RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- Dozens of Richmond residents gathered outside City Hall Monday night, demanding a temporary moratorium in evictions as people recover from the water crisis. "It exasperates people's income, whether they need to go out and buy water or if maybe they couldn't even afford to get water," said New Virginia Majority member Amaree Spencer. Spencer worked with the Richmond Housing Justice Collective (RHJC) to organize the rally -- held on Monday, Jan. 13 -- and present a letter to City Council asking for Mayor Danny Avula to pause citywide evictions for the first quarter of 2025. "We need a livable wage for people to be okay when they can’t work for a few days," Spencer said. The housing crisis was declared in March of 2023. With many businesses closed all week during the water outage and crisis, numerous workers were without a source of income as their jobs canceled shifts temporarily. Local activists said the temporary loss of income has only made it worse, leaving many residents struggling to make ends meet. The RHJC conducted a survey regarding the financial impacts of the water outage. Of the 80 responses received in the past few days, 85% of participants indicated that they were worried they might not be able to pay next months rent after last week. Many of these were hourly workers. "It’s critical that we center hourly workers and those in the most disadvantaged areas who are most likely to suffer from a crisis like this,” said Richmonder John Henry Williams. “The city talks a lot about equity, but it needs to do more to support the people who are truly at risk.” In order to pause the evictions for the first quarter of 2025, the RHJC wants Avula to collaborate with Richmond’s Chief Judge of the district court to declare a state of emergency to do this. “We’re going to need homes, especially as climate change impacts our environment,” Williams said. In addition to a moratorium on evictions, the RHJC is asking the city to allocate more funding for rent relief. In a City Hall meeting after the rally, Avula said the Office of Children and Families will continue to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars into eviction diversion programs. The city has also announced that water bills and other city payments will be delayed by ten days to ease the financial burden the water crisis caused. “Although it is a start, we can't keep asking for just starts," Spencer said. "We can't keep asking for just crumbs.”  The RHJC said it hopes this rally is the first step in getting its demands heard and added to City Council's next meeting agenda.