Frustration grew in the United States as President Joe Biden showed no intention to extend a nationwide eviction moratorium that will expire at midnight on Saturday.

Biden had called on Congress to address the issue but with so little time left, many lawmakers from his own party said that even as they want to, they have no way left to extend the moratorium.

Representative Cori Bush, a Democrat, camped overnight outside the Capitol in protest of the expiration.  The expiry will affect millions of Americans who could be forced from their homes due to non-payment of rent.

 “We thought that the White House was in charge,” CNN quoted Representative Maxine Waters of California as saying.

Senator Elizabeth Warren warned that the country was just hours away from a full-blown housing crisis.

“We have the tools and we have the funding. What we need is the time,” Warren was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

The ban was put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) as part of the COVID-19 crisis when many workers lost income due to shutdowns. The intention behind the ban was to prevent further virus spread by people put out on the streets and into shelters.

Though Congress approved nearly $47 billion in federal housing aid to the states during the pandemic, the money has been slow to make it into the hands of renters and landlords who are owed payments.

Biden called on local governments on Friday, a day before the expiry, to “take all possible steps” to immediately disburse the funds.

“There can be no excuse for any state or locality not accelerating funds to landlords and tenants that have been hurt during this pandemic,” Biden was quoted as saying late on Friday by the Associated Press.

The White House says that though the President would have liked to extend the eviction ban due to the spread of the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus but the administration was concerned that challenging the Supreme Court could lead to a ruling that may restrict the government’s ability to respond to future public health crises, Associated Press reported.

The Supreme Court ruled in favour of the continuation of the broad eviction ban till the end of July in a 5-4 verdict given in June. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who voted in favour of the ban, made it clear that he would block any additional extensions unless there was “clear and specific congressional authorization.”