Mass Eviction Event Underway in Downtown St. Pete

Yesterday, residents of the Stanton Hotel, located in downtown St. Pete, were given notice to vacate their living spaces by October 15th. 

This comes days after a planned expansion of the Cordova Inn was announced, involving the demolition of both the Stanton Hotel and Stanton Apartments which contain 49 living spaces altogether. Along with the notice to vacate, residents of the Stanton Hotel were given a “list of resources”; a crude printout with a hyperlink to the Homeless Leadership Alliance and Catholic Charities. 

According to an article published  earlier this week by St. Pete Rising, the new buyers were reportedly aiding with relocation of tenants, however it appears the current owners, Old St. Pete Development LLC, are attempting to clear house before the sale is finalized. This corporation is linked to Clearwater-based TJM Properties and Key West-based New Moon Management.

Week to week rentals like those offered by the Stanton Hotel are a common living arrangement for those who cannot afford a first/last month rent payment and security deposit generally required for an annual lease, or for those with poor credit, history of eviction, criminal background or other circumstances preventative of acquiring a lease. This means “hotels” such as the Stanton become home to some of the most vulnerable members of our community, and contain many long-term tenants. These living arrangements are incredibly exploitative in nature, with tenants oftentimes paying incredibly high rent for tiny living spaces not necessarily intended for long term habitation. Under Florida law, a landlord is only required to give a tenant 7 days notice to before terminating a week to week rental agreement.

In 2020, St. Pete City Council passed  ordinance 419-H as part of the city’s tenant bill of rights, which requires a written 90 day notice of intent to develop in order to give displaced tenants extra time to secure new housing. However, it is unclear if this is applicable to residents of the Stanton considering it’s status as a “hotel”. It’s also unclear if the 90 day notice is required for residents of the 18 households at the Stanton Apartments, or if residents there were given notice to vacate as well. 

The new owners of the Cordova Inn stands to generate massive profits from the new expansion of it’s facilities. The demolition of both the Stanton Hotel and Apartments will permanently remove 49 units of “affordable” housing from the downtown area and replace those with upscale units designed for short term visitors. With rents in Tampa Bay skyrocketing to unprecedented levels, it is likely that many residents of the Stanton will become homeless or displaced from the area entirely. 

Housing is a fundamental human right that should be guaranteed to all, unconditionally. 

The rising tide of downtown development continues to lift the boats of profiteers and affluent transplants while allowing our most vulnerable to drown. 

Contact the owners of the Stanton and demand they halt the evictions!

TJM Properties

(727) 683-1200

New Moon Management

(305) 293-8888

Pinellas Tenants Beg Court For Mercy

What you are seeing in this post the last minute pleas for help from terrified tenants in Pinellas County, begging the court to halt their impending evictions. In every one of these cases, their cries for mercy went unanswered and an eviction was carried out.

In one emergency motion, a Pinellas Park tenant pleads “I have three kids in the home that I have been working very hard to take care of. I’ve lost two jobs due to COVID and recently started a new job…I’m at my last leg trying to fight for a home for me and my kids.”

According to court records, the tenant and their children were violently thrown out from a property owned by TruAmerica, a California-based corporate landlord. The property is managed by ZRS.

In another emergency motion a St. Pete tenant pleads: “I have nowhere for myself or my grandkids to go we will be homeless because I won’t let my rent man sexually harasse [sic] me and take over my property he is very upset with me…Judge please to not let him do this to myself and my grandchildren”

Court records indicate the tenant and their grandchildren were ultimately made homeless by local landlord Robert L. Simmons Sr.

There have been 5,748 evictions filed in Pinellas since the start of the pandemic, and over 2,600 eviction orders issued in that time. 

These aren’t just numbers on a page. 

Each of these cases is a family or individual with a story. 

Each of these cases is a person who has become, or may become homeless; a future suicide or overdose victim; a child who will spend a lifetime reeling from the pain and trauma of eviction, perpetuating the cycle of inequity and suffering into future generations.

Our laws are written, adjudicated and enforced to protect property and Capital at OUR expense. We need a new system that serves our interests and prioritizes our lives before profits.

We cannot rely on our elected officials to keep us safe. It’s time to organize our neighbors and fight to keep each other safe and take our power back.

✊🔥

How to Use the American Rescue Plan Funds

by Karla Correa

St. Petersburg residents can agree overwhelmingly on one thing: the rents are too damn high. Community members of all different backgrounds gave their input about what the $45 million in Covid relief money from the American Rescue Plan Act should be spent on, and housing affordability came out as the top priority. 

It's no surprise that residents took this position; the Tampa Bay Area has the fastest increasing rents out of every metropolitan area in the country. This is an emergency, and it must be treated as such.

St. Pete was suffering from a disastrous housing crisis long before the pandemic.

Rents have been rising throughout the city for years, forcing people out of their homes and displacing longtime residents in the name of "progress." 

The onset of the pandemic did not put a stop to any of these things. Even with a federal moratorium on evictions throughout the pandemic, over 5,400 evictions have been filed in Pinellas County since April 2nd, 2020. 

On top of the already skyrocketing rents in the Tampa Bay Area, people have lost jobs and other forms of income due to the pandemic. Private landlords are accountable to no one. So what happens to those who couldn't pay? 

We saw some landlords work with tenants to keep them in their homes. Other landlords, however, filed evictions and made sure they were carried out. 

Evictions are violence. We don't mean that in any sort of symbolic way. We mean that literally. Researchers from five universities cross-referenced coronavirus cases and deaths with data about where eviction moratoriums occurred between March and September of last year. They found that  433,700 additional COVID-19 cases and 10,700 excess deaths occurred in states in which eviction bans were allowed to expire or didn’t exist.

This cannot be understated: at least an additional 10,700 people lost their lives because, ultimately, landlords' profits were prioritized over human lives. 

The CDC moratorium that was supposed to last until October was the last lifeline for renters. Now that it has been struck down, renters are in a particularly vulnerable position. 

We must act now and use this $45 million to make sure no one is kicked out of their home during a pandemic.

At August 19th's City Council meeting, the city presented the results from residents to the City Council, and made recommendations about spending amounts for each category.

Spending earmarked for “public health/safety” needs to be cut completely. You know what’s actually public health and safety? Keeping people in their homes. Imagine if the $124 million the St. Petersburg Police were allocated for the next fiscal year went to housing security instead!

Additionally, while infrastructure is vital, we have a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill coming. We must take the $9 million allocated to infrastructure and the $3 million allocated to the police and move them both to housing. 

We must first issue an emergency declaration for the housing crisis in this city no later than October 1st, 2021. The emergency is undeniable, and in order to move forward, we must take this crucial step. Outlined below is what the American Rescue Plan funds should be and need to be used for to address this emergency.

We need to get everyone off the streets. Immediately. We must use some of the money to fill vacant hotel rooms in the city with our unhoused community members. In a civilized society, no one should be sleeping outside.

We need a huge expansion of the St. Pete Housing Authority. The Housing Authority must assume the responsibility of moving homeless individuals from hotels into empty apartments that the city buys using some of the money. We must also subsidize up to the first eight months of their expenses as these individuals get back on their feet and look to obtain stable employment. 

The Faircloth amendment limits housing authorities from receiving federal funds to operate new public housing above a certain threshold. Here in St. Pete, we are under that threshold of 891 units. We currently operate 371 units, so that is an additional 520 units that could be owned and operated now by the city. 

The city must make it as easy as possible for people to sign up to be placed in hotels and apartments. This should include doing a public outreach campaign, sending social workers to places where homeless people populate like Williams Park, and making the website to sign up as easy to navigate and user-friendly as possible.

Units must be reviewed to the standards of safety, livability, and central location, well before purchase. 

Next, we need to get these rogue landlords under control. According to the latest data from HUD’s Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy, 36,470 of the city’s households are “cost-burdened,” that is, they pay more than 30 percent of their gross income to put a roof over their heads. 

The working people of St. Petersburg are having to endure brutal rent increases, which force them to choose between adequately feeding and clothing their family, or becoming housing unstable. We need to enact rent control now. In Florida, rent control is permitted in municipalities in times of emergency for a maximum of one year. 

In the long term, the city needs a huge expansion in public housing. A portion of the funds could be used for the construction of new housing owned by the St. Pete Housing Authority. All units should offer a subsidized rate. Outside of the Faircloth amendment, cities can just fund public housing themselves. We must prioritize meeting the needs of the people before we think about projects like $80 million for a police headquarters and $93 million for a pier. All the resources there to house everyone in this city. 

Politics in St. Pete are controlled by developers and big real estate. Candidates for Mayor and for City Council MUST give back their donations that come from developers and real estate. 

We must work under the principle that housing is a human right, and we must relentlessly push for universal housing for the people of St. Petersburg. 

***

This Op-Ed first appeared in the St. Pete Catalyst Community Voices Section on 08/31/2021

Gentrification Investigations: Evicting the Elderly

Michelle Davis' childhood home was located at 1432 4th Ave. S., an address which no longer exists. A second generation resident of St. Petersburg, Michelle has fond memories of growing up in the Gas Plant neighborhood, one of the oldest Black neighborhoods in St. Pete which was demolished in the late 1980s in order to build Tropicana Field. She remembers her Aunt's bar, the Cozy Corner, which was located in the neighborhood, and visiting Webb's City downtown. As a hardworking single mother, Michelle raised a daughter, who now resides in Nashville, TN along with her husband and two children. Despite a lifetime of contribution to our community, Michelle, 69, is facing homelessness.

"At this point, I'd have no option but a shelter"

Michelle has lived in her current home in south St. Pete for a little over 6 years. In February, her home was purchased for $88K by a land trust linked to Demeter Properties, a Tampa-based "Local Woman Owned Boutique Real Estate Company". Demeter is in the business of renovating and flipping homes, taking advantage of neighborhoods with lower property values, leading to the displacement of low income renters holding out in some of the last affordable areas of the city. A Demeter property just down the street from Michelle is listed at nearly half a million dollars. 

A Demeter Properties listing in Michelle's neighborhood

After failing to fulfill Michelle's repeated maintenance requests upon acquisition of the property, Demeter declined to renew Michelle's month-to-month lease agreement in July, giving her just three weeks to vacate the property. Under Florida law, landlords are only required to give a minimum of 15 days notice to vacate for tenants on month-to-month agreements. After August 1st, Michelle became a holdover tenant and an eviction complaint was filed against her in the Pinellas county court on August 5th.

Despite our organization's request for Demeter to give Michelle at least 6 months to vacate considering the highly competitive rental market, Michelle's age and the recent surge in COVID-19 cases, the company refused to respond or comply. Demeter's lack of compassion and basic human decency is representative of the cut-throat culture of Big Real Estate, enabled by our capitalist economic system which prioritizes the profits of a minority class of owners over the lives of seniors and working class families.

Michelle is on a fixed income and currently pays $800 a month on rent, comprising about two-thirds of her monthly expenses. With no car, Michelle relies on the close proximity of her home to public transit; she is just a few blocks from the Grand Central bus station. Despite an explosion of new construction and an increase in housing stock nearby, the cheapest apartments in these new "luxury" developments are priced at double of what Michelle currently pays. Some market cultists and industry technocrats theorize that the proliferation of new luxury units will stabilize or even lower rents across the board, a barbaric trickle-down theory masked in a progressive veneer. In reality, the lack of housing units priced for our poorest residents is actively contributing to the displacement of low income residents from the neighborhoods they reside.

It's clear that there is no market solution to the housing emergency here in the Sunshine City. It is unconscionable that our elders and working families are spending sleepless nights in fear of losing the roof over their heads. The market has never, and will never, guarantee housing for all members of our community. We must look to solutions that involve major public investment and establishment of a robust social housing program, similar to wildly successful programs in places such as Vienna and Singapore, where residents of all income levels share living spaces. As long as our elected officials allow Big Real Estate to dictate public policy and redevelop our city solely for wealthy transplants, we are only going to see more displacement, greater income inequality, decreased quality of life and trauma in working neighborhoods, especially those in south St. Pete.

We have gotten Michelle in touch with Gulfcoast Legal and are working to buy her some more time to stave off her eviction and find a new living space.

Tell the folks over at Demeter Properties how you feel about them evicting elderly residents during a deadly pandemic:

813-226-0687
info@thedemetergroup.com
Twitter: @DemeterProp
Instagram: @DemeterProperties
Facebook: @DemeterProperties

Over 1 in 10 Pinellas Renter Households are Currently Behind on Rent

As the CDC moratorium is set to expire this weekend on Saturday, July 31st, we are bracing for a possible spike in evictions here in Pinellas county. 

There are currently 2,130 open eviction cases in the county dating back to January of last year, according to data we’ve collected from the Pinellas Clerk’s website. The expiration of the moratorium may allow some of these cases to proceed, and there may be a spike in new eviction filings as the moratorium has likely discouraged many landlords from filing evictions to begin with. 

Pictured is data from a recent NYT editorial. 

According to this estimate, 14.7% of rental households are behind on rent in the US, with tenants owing an average of $3,800 in back rent. Over 1 in 10 Pinellas county rental households are behind on rent, owing $4,115 on average in back rent. Despite receiving $21.4 million from the federal government for emergency rental assistance, the Pinellas ERA only managed to distribute just $2.2 million to struggling tenants last month. It’s clear that this assistance isn’t getting out quick enough, and removing the moratorium before these funds are fully distributed will likely result in an unnecessary, fully preventable spike in evictions here in Pinellas county. 

Additionally, we are seeing a massive surge in new COVID-19 cases here in the state of Florida, with daily case totals now around what they were in January. Evictions and housing insecurity during so-called “normal” times are public health crisis; during a global pandemic this amounts to nothing short of a public health catastrophe. 

One study from UCLA showed that there were more than 10,000 preventable COVID-19 deaths before the establishment of the CDC moratorium last September. With totals surging once again there will likely be countless cases of preventable death, illness and trauma directly caused by our system’s violent and barbaric prioritization of profits over human lives. 

Housing is a fundamental human right that should be guaranteed. We must continue to work to shift our societies’ view of housing away from a regular commodity that can be withheld, and instead as a basic necessity that should be unconditionally afforded to all. 

As uncertain as the future may appear, we must continue to struggle alongside vulnerable tenants here in St. Pete and work to wrest power away from big real estate and back into the hands of regular folks who make up the backbone of our city. 

When we fight together, we win together. 

✊All power to the tenants! 

✊All power to the workers! 

✊All power to the people!

Press conference today at the Paradise Apartments

Terrence Gordon (pictured) was one of the residents facing eviction by Council Member Robert Blackmon.
 
Terrence, 62, told reporters “I’ve been homeless before, I don’t want to be homeless again”
This is the lived experience of countless individuals and families here in Pinellas county. Those experiencing the fear and trauma of eviction here on a daily basis are suffering in silence.
It goes beyond Robert Blackmon’s errors.
 
It goes beyond individual slumlords and gentrifiers.
 
Housing insecurity and homelessness represent deep moral failures of our society and of our Capitalist economic system. It is a failed system that has never, and will never, provide for the most vulnerable.
We need guaranteed housing here in the Sunshine City and in cities across the country.
 
Not affordable.
 
Not attainable.
 
Guaranteed.

Anything less is an injustice, and our Union will continue to struggle alongside our friends in neighbors against the exploitation and violence of landlordism.

All power to the tenants! All power to the people!

 The St. Petersburg Tenants’ Union and Florida Rising stand in solidarity with Paradise Apartments residents facing eviction by Robert G. Blackmon

On April 30, 2021, St. Petersburg City Council member Robert G. Blackmon purchased a 10-unit rental property at 330 45th Ave. S, known as the Paradise Apartments. Notices of non-renewal were issued to two tenants just 12 days later on May 11, giving them less than three weeks to vacate their homes. Another tenant was served a three-day notice for non-payment of rent. According to several residents, another tenant of 17 years was given just two weeks to move under Councilmember Blackmon’s management, and voluntarily complied. The eviction complaints for the other three residents were officially filed in Pinellas court on June 14. One case has already reached a final judgement, which opens the door for a writ of possession, or final eviction order, to be issued at any time.

Members of the St. Petersburg Tenants’ Union arrived at the location on June 20 to conduct an investigation. Through our observations and conversations with tenants, organizers were made aware of several critical maintenance failures involving the building's plumbing, electrical systems, and appliances. Organizers returned two days later with a letter demanding that these maintenance issues be rectified and that all evictions be voluntarily dismissed by Councilmember Blackmon. Organizers observed maintenance workers scrambling to make repairs, and residents informed us that the property manager, Carolee Blackmon, was aware of the activists’ presence and was "very unhappy". 

The demand letter was signed by four residents in total, and was co-signed by the Tampa Bay chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the Pinellas Democratic Socialists of America, Rev. Andy Oliver of Allendale Methodist Church, and the Pinellas Democrats. Upon failing to receive the requested written response, an organizer was able to speak directly with Councilmember Blackmon, along with his mother, Carolee, who handles the day-to-day operations of Blackmon Properties.

Several activists spoke at length with Carolee, who insisted that it was not their "intention" to evict anybody. It should be noted that a writ of possession was served and a resident was recently evicted at another Blackmon Properties facility in West St. Petersburg on June 22, 2021. 

There were many contradictions present between what organizers heard from residents and the claims made by Carolee Blackmon. Based on these conversations, it is our belief that there was little, if any, effort exercised on the part of Blackmon Properties to improve conditions and work with residents who had been behind on rent prior to the involvement of the Tenants’ Union. Efforts have been made by Blackmon Properties to improve conditions, but there are still many unaddressed issues. On July 9, Carolee Blackmon informed us she had instructed their attorney to dismiss the three cases no later than July 16th. We consider this a major victory that can be directly attributed to the efforts of our Union and to collective tenant power. However, our work at the Paradise Apartments is far from over.

We believe, unequivocally, that housing is not a commodity, but a fundamental human right. Housing insecurity has been directly linked to reduced quality of life, systemic inequity, mental health trauma, and premature death. Any system which elevates the so-called property “rights” of career landlords and corporations above the right to safe, guaranteed housing for all residents is inimical to the values of a democratic society. 

The Sunshine City is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis of immense proportions. More than one-third of Pinellas families currently pay in excess of 40% of their income on rent. This puts low-income tenants at a major disadvantage in the rental market. It is, therefore, reasonable to believe that residents at the Paradise Apartments may not be able to secure stable housing if evicted and thrown suddenly into such a market.

Furthermore, we are still in a national state of emergency due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Dozens of new deaths and hundreds of new cases are still reported in our state each week, while less than half of all Floridians are fully vaccinated. Given these facts, we believe that Councilmember Blackmon's attempts to evict these tenants have the potential for deadly consequences. A recent study from UCLA estimated there have been roughly 10,000 additional Covid deaths due to evictions during the pandemic; more than three times the number of Americans killed on September 11. Adding to this urgency is the fact that the CDC has noted that members of the black community are twice as likely to die from Covid-19, and nearly three times as likely to be hospitalized because of the virus. It should be noted that all residents facing eviction at the Paradise Apartments are black.

We are calling on Councilmember Blackmon to unconditionally dismiss all eviction cases at the Paradise Apartments by Friday, July 16th as was promised. We also call for repairs and renovations to be completed in full, and for all tenants to be given the opportunity to sign long-term leases to lock in current rent prices, enabling them to continue to live at the property for years to come. We ask Councilmember Blackmon to do the right thing and be a champion for the people of St. Pete, not a champion for his personal enrichment. We will continue to struggle against the exploitation of these vulnerable tenants until our demands are met in full.

All power to the tenants! All power to the workers! All power to the people!