 2020 as part of a COVID package passed under then-President Donald Trump. It was originally set to expire on December 31, 2020, but has been extended four times.
The last time it was extended was on June 24, and it was set to expire on July 31.
On Thursday, the Biden administration pressured Congress to extend the moratorium, and made clear that his administration would not extend it again without Congressional approval.
'Given the recent spread of the Delta variant, including among those Americans both most likely to face evictions and lacking vaccinations, President Biden would have strongly supported a decision by the CDC to further extend this eviction moratorium to protect renters at this moment of heightened vulnerability,' the White House said in a statement.
Nancy Pelosi 's San Francisco home had previously been vandalized with red paint, a pigs head and a spray painted message about $2,000 checks, according to TMZ
'Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has made clear that this option is no longer available.'
The Court had voted 5-4 last month to allow the eviction ban to continue through the end of July, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh made clear he would not support any additional extensions unless there was 'clear and specific Congressional authorization.'
When Congress failed to do so, several far-left members decided to stage a protest on Capitol Hill.
Representative Cori Bush, who was evicted three times and lived in her car with her two children before her career in politics, spent a sleepless night on the steps of the Capitol; to protest the end of a pandemic freeze on evictions.
Bush, a progressive Democrat who won her Missouri seat last year, managed to get about an hour of sleep sitting upright on a camp chair.
Three others supported Bush – Representatives Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Ocasio-Cortez – by joining her at the Capitol on Saturday night.
Representative Cori Bush staged a protest outside Congress on Saturday after House Democrats failed to pass a resolution extending the moratorium
Bush spoke to reporters about the upcoming expiration of the pandemic-related federal moratorium on residential evictions. The lawmaker was evicted three times in her life and lived in her car with her two children before her career in politics
Bush remained outside the Capitol on Saturday afternoon urging an Instagram audience to join her in demanding Congress, President Biden or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stop the moratorium from expiring.
'We slept at the Capitol last night to ask them to come back and do their jobs. Today's their last chance,' Bush tweeted.
'Today, by midnight, if nothing happens, if no other action is taken from the House, or the Senate or the administration, 7 million people will be at risk for evictions,' the black congresswoman said. 'I've been there myself.'
'This pandemic is not behind us, and our federal housing policies should reflect that stark reality. With the United States facing the most severe eviction crisis in its history, our local and state governments still need more time to distribute critical rental assistance to help keep a roof over the heads of our constituents,' Democratic U.S. Reps. Cori Bush of Missouri, Jimmy Gomez of California and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts said in a joint statement.
People are at risk of eviction because of unpaid rent that accrued during the pandemic, when many lost jobs due to the economic fallout.
More than 15 million people are behind on their rental payments and could face eviction, according to the Aspen Institute, collectively owing an estimated $21 billion in rent as many of these households are low-income and suffered financially during the pandemic.
They each owe approximately $3,300, according to the National Equity Atlas.
As of July 5, roughly 3.6 million people in the U.S. said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to the U.S. Census Bureau´s Household Pulse Survey.
The number of renters with debt has slowly been trending downward, though, the National Equity Atlas reports, as landlords struggle to pay taxes, maintenance expenses and other bills.
According to the National Equity, about 6.4 million households owe a total of $21 billion in debt, with each owing approximately $3,300
'As of midnight tonight the CDC National Eviction Moratorium is set to expire. Yesterday, instead of the House convening and taking a vote to extend it they moved to a vote to extend it they moved to adjourn on a seven-week recess. It's simply unacceptable,' said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez outside the Capitol steps on Saturday.
'We cannot be abandoning 11 million Americans that are in need, particularly when the $46 billion emergency rental assistance that we authorized to pay people's back rent has not gotten out. Governors and municipalities have not released the emergency rental assistance funds so we are asking to extending the moratorium until the funds come because this is simple not folks' fault that those resources have not gone out.'
Congress has allocated nearly $47 billion in rental assistance that is supposed to go to help tenants pay off months of back rent.
But so far, only about $3 billion of the first tranche of $25 billion has been distributed through June by states and localities. Some states like New York have distributed almost nothing, while several have only approved a few million dollars.
Pelosi's spokesperson now said she and the president are urging state and local governments to immediately disburse the money so that millions of families could avoid eviction.
Eventually, Bush was joined by fellow progressive lawmakers, like Ilhan Omar
Bush, who represents Missouri, slept in a deck chair overnight and did several livestreams during the day on Saturday
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