«I have been evicted three times myself. I know what it’s like to be forced to live in my car with my two children,» Bush said. «Now that I am a member of Congress, I refuse to stand by.»
Congresswomen Cori Bush, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley slept outside the U.S. Capitol on Friday night in protest of the end of the eviction moratorium. The moratorium, which was enacted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is set to expire Saturday night, at midnight. After staying the night outside the Capitol, Bush tweeted on Saturday morning and urged President Biden to extend the moratorium, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to reconvene the House for a vote and Senator Chuck Schumer to extend the moratorium in the Senate. «It’s not OK to just sit back and allow 7 million people, possibly upwards of 7 million people to be at risk for eviction in a little more than 24 hours,» she told CBS News affiliate WUSA at the Capitol overnight. «We can’t just sit back and allow that. As a sitting member of Congress, it’s our duty— it’s my duty, to make sure that I’m representing everyone in my district.» The decision to stay at the Capitol overnight came after Bush penned an emotional letter to her colleagues on Friday, urging them to not leave for August recess until the moratorium was extended. «I have been evicted three times myself. I know what it’s like to be forced to live in my car with my two children,» she wrote. «Now that I am a member of Congress, I refuse to stand by while millions of people are vulnerable to experiencing that same trauma that I did.» She told her congressional colleagues that if they do not act immediately, «the fallout of the eviction crisis will undoubtedly set us backwards.
