Since taking office last year, Councilman Richie Floyd— pictured outside St. Petersburg City Hall on Feb. 17, 2022—has tried to combat the housing crisis. Credit: Photo by Dave Decker

Last Thursday, the St. Petersburg City Council approved $100,000 for a pilot eviction diversion program in South St. Pete’s Community Redevelopment Area or CRA. The resolution allows any CRA resident facing eviction to access free legal counsel from the Community Law Program without any income restrictions. Community Law Program ran a similar project during the pandemic, but federal funding required additional financial documentation before accessing services.

“It’s great we can make our residents’ lives a lot easier,” Councilman Richie Floyd said at the meeting. “There wasn’t everything that I hoped for…but it’s a great first step at a program that can push for tenants’ rights, when we’re limited in a lot of other legal ways.”

After efforts to pass rent control or a housing state of emergency failed due to state preemption, Floyd proposed that the city fund a right to counsel for those facing eviction last April.

Of the $100,000 proposed, $95,000 will go towards hiring a full-time attorney for the program. The remaining $5,000 will go towards court fees. St. Pete’s economic development officer George Smith cited the difficulty of trying to rehouse someone with an eviction on their credit report.

“We want to assist them to move on to the next step without causing long-term harm,” Smith said at the meeting. “The intent is to minimize homelessness.”

The 6-2 vote was opposed by council members Gina Driscoll and Ed Montanari. Montanari said he had concerns about the “legality of the program.” Driscoll said she was concerned about “misuse” of funds without an income requirement.

“I have some concerns about the fact we don’t have any income restrictions on this,” Driscoll said at the meeting. “I also had hoped we could come up with something citywide, because we have renters who need help everywhere.”

St. Pete’s community and neighborhood affairs administrator Amy Foster responded that the citywide program would be based on the CRA pilot program’s findings, per the council’s original request.

“This is something y’all approved and asked us to move forward almost a year ago,” Foster said at the meeting. “Once the pilot gets off the ground, the plan is to bring forward something that would affect the whole city.”

Last fall, St. Pete was one of 13 cities chosen from 38 nationwide to participate in an intensive housing sprint with the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel or NCCRC. St. Pete was one of only two Florida cities that participated, along with Miami. Over eight weeks, the city’s administration, legal counsel, and Floyd learned the ins and outs of right-to-counsel implementation.

Last month, Foster told CL that tenants’ right to counsel has always had the administration’s “full support,” noting that the NCCRC sprint helped fine-tune the process.

“Our housing sprint with the NCCRC allowed us to research and learn from other cities further along in the process,” Foster wrote.

In July, John Pollock, longtime coordinator with NCCRC, discussed the importance of the right to counsel in a place like Florida, and added that his group “definitely talked to a lot of Florida cities about this.”

Regarding preemption in Florida, Pollock says, preemption laws like Florida’s recent landlord-tenant act, are about regulating the landlord-tenant relationship, or changing the eviction process.

“Right to counsel isn’t either of those things,” Pollock said. “A city can choose to provide lawyers to tenants anytime it wants, whether there was a right to counsel or not.”

In March, Miami-Dade County funded a similar eviction diversion pilot program for $2.9 million. Broward’s proposed right-to-counsel program was shot down during last week’s county budget hearing.

With the passage of St. Pete’s eviction diversion resolution, St. Pete joins an estimated 23 right to counsel jurisdictions nationwide.

Council’s approval comes just weeks after PSTA’s decision to implement fares on St. Pete’s fare-free SunRunner, citing concerns over homeless riders.

“Either we help keep them in their homes today,” councilwoman Deborah Figgs-Sanders said, “Or we’re going to be complaining because they’re at our bus stops tomorrow.”

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UPDATED: 10/19/23 11:23 p.m. Updated a quote from John Pollock.