[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
H.R. 1999--THE STATE AND LOCAL
HOUSING FLEXIBILITY ACT OF 2005
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 11, 2005
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services
Serial No. 109-28
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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES
MICHAEL G. OXLEY, Ohio, Chairman
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts
RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
DEBORAH PRYCE, Ohio MAXINE WATERS, California
SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois
PETER T. KING, New York NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ, New York
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon
SUE W. KELLY, New York, Vice Chair JULIA CARSON, Indiana
RON PAUL, Texas BRAD SHERMAN, California
PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
JIM RYUN, Kansas BARBARA LEE, California
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS MOORE, Kansas
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee
Carolina RUBEN HINOJOSA, Texas
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
VITO FOSSELLA, New York STEVE ISRAEL, New York
GARY G. MILLER, California CAROLYN McCARTHY, New York
PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio JOE BACA, California
MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota JIM MATHESON, Utah
TOM FEENEY, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
JEB HENSARLING, Texas BRAD MILLER, North Carolina
SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey DAVID SCOTT, Georgia
GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama
J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina AL GREEN, Texas
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri
RICK RENZI, Arizona MELISSA L. BEAN, Illinois
JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin,
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas
TOM PRICE, Georgia BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
MICHAEL G. FITZPATRICK,
Pennsylvania
GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
Robert U. Foster, III, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on:
May 11, 2005................................................. 1
Appendix:
May 11, 2005................................................. 45
WITNESSES
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Jackson, Hon. Alphonso, Secretary, U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development.............................................. 4
APPENDIX
Prepared statements:
Oxley, Hon. Michael G........................................ 46
Velazquez, Hon. Nydia M...................................... 48
Jackson, Hon. Alphonso....................................... 49
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Frank, Hon. Barney:
American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging,
Council for Affordable and Rural Housing, Institute for
Real Estate Management, Institute for Responsible Housing
Preservation, National Apartment Association, National
Affordable Housing Management Association, National
Association of Affordable Housing Lenders, National
Association of Homebuilers, National Housing Conference,
National Leased Housing Association, National Muti Housing
Council, letter, April 28, 2005............................ 58
ACORN, American Association of People with Disabilities,
American Network of Community Options and Resources, The
Arc of the United States, Call to Renewal, Catholic
Charities USA, Child Welfare League of America, Children's
Defense Fund, Coalition on Human Needs, Consortium for
Citizens with Disabilities, Corporation for Supportive
Housing, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Jesuit
Conference USA, Lutheran Services in America, National
Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd,
National AIDS Housing Coalition, National Alliance for the
Mentally Ill, National Allicance of HUD Tenants, National
Association of Protection and Advocacy Systems, national
Coalition for the Homeless, National Council for Community
Behavioral Healthcare, National Council on Independent
Living National Fair Housing Alliance, National Law Center
on Homelessness & Poverty, National Low Income Housing
Coalition, National Student Campaign Against Hunger and
Homelessness, National Mental Health Association, NETWORK,
A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, Poverty and Race
Research Action Council, Technical Assistance
Collaborative, United Cerebral Palsy, United Jewish
Communities, United Spinal Association, United Way of
America, Volunteers of America, Wayne Sherwood and
Associates, letter, May 10, 2005........................... 60
Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, prepared statement 62
Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, prepared
statement.................................................. 68
Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, letter, May 10, 2005..... 70
Jackson, Hon. Alphonso:
Written responses to questions from Hon. Deborah Pryce....... 75
H.R. 1999--THE STATE AND LOCAL
HOUSING FLEXIBILITY ACT OF 2005
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Wednesday, May 11, 2005
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Financial Services,
Washington, D.C.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 2:02 p.m., in Room
2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Michael Oxley
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Oxley, Ney, Kelly, Gillmor, Shays,
Miller of California, Tiberi, Kennedy, Brown-Waite, Pearce,
Neugebauer, Davis of Kentucky, Frank, Waters, Velazquez, Watt,
Carson, Sherman, Lee, Moore of Kansas, Crowley, Lynch, Miller
of North Carolina, Scott, Davis of Alabama, Green, Cleaver,
Moore of Wisconsin, and Jones of Ohio.
The Chairman. [Presiding.] The committee will come to
order.
Pursuant to rule 3(a)(2) of the rules of the Committee on
Financial Services for the 109th Congress, the Chair announces
he will limit recognition for opening statements to the Chair
and ranking minority member of the full committee and the Chair
and ranking minority member of the Subcommittee on Housing and
Community Opportunity or their respective designees to a period
not to exceed 16 minutes, evenly divided between the majority
and minority. Prepared statements of all members will be
included in the record. The Chair recognizes himself now for an
opening statement.
Today the Financial Services Committee again welcomes the
Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development,
Alphonso Jackson, to discuss the details of the
Administration's proposal to overhaul the housing choice
voucher program. Commonly known as the Section 8 program, the
Housing Choice Voucher Program reflects a major commitment on
the part of the Federal Government to assist low-and very low-
income families who are unable to pay market rents in their
communities.
While this program has succeeded in providing secure, safe,
and affordable housing, this program comes at a high cost. Over
the years, the cost of the housing choice voucher has continued
to increase. In 1998, the housing certificate fund consumed 42
percent of HUD's annual budget. In 2005, HUD predicts that the
program will consume 62 percent of its budget and in 2006 it
will surpass 73 percent.
These cost increases can be attributed to a number of
factors. The current voucher program operates under a complex
set of regulations which makes the program overly prescriptive
and difficult to administer. The value of a voucher is
calculated as roughly the difference between rents in a
community and 30 percent of participating household's incomes.
In recent years, rents have been rising faster than incomes,
which have driven up the cost of a voucher and, therefore, the
cost of the program. Even though the cost of the program
continues to increase, the number of people served has remained
roughly the same.
Of equal concern is the fact that the rising cost of this
program has begun to impact funding for other key housing
programs. Funding levels for other important housing programs
such as CDBG, HOME, and housing opportunities for people with
AIDS, were reduced below their 2004 appropriation level to
cover the cost of the Housing Choice Voucher Program.
The spiraling cost of the Housing Choice Voucher Program
dictates that we reevaluate the program to determine how best
to create a more efficient and effective way of providing
rental assistance to the neediest low-income families in this
country. In 2003, the Administration proposed a State-run block
grant model for housing assistance for the needy. The
Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity held a series
of hearings on this proposal, but in the end no legislative
action was taken on the Administration's proposal.
In the last Congress, the Administration proposed a
different approach. Instead of a block grant to the States, the
Administration's Flexible Voucher Program envisioned a dollar-
based grant program to be administered by public housing
authorities. While the Flexible Voucher Program was not
considered by the 108th Congress, the appropriators did include
provisions in the 2005 Consolidated Appropriations Act moving
the program from a unit-based program to a dollar-based
program. This year, in conjunction with the dollar-based budget
approach, the Administration has proposed a new version of its
flexible voucher program.
I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge
Congressman Gary Miller for his excellent work on this issue.
Mr. Miller, along with six original cosponsors from this
committee, introduced the Administration's new proposal, H.R.
1999, the State and Local Flexibility Act of 2005. This
proposal makes significant changes to the Housing Choice
Voucher Program by providing greater flexibility to public
housing authorities to manage their individual budgets. I trust
that the introduction of the Administration's proposal by
Congressman Miller will move us closer to consensus on reforms
that will not only preserve the program for those that truly
need it, but that will address the program's spiraling cost.
We are pleased to have Secretary Jackson with us again
today. I believe this is your third appearance before this
committee this year, but who is counting? I know that many here
today are anxious to learn more about the new Section 8
initiative.
The Chair's time has expired. I yield to the gentleman from
Massachusetts, Mr. Frank.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Michael G. Oxley can be
found on page 46 in the appendix.]
Mr. Frank. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think it is probably because of the disruption of today
that we are so sparsely attended, Mr. Secretary. It is no
disrespect to you, but I think the evacuation kind of threw
people's schedules off and I think several of our colleagues
were disappointed to get the all clear. Not that they were
hoping for any disaster, but that they thought we might as well
just take the rest of the day off. So I think that accounts for
the small attendance.
I am very troubled by this proposal. Let me say first of
all, it is, as the chairman mentioned, another effort by the
Administration to reduce Section 8 costs. Previous efforts have
encountered a firestorm of opposition, as you know, and people
had to back off. I think there are some elements of this when
they get carried out that would have the same kind of problem.
I should say this. I understand this program costs some
money, but as I look at money we spend elsewhere in the budget
and as I look at the tax cuts and other factors, I think it is
a mistake to say that we must start out with some kind of pre-
set target for cutting the Section 8 voucher program. I am all
in favor of trying to improve the efficiency of this program.
The gentleman from Ohio who is not here, Mr. Ney, had convened
a couple of very important meetings with a variety of people,
including HUD, to talk about how we might improve Section 8,
how we might make it more efficient, how we might reduce costs.
I continue to want to participate in that, and I think
there are some things we can do. What we have here today are
cuts that are driven, I believe, clearly by a need to save
money at a time when we are spending money significantly
elsewhere, on the military and elsewhere, when we are cutting
taxes. I reject the notion that it has to come out of the
poorest people.
Here are some of the things that I have a problem with.
First, the proposal to end enhanced vouchers. Enhanced vouchers
are themselves a compromise. Enhanced vouchers, as we know, go
to people who are living in housing that was built with Federal
aid and where there were to be limitations on the rent. Those
limitation periods having expired, the purpose of the enhanced
vouchers was to prevent eviction for people who have been
living in places for a long time.
I will be interested, Mr. Secretary, if you could tell me,
I assume you know this, having made this proposal, how many
evictions we can expect when we get rid of the enhanced
vouchers. That is, how many people who are now on enhanced
vouchers will be unable to stay where they have been living for
a long time, including many of them who are elderly, when we
cut this back?
I am also concerned about what this does for the homeless.
You have said on other occasions, Mr. Secretary, that I have
seen in the newspapers that we should be aiming to help people
in Section 8 who are not quite as poor as the current group we
are helping. This brings in more money. The Administration has
proposed some very useful things with regard to Section 8,
proposing to consolidate services with regard to the homeless.
But we must remember the single overriding characteristic of
the homeless is the thing that earns them their name. They are
home-less. They do not have homes.
If you are able to get the Section 8 voucher program geared
at people at higher levels, if you get up toward 60 percent of
median income rather than below 30 percent, then it seems to
me, inevitably, you will be hurting the homeless. I would be
particularly interested in HUD's analysis on what you expect to
happen when we relax the targeting, when you no longer have
this requirement that so much go to people below 30 percent of
the income.
I do not claim to be the world's expert, but I have
encountered myself very few homeless people who have 50 or 55
percent of the median income in their area. I believe when you
consciously upgrade, as it appears we are trying to do, you
will have a problem.
I would also ask to put it in the record, Mr. Chairman, a
letter from the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights letter.
The Chairman. Without objection.
Mr. Frank. I have appreciated your affirmation of the
importance of fair housing, of fighting segregation, of
fighting the concentration of poor people. I was particularly
troubled, therefore, to see in the proposal as it was explained
to me, a proposal that would make it harder for people to take
a Section 8 voucher in one community and go to another
community. Basically, the bill appears to give the receiving
community the right to veto people with Section 8 vouchers
coming in. That seems to me to be an invitation to segregate
and concentrate.
As I understood it, you could get your Section 8 voucher in
community A and then you could use that anywhere else you could
find a place with community A's permission. To give all the
receiving communities a right of veto over the people who would
be coming with the Section 8 vouchers, I am very disturbed by
that. I thought HUD agreed that we have a problem with people
resisting the construction of housing and causing problems and
causing segregation as a problem.
We have the CDBG proposal that was going to say that money
could only be spent in the poorest areas. Cumulatively, we are
doing a lot to prevent effort concentration here, whether it is
racial or economic. So I do not understand what the
justification can be for giving receiving entities the right to
say no to people bringing a Section 8 voucher. I do not even
see how that saves money, and I do not think saving money ought
to be every piece of it.
So those are just some of the things that are very
troubling to me about this. I look forward to our discussion of
them.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
We will turn to our distinguished witness.
Again, Secretary Jackson, welcome back to the committee. We
appreciate your efforts on behalf of the committee and your
steadfastness in going through a number of hearings.
STATEMENT OF HON. ALPHONSO JACKSON, SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT
OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
Secretary Jackson. Thank you very much, Chairman Oxley and
Ranking Member Frank, distinguished members of the committee.
Thank you for inviting me to join you this afternoon.
I am pleased to appear before the committee to discussion
H.R. 1999, the State and Local Housing Flexibility Act of 2005.
I would like to thank Representative Miller and his cosponsors
on this committee, Representatives Feeney, Harris, King, and
Renzi, for their leadership in introducing H.R. 1999.
Mr. Chairman, I ask that I be allowed to submit my full
statement for the record.
Each day, I bring more than 25 years of direct experience
in housing, much of it gained in the public housing arena, to
my job as Secretary. In fact, I am the first Secretary in the
history of HUD to have run a public housing authority. I fully
understand the importance of HUD's supportable housing program,
and I support them wholeheartedly.
My experience allows me to tell you without hesitation that
reform of both public housing and Section 8 is needed. Under
Section 8, HUD provides approximately two million low-income
families with subsidies to afford decent rental housing in the
private market, yet the program faces serious challenges. In
recent years, Section 8 costs have spiraled out of control and
positive results are being overshadowed by the lingering doubt
about the program's effectiveness and viability.
With Congress's support, however, I am hopeful that we can
preserve and strengthen the program. The most telling indicator
of the Section 8 structural challenge is the program's rising
cost. In 1998, the housing certificate fund consumed 36 percent
of HUD's budget. By 2005, that had risen to 57 percent. Between
December 2000 and December 2004, the amount paid by the Federal
Government increased by 36 percent, totaling more than $3.3
billion.
The cost increase occurred even as the market across the
country exhibited record high vacancies and many PHAs reported
that their rental markets were soft. In fact, in some rental
markets Section 8 is leading the surge of rental increases.
Despite rising costs, we are not seeking equally dramatic
results in moving families from dependency to self-sufficiency.
Families are staying in the program for a much longer duration
of time and the waiting list remains troublesome.
As currently structured, PHAs are required to give three
out of every four vouchers to families making 30 percent or
less of area median income. This has led to a high rate of
subsidies per family and created a system where families are
most likely to stay in the program much longer. We believe that
since 1998, families have been in the program for longer than 5
years, representing the fastest growing segment of the voucher
recipients.
Furthermore, the Section 8 program is overly prescriptive
and too complex. Over the past 2 years, HUD has engaged in
numerous discussions with PHA directors, housing policy and
industry experts, Members of Congress, and interested parties
on how best to address the challenges facing the Section 8
program. The result of these policies is a proposed State and
Local Housing Flexibility Act of 2005. The Administration is
convinced that this approach will enable PHAs to better serve
low-income families, reduce the waiting list for vouchers, and
move more working families toward self-sufficiency and
homeownership.
The proposed legislation would put more decisionmaking at
the lower levels and allow PHAs to run a more streamlined
program while requiring them to control costs. As more families
move up to self-sufficiency, the duration of assistance will
drop and the dollars will be available to help additional
families over time. H.R. 1999 also takes the initiative to
provide long awaited rental simplification relief for PHAs in
their operating public housing programs.
Finally, Title I of H.R. 1999 is the flexible voucher
program which allows the local PHAs to determine the
approximate mix of low-income families to be served by
targeting 90 percent of all assistance to those earning at or
below 60 percent of the area median. PHAs would also be allowed
to create incentives for voucher recipients to find work or
improve their job situation and create new options for families
pursuing homeownership. PHAs would be able to design their own
tenant policies and simplify rent calculations, thereby
reducing the number of errors.
Finally, the proposal would significantly reduce
unnecessary administrative burdens on the PHAs. The 35-year
history of tenant-based housing assistance for low-income
renters has been one of growth, refinement, and responsiveness.
It has been a history of change. There is no question that
change is urgently needed once again. It must happen soon if we
are to continue to serve families that need Federal help and
continue to provide for the individuals who seek the American
dream of self-sufficiency.
I look forward to the work ahead as we seek to improve the
nation's largest rental assistance program. I would like to
thank all the members of the committee for your support of this
effort that we are doing at HUD. I welcome your guidance as we
continue to work together.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Alphonso Jackson can be
found on page 49 in the appendix.]
Mr. Miller of California. [Presiding.] Thank you, Mr.
Secretary.
Currently, voucher recipients can keep their vouchers as
long as they remain income eligible and adhere to the rules, of
course.
Can you explain the provisions that were included in the
Administration's proposal regarding time limits and basically
why you feel time limits would be important, and how the
disabled and elderly would fit under that in particular?
Secretary Jackson. I will answer the latter part first. The
disabled and elderly would not be affected at all. They would,
in effect, be grandfathered in because we realize that in many
case their income level will never change. But we felt deeply
that pre-1998 that the average stay on the voucher was about 3
1/2 years. Today, we are looking at somewhere between 5 to 8
years on the voucher.
My understanding in filling the voucher program was that it
was a transitional program, Mr. Chairman, not a substitute for
public housing. We believe that giving the housing authorities
the option of limiting the amount of time that recipients can
stay on the Section 8 program will open up more space for the
availability of those people on the waiting list. So we think
that Section 8 is a transition between public housing and self-
sufficiency. If that is the real case, then it should not be in
perpetuity.
Mr. Miller of California. I also wanted to mention we had a
roundtable, and Scott Keller was there, and Mr. Frank and other
members, a few other members, Congresswoman Waters. I thought
it was healthy. One thing that I guess is more of a comment,
but prior to your becoming Secretary, we went through the first
proposal, which was to block grant. We got no takers in the
entire country. So we went through that whole thing.
We did not have an authorization and, of course,
appropriations comes in and Section 8 grows. I understand that,
and then all of a sudden Section 8 grows, and if not, more
money does not go in. The end result is other good programs
such as the homelessness, AIDS, veterans, a lot of other
programs are going to get eaten up, basically, after a period
of time.
So we had the roundtable. I guess it is sort of like
education. You can reform education to death, and people have
to catch a breath. So we kind of went from this one proposal,
and then it stopped. Now we have this one. I want to thank you
for coming. I think the roundtables are a more informal way to
continue to get more issues laid out there.
But on proposals like this, the caution that I have is that
when they are done, how are they implemented after that; how is
it carried out; what kind of huge turnover occurs, not turnover
of people, but of the system, occurs out in the hinterlands?
And does it cost more money to actually make change? I think
those are some things with these kinds of proposals that are
problems.
A question I had, with my limited amount of time, but in
the written testimony, the current voucher program encourages
disincentives for very low-and extremely low-income families
from seeking housing outside the Section 8 voucher program.
The proposal today would broaden the target assisted
population, so that if that proposal would be enacted, what
happens to the very low and the extremely low families? Would
there be some other assistance for the extremely low and very
low?
Secretary Jackson. Actually, Mr. Chairman, if we look at
what we have designed, we said that 90 percent of the vouchers
should be used for persons 60 percent or less of median. If we
go back to the present proposal that we have before us, 75
percent of those must be used for people 30 percent or less of
median, and 25 percent for those up to 80 percent of median. We
have effectively cut out those persons between 60 and 80
percent down to 10 percent.
So actually, we are serving more people when we said 90
percent of the vouchers must be 60 percent of median or less.
We believe that clearly those persons who are presently on
vouchers will not be affected at all, unless they leave the
voucher program. If they do, then the housing authority has the
right to seek others to take up the voucher. But the housing
authority also under our proposal, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
Member, they do not have to go up to 60 percent if they choose
not to. We are giving them that option. That is not something
that we said is mandated. We are saying that they should have
the option to serve 90 percent of their vouchers to 60 percent
or better of median.
I think that is a rational way of doing it. I do not think
that anyone in the low-income bracket will be displaced, as
long as they already have a voucher.
Mr. Miller of California. I have heard from groups. They
would say that this proposal would help the more higher
affluent of the poor. In other words, not wealthy people, but
this would not come in to help the poor of the poor. It would
help the poor, but the more higher end of that, not that they
are rich. I am not trying to say that. I do not know if you
have heard this argument, but it still comes back to this
really will not help the poor of the poor.
Secretary Jackson. Well, my answer to that, Mr. Chairman,
is that when we are talking about 30 percent of 60 percent of
median, we are talking about marginal people, period, in our
country. I do not believe that you should have two persons
working every day who could benefit from the voucher, but
because they make 35 percent of median, they are, in essence,
foreclosed from having the opportunity to use the voucher. They
are in need also.
If you go back to pre-1998, there were two unique
provisions to the law. The first was that the homeless
population rose to the top of the list no matter where they
were. Secondly, people who did make up to 50 percent of median
had the same rights as the person making 30 percent of median.
All we asked them to do was to go back to pre-1998 to that
provision, where people stayed a lesser period of time in the
voucher program.
Now, the one provision that does not exist today is the
homeless provision. I have heard the advocates talk about,
well, the homeless persons are going to be disadvantaged. Well,
they are clearly disadvantaged today. They do not rise to the
top of the list anymore. They do not get the preferential
treatment that they did pre-2000.
So clearly I think we are going to serve more people. The
voucher will turn over much quicker, and it will be more
effective.
Mr. Miller of California. My time has expired.
The gentleman from Massachusetts?
Mr. Frank. Let me begin with that one.
Frankly, I am confused, Mr. Secretary, because I think you
are arguing both sides of the issue. On page five, you seem to
say that you want to get to people with more income in the
program.
Secretary Jackson. I am sorry. I did not hear you.
Mr. Frank. You, on the one hand, have been arguing that one
of the virtues of your proposal is that it will get people on
the whole with higher incomes than are currently in it, but
then you say it is not going to hurt the lower-income people.
Well, it is zero-sum game, particularly under your approach.
With regard to the homeless, I do not understand. You say
that this does not hurt the homeless. To the extent that you
ratchet it up, it seems to me that you are going to have a
problem. People who were homeless and are now living in
housing, no, they are not affected.
But when you talk about people who are currently homeless
applying, does your proposal do anything to enhance their
ability to get into public housing or into Section 8 vouchers?
Secretary Jackson. I think that is a fair question, Mr.
Ranking Member. Let me say this to you. No, the preferential
treatment of the homeless has been dismissed----
Mr. Frank. Does your proposal do anything to improve the
position of the homeless?
Secretary Jackson. No, it does not.
Mr. Frank. When you do not do anything to improve it
substantively and when you bring the targeting basically from
30 percent to 60 percent, I think you have a negative effect.
Let me ask you about the enhanced vouchers. As I understand
it, you are abolishing enhanced vouchers after a year. Right
now, people who are now living in projects that are no longer
income-limited are able to stay because of enhanced vouchers.
If they cannot meet the new market rent, they will have to
move. Is that right?
Secretary Jackson. No.
Mr. Frank. Well, how does it work then?
Secretary Jackson. Again, if you look at my initial speech,
we are talking about housing authorities having a great deal of
flexibility with the move to work. What we are saying is----
Mr. Frank. Excuse me. I am not talking about move to work.
Now wait a minute. Enhanced vouchers, as I understand it----
Secretary Jackson. I am going to get to that.
Mr. Frank. But I want you to get to it before my 5 minutes
expire. Here is the problem. Are you telling me that housing
authorities would have the power to go above the FMRs?
Secretary Jackson. Housing authorities have the power right
now to go above the FMRs.
Mr. Frank. On their own say, whenever they want to? They do
not think that.
Secretary Jackson. No, they have to come back to----
Mr. Frank. Well, right now we have something called
enhanced vouchers, which are for people who are in this
situation which we know about, so they do not get evicted. You
want to abolish them. What is the effect?
Secretary Jackson. No, we are giving the housing authority
the flexibility again, Mr. Ranking Member----
Mr. Frank. Then your people did not do a very good job of
explaining to me. Everything I have seen says you are going to
abolish enhanced vouchers.
Secretary Jackson. We believe that clearly----
Mr. Frank. Are you going to abolish enhanced vouchers? Mr.
Secretary----
Secretary Jackson. No, we are not abolishing enhanced
vouchers.
Mr. Frank. Well, it says you are.
Secretary Jackson. No, we are not. No, we are not.
Mr. Frank. Then correct what your people give out.
Secretary Jackson. No, we are not.
Mr. Frank. That is what they told us.
Secretary Jackson. They have a year.
Mr. Frank. What does it say with regard to enhanced
vouchers?
Secretary Jackson. They have a year to have the enhanced
voucher, and if they choose to stay in that particular
building, they have a right to pay a higher cost.
Mr. Frank. Would you read me the language that says that?
Would you explain to me why your people came to me and showed
me a paper that says we were going to abolish enhanced
vouchers? Other people have that same impression.
Secretary Jackson. They did not say they were abolishing
enhanced vouchers----
Mr. Frank. But they did, Mr. Secretary. I read it.
Secretary Jackson. No, they said that they have a year.
That is not abolishing enhanced vouchers.
Mr. Frank. It says it would abolish them after a year.
Secretary Jackson. Yes, but the way you just asked me a
question----
Mr. Frank. Excuse me. Okay.
Secretary Jackson. You said----
Mr. Frank. No, I did say you would give them a year. So you
acknowledge that you are going to abolish them after one year.
Secretary Jackson. Yes.
Mr. Frank. That is not funny, Mr. Secretary----
Secretary Jackson. It is not funny because----
Mr. Frank. Look, I must say I try to be reasonable. I do
not think you are cooperative in trying to give me honest
answers. I asked you if you were planning to abolish enhanced
vouchers. I did say after a year, so let's be careful. Your
bill would if passed as submitted abolish enhanced vouchers
after one year?
Secretary Jackson. Yes.
Mr. Frank. Thank you. What do you think the effect will be
on the people who are living in those units where they have
needed enhanced vouchers to avoid eviction?
Secretary Jackson. I do not think they are going to be
evicted.
Mr. Frank. What makes you think that if their rents go up
and they cannot pay it?
Secretary Jackson. I think that they can.
Mr. Frank. Oh, you think that the people you are giving
enhanced vouchers to could all afford to pay the higher rent?
Secretary Jackson. Yes, I do.
Mr. Frank. Could I see HUD's study on that? How many people
are there now receiving enhanced vouchers?
Secretary Jackson. I cannot give you that answer.
Mr. Frank. Has HUD studied that? There is a callousness
about this in telling me this. A lot of these are elderly
people, and they are going to----
Secretary Jackson. It does not affect elderly or
handicapped.
Mr. Frank. Oh, if they are elderly they keep getting an
enhanced voucher forever?
Secretary Jackson. That is right, and the physically
handicapped.
Mr. Frank. But other people, families, they lose the
enhanced voucher and you know as a fact that they can all pay
the higher rent. I envy you your certainty, Mr. Secretary.
Secretary Jackson. No, I cannot tell you that with
certainty.
Mr. Frank. I do not think it is a certainty, but that is
what you just said. You said none of them would be evicted. I
do not think it is a certainty. I think it is indifference.
Let me ask you about this provision that says now if I get
a voucher from City A and currently I can use it in Town B, but
under your proposal if Town B does not allow me to use it
there, I cannot use it there. What is the justification for
that? It does not save money. It seems to me it is just
enforcing anti-poor people. It is segregationist and
economically restrictive.
What is the justification for allowing receiving
communities to veto someone coming in and renting an apartment
with a voucher if the landlord is willing to rent it?
Secretary Jackson. Let me say this. I think it takes away
from the housing authority that issued that voucher because it
limits the amount of money that they are going to have.
Mr. Frank. No, no. Excuse me, but you are wrong. We are not
talking about the housing authority's current agreement to do
it. The current housing authority, the issuing housing
authority could limit it. We are talking about the receiving
housing authority. You could accomplish that by saying that the
issuing housing authority could say you cannot use it here; you
can only use it in this area.
But why should the receiving housing authority be able to
veto a use of a voucher, a rental unit in that town, if the
issuing authority is willing for it to happen?
Secretary Jackson. Well, either the issuing authority or
the receiving authority can say no.
Mr. Frank. I understand the argument with the issuing
authority, controls of costs. Why would you allow the receiving
authority to say no? Which I do not believe they now can, and I
do not believe they should.
What other than accomplishing various forms of segregation
is that going to accomplish? It does not save money. Why do you
let the receiving community veto poor people coming in and
renting apartments in their town?
Secretary Jackson. My position is that it is the issuing
authority that has the right----
Mr. Frank. Your bill gives it to the receiving authority.
Your bill gives it to the receiving authority as well; both
have to say yes. I do not understand why you are adding that.
It is your bill.
Secretary Jackson. I think that the housing authorities
should have the right to decide.
Mr. Frank. The receiving authority?
Secretary Jackson. The receiving authority.
Mr. Frank. Why? Why?
Secretary Jackson. Because clearly----
Mr. Miller of California. The time has expired.
The gentleman, Mr. Shays from Connecticut?
Mr. Shays. Sometimes, most of the time, believe it or not,
I think Mr. Frank is right, and I think he is right about a lot
of these issues. I have a hard time keeping up with how quickly
he speaks.
[Laughter.]
But the bottom line is most Democrats tend to represent
urban areas. Most Republicans tend not to. I represent an urban
area, and HUD is very important to us.
I believe that we have gotten ourselves in this mess out of
a good motive. The good motive was we do not want publicly
owned housing where we just warehouse the poor. We would like
to be able to have these vouchers so we can have poor people
basically live in units that are market-based, and so a kid can
wake up in the morning and see someone go off to work. All of
that is good.
But we should not be surprised, now, that we are looking at
what is really horrific. In 1998, 42 percent of your budget was
vouchers; in 2005, 62 percent. I do not know why it goes up
another 10 percent in just one year to be 73 percent of your
budget, but basically your testimony before us is that 73
percent of your budget is vouchers.
Secretary Jackson. It will be, yes, if we continue the road
that we are going down.
Mr. Shays. And so we all know we have a huge challenge. The
one good thing is that we are not spending our money on
bureaucracy. We are spending it getting it out there. But the
bad news is we basically, I would make the analogy to
homeownership. You own your house, and the rents keep going up;
you have a home, and your mortgage stays more or less constant.
Your taxes may go up, and you have been swept up in this
marketplace, and you can stay with it.
What we have basically done is we have basically said the
Government is going to be in the rental market and as the
rental market goes up, we are going to pay these costs. I guess
my point is, when we did it, we knew it was going to happen.
What concerns me is I feel like we are just kind of pushing
this program off a cliff, because, in essence, we are just
trying to get the local communities to take it over. We are
trying to give them the flexibility to basically dump some
people off of it to weed it out.
I feel in a way, candidly Mr. Secretary, that we are
passing the buck. I feel like this has got to be a joint effort
with the Federal Government. I do not think my housing
authority has the capability to maintain this program on its
own. I can just tell you, living in the highest-taxed city in
the country, I am seeing homeowners in Bridgeport, Connecticut
looking at a simple Cape paying $6,000 or $7,000 living on
Social Security.
So I guess my concern is not a question. It is to say I
understand why you are here, because you are looking at so much
of your budget in this program. I do not think it can be a
program we just dump to the local communities and then
basically give them more flexibility. I feel candidly we are
doing the same thing with CDBG and CSBG. We are basically
taking a $5.2 billion program, making it $3.7 billion, and then
we are saying this is great because we have this new block
grant out of Congress.
So having voted for the war in the Gulf and seeing the
money that we are spending there, I think people have a right
to be critical that we have kind of forced our revenue in that
area. I think we are shortchanging you. I think that we have
got to be willing to spend more on HUD, and I think that we
have to find a way to make sure that HUD is still in the game
and not passing the buck.
Secretary Jackson. Congressman, I do not disagree with you,
nor do I disagree with the ranking member in the sense that the
Section 8 program is a very valuable program that we have. It
does help low- and moderate-income people. But we cannot
continue to let it grow at this point.
I do not think the Section 8 program should disappear, go
away, nor people who have a voucher should be put off of those
vouchers. I am in total agreement with that. But I do think
that we should do everything in our power to assist people to
become self-sufficient, and the creation of the voucher program
was that bridge. That bridge was between public housing and
becoming self-sufficient, not a program to substitute for
public housing as we know it today.
So my contention is I want the program at HUD. We want the
program to work.
Mr. Shays. But what confuses me is that we are basically,
knowing that the program cannot even afford the folks that we
have already, we are expanding and saying more can compete for
this as you increase the income limits. So it seems like a
little bit of a disconnect for me.
Secretary Jackson. No, and I understand your concern. I
have said a number of times before you, if housing authorities
will do their job by enforcing the rent integrity program to
make sure that every person that is on that voucher deserves to
be on that voucher, and does not deserve to be paid for
utilities or a negative-based or zero-based rent, I think yes,
that 50 or 55 percent that are on negative-based or zero rent
can afford to pay. There are few people other than the
physically or mentally handicapped that might not be able to
pay.
The most important thing for us to note today is seniors
pay their 30 percent. The bulk of the seniors in the Section 8
voucher program pay every day. It is not seniors that do not
pay. It is those persons who we would say are physically
capable that are in that 50 percent that I am talking about.
Yes, I believe they can pay. I will tell you why, because I
used to run the rent integrity program. I used to go out and
make sure. I found that a lot of people who have the ability to
pay that were not paying. If housing authorities would do their
job, I think we can change this, and we can house more people.
Mr. Miller of California. The time has expired.
The gentlelady from California, the ranking member, Ms.
Waters?
Ms. Waters. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I feel as if I have been through this before. I think we
all agree that there are a large percentage of people with
extremely low incomes who have a need for affordable rental
housing. Do we agree on that?
Secretary Jackson. Right.
Ms. Waters. Roughly how many people are we talking about
who have low incomes?
Secretary Jackson. About 2 million people.
Ms. Waters. About 2 million people. So there is a big gap
between the number of persons with these extremely low incomes
who now have vouchers and the number of people who need them.
Is that----
Secretary Jackson. I think yes, there are still a large
number of people who need vouchers.
Ms. Waters. I heard you say more than once that we cannot
continue to allow this program to grow. I mean, is there not a
relationship between people who need it and the growth in the
program?
Secretary Jackson. No.
Ms. Waters. There is not?
Secretary Jackson. No.
Ms. Waters. So you think the program is growing despite the
fact people do not really need the program?
Secretary Jackson. The program is growing, but we are not
serving any more people. It is growing because we are paying
more out in subsidies for rent and for utility allowances per
person. It is not growing.
Ms. Waters. What do you propose to do about that?
Secretary Jackson. Well, as I said before, we have
suggested in this bill that 90 percent of the people that are
60 percent or less of median be accorded the right to have a
voucher. I think that clearly if we put time limitations on it,
that would be a way to make sure that they turn over. Pre-1998,
the average person, Congresswoman, stayed on a voucher about 3
1/2 years. Today, it is closer to 8. It is between 5 and 8
years. That is a huge difference than what we had before.
Ms. Waters. Let me see where we are going with this,
because I do know that there are some basic philosophical
differences between me and you and the Administration.
Are you suggesting that this program that you call a bridge
program should only serve people for a very limited period of
time and that miraculously they are going to have more income?
They do not need a voucher? Where do they go? What do they do?
Secretary Jackson. Well, I do think that there should be a
time limitation, and I have said that a number of times.
Ms. Waters. What happens to the people?
Secretary Jackson. I think that what people are saying,
where do they go, I think that they will be fine in many cases.
Ms. Waters. I beg your pardon?
Secretary Jackson. I think they will be fine. I am saying
to you that many people, as I just said to the Congressman a
few minutes ago, of the 50 percent that we pay negative-based
or zero-based rent, I believe that they have the ability to pay
rent.
But if the housing authorities will do their job, they will
end up paying their subsidies and moving off the program much
quicker. But if housing authorities do not do what they should
be doing, that is consistently the rent integrity program,
doing the inspections, no, they are not going to move.
Ms. Waters. Do you think there is any relationship to the
unemployment rate in poor communities, particularly minority
communities, and the inability to pay for housing, people who
need help? Is there any----
Secretary Jackson. I think if you are unemployed, clearly
you cannot pay for housing.
Ms. Waters. Well, unemployed or under-employed, do you
think that somehow folks who need help are going to be able to
get help for 2 or 3 years and then they will be fine; they get
pushed off the program and they just go into the wild blue
yonder?
Secretary Jackson. Yes, I do, because there are a lot of
under-employed people today that are paying almost 50 percent
of their income for rent who I think should have the same
option as those who we say do not have a job. I think they
deserve a hand-up just as well.
Ms. Waters. Well, you know, I suppose we could go on with
this conversation, except really we just come from two
different places on these issues.
As it was said before by my colleague on the opposite side
of the aisle, HUD is a very important agency because of a
number of the programs that you administer that are so
important to low-income people, average working people, just
having a simple decent quality of life.
Secretary Jackson. I agree.
Ms. Waters. We believe that it is inevitable that there
will be growth in the program as we have economies that are not
performing, as we have people who are losing their jobs, as we
have jobs that are being exported or outsourced to world
countries for cheap labor, as, as, as. We just believe that.
And I think the data that we have shows us that we are
basically on the right track.
You either have to think that it is the Government's role
and responsibility to try and help in a real way, or you do
not. You are on the don't side, and I am on the belief side.
And so we are not going to get anywhere with these meetings. We
are not going to learn anything new. It is your job to come
over here and talk to us, and it is our job to sit up here and
ask you these dumb questions that we know we are not going to
get any good answers from you about.
So having said that, let me yield back the balance of my
time and stop wasting my time. Thank you very much.
Secretary Jackson. Let me say this to you. I would like to
say something to the Congresswoman. I do think that the
Government should make every effort to help people help
themselves. So we do not disagree on that. I just do not think
it should be in perpetuity.
Mr. Miller of California. The gentleman from Texas?
Mr. Neugebauer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I want to commend you for your
long and distinguished service in housing. Basically, I came to
Congress from the housing business. I started actually, if you
are familiar with the old 236 programs, the D-4 and then served
on a city council where we had a housing authority in Lubbock.
What I am really interested in, and I think I hear you
saying this, is that we need to do everything we can at HUD to
help people transition to ownership, because ultimately when
people own their homes, the family does better overall. We have
a more stable household. A lot of studies have been done to
confirm it.
Kind of talk through with me and the panel today about what
the flexibility that happens here and how this program will
help us begin to transition those people to homeownership,
because that is something of great interest to me.
Secretary Jackson. Thank you very much, Congressman.
I think that somehow people believe that persons, once they
are in public housing or voucher, must be there in perpetuity.
I ran three housing authorities; I have never met a person who
understands public housing to stay on a voucher. Not one. They
all want to get off, but they need significant help.
One of the ways that we did it when I ran the Dallas
Housing Authority is we had our own training program. We had
our own program with the Dallas community about training
people. It worked very well. We had sufficient turnover.
That is what I am saying today, that the Section 8 program
in the beginning after we left the project-based, but the
voucher program, was a transitional program. It was to help
people move from public housing who had acquired skills and
jobs, give them a period of time to try to get those kills in
jobs that they have learned in the trade down, and then move
into rental housing that is market-rate or homeownership.
I think that we had that program well in tact until 1998
when we came up with the new proposal that 75 percent of the
vouchers must go to people 30 percent or less of median, which
at that point in time was not the case. So when you go and give
it to 30 percent or less of median, you end up paying utility
costs. You end up paying other allowances.
But more importantly, which is very important to
understand, is the housing quality inspection that we required
each housing authority to do. We ended up, and most people do
not realize this, we ended up paying landlords 2 or 3 months'
rent with no one in those apartments because it takes the
housing authorities so long to get to those quality
inspections. Where if you and I go out and rent an apartment,
we do in it the next week, once we give the security deposit.
So we are saying, with this State and local flexibility,
give the housing authorities the right to manage their housing
like we would give a private landlord. So if we give a person a
voucher, they can go directly into that apartment within 2 or 3
days, not 2 or 3 months. And that is the average because it
takes about 60 days to finish an inspection.
So if they have that authority, and I wish we had had that
authority, and we had very much similar to that before 1998,
and that is why we were able to rent and keep the voucher
turning over and over. I think something is very important to
understand. In 2005, Congress gave us this budget and said work
with it. We are working with the budget, and I think the way to
work with the budget is to give the autonomy to housing
authorities.
I want to close by saying this. When I ran the housing
authority, I always had a saying that HUD was not flexible. It
always hid behind regulations, and we had too many regulations.
And so my position was, I think I can manage my housing
authority if you let me run it. That is one of the reasons
today I am here before you to say, give the housing authorities
the choice to run their authority.
Mr. Neugebauer. So your opinion is that if we give the
housing authorities more flexibility, they can do some more
transition-type programs within the complex and help people
start to prepare for the ownership piece of that.
Secretary Jackson. I agree with you. This is going to sound
very funny because when I was running housing authorities, I
said in many cases there was not a capable, competent, or
compassionate person at HUD. Well, since I am at HUD, I think
we are competent, capable, and compassionate, and we are trying
to do that at this point in time by giving housing authorities
the flexibility to run their program. I think we are too
prohibitive to housing authorities.
Mr. Neugebauer. Thank you.
I yield back.
Mr. Frank. How many competent, capable people are there
now? Do you have one or more?
Secretary Jackson. A lot of them.
Mr. Frank. Okay. I would just ask unanimous consent to put
into the record some communications that came to myself and the
chairman of the full committee.
There is a statement from the Public Housing Authority
Directors Association, the National Association of Housing and
Redevelopment Officials, and the Council of Large Public
Housing Authorities saying we are very concerned; the bill
fails to address the most pressing problems facing our members
and assisted families renewal funding; also a statement of
opposition from a large coalition of groups from Catholic
Charities and the Cerebral Palsy and others worried about its
impact on low-income people; and a letter raising serious
questions from the alliance of the groups that are generally in
the housing supply business, home builders and the Housing
Conference, et cetera; and also a statement in opposition to
the bill from the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities.
I ask that all these be put in the record.
Mr. Miller of California. Without objection.
The gentleman, Mr. Crowley?
Mr. Crowley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
One of the concerns I have is that every time the
Administration makes another change to Federal housing policy,
it results in less funding and more troubles for many of the
people that I represent in my district. You and I had a
discussion the last time you were before Congress about the
drug elimination program, a program that provided public
housing units with police officers placed there to lower crime
and to address the issue of drug abuse.
I believe it worked. Many people believed it worked. The
Bush administration eliminated that and said that agencies
could use capital and operational funds that they receive from
the Federal Government to subsidize those programs, when, in
fact, both of those funding streams were cut as well.
We look at New York City's housing authority, HPD. They are
facing a $50 million shortfall. You have said before you want
to give the authorities the right to deny and to do the
inspections they need to do in order to make sure that the
people who are receiving those vouchers are legitimate or that
there is actually a person living in that apartment. And yet at
the same time, they are saying they do not have the resources
to do what they need to do as it exists right now on a local
level.
I just do not believe, Mr. Secretary, and this is my
personal belief, that you believe half the things you are
saying today. I say that because you went out of your way
desperately not to admit to the ranking member that the Section
8 enhanced vouchers were going to be eliminated. You danced
around for a few moments there, about a minute or so, until you
actually admitted that after 1 year, the enhanced Section 8
vouchers would be eliminated.
I have a building in my district in the South Bronx, in the
Soundview section of the South Bronx, Mr. Secretary. It is 100
percent Section 8 housing. I have a new landlord who wanted to
take over that building, and he has indicated to folks in that
building that he will not accept Section 8 vouchers, enhanced
or otherwise. I do not know what those folks are going to do.
Maybe you can tell me what they are going to do for those poor
folks who live there now.
Public housing is not a spa. Public housing is not a fun
place to be. I have many constituents, and I visit them. They
welcome me into their homes and to their abode. They are very
gracious. They try to show me the best that they possibly can
the side of their living that they are in. But quite frankly,
it is not a spa. It is not a five-star hotel.
The idea that somehow many of these folks will somehow find
a way to pay for the increase that they will have to use in
order to make up for the enhanced voucher is just ludicrous.
People just do not have the resources in a city like mine to do
that. They are being pushed out of the quasi-public housing
that they are in right now, enhanced Section 8 housing, to make
way for what the market rate will pay.
Maybe you have answers to that. I do not know what you
think these folks are going to do. I am going to ask you. What
do you think these people are going to do? How do you propose
to address that crisis?
Secretary Jackson. First of all, when I understood what the
ranking member's question was, did we have a year, I answered
him yes. Before I thought he said, were we going to eliminate
the enhanced voucher. I said no. That is the question I
answered.
Secondly, Congressman, I understand your concern, but I ran
three housing authorities. I am well aware of the games that
people play. Many of the persons that we are talking about have
the ability because they are physically capable of doing it, to
pay these rents. But if you do not do the necessary
inspections, if you do not do the necessary rental integrity
program----
Mr. Crowley. Mr. Secretary, who benefits from the voucher?
Who gets that money?
Secretary Jackson. The landlord.
Mr. Crowley. Yes, so it is the landlord who is at fault,
not the individual who receives the voucher. Yet it is the
person who receives the voucher, who gives it to the landlord,
who is going to be----
Secretary Jackson. No, it is the housing authority not
doing their responsibility. We are the ones----
Mr. Crowley. You are just passing the buck to unfunded
mandates. As I said before, New York City----
Secretary Jackson. You say I am passing the buck. The
landlord does not do the evaluation of the persons,
Congressman. The housing authority does that.
Mr. Crowley. He gets the check, though.
Secretary Jackson. Yes, but the point is----
Mr. Crowley. But he gets the check. They benefit from the
housing authority. They are not honest enough to come forward
and say the person does not live there anymore; here is your
money back.
Secretary Jackson. In some cases, no.
Mr. Crowley. So the individual who is on Section 8 housing,
that is the individual who pays the price because of that.
Secretary Jackson. No.
Mr. Crowley. Yes. You are seeing that now. You are
eliminating the enhanced vouchers.
Secretary Jackson. No, no.
Mr. Crowley. No, you are not eliminating them?
Secretary Jackson. No, I think many of the people on
enhanced vouchers have the ability to pay. And if the housing
authority----
Mr. Crowley. You actually said they have a right to pay a
higher cost.
Secretary Jackson. They have the ability to pay a higher
cost.
Mr. Crowley. But not a right. They have the ability to pay
a higher cost, and you know that? You just empirically know
that?
Secretary Jackson. I am saying to you that 50 percent of
the people on the voucher program today, or 55 percent, are
physically in good shape and can pay. I am saying to you when I
ran housing authorities, I did the necessary investigations to
make sure that many of the people paid. I would not let anyone
live in public housing or voucher program that did not pay
rent.
Mr. Crowley. Well, Mr. Secretary, I would love to have you
come to my district in the South Bronx and see the people
themselves, and you can explain it to them personally.
Mr. Miller of California. The time has expired.
You are next.
Mr. Ney. Well, I was up, so it is great timing. We seem to
be doing a lot of arguing about something that is not specified
in the bill. The goal here is to do everything we can to create
a venture between the Federal Government and locals.
Secretary Jackson. That is correct.
Mr. Ney. Now we say we are going to take 90 percent, and we
are going to make sure that goes to the 60 percent range.
Couldn't a local agency do just what they are doing now?
Secretary Jackson. They can. It is totally left up to them.
Mr. Ney. So we are not saying that you have to change the
current system. If you like the current system and it works
locally, you can do that. Is that not correct?
Secretary Jackson. That is correct.
Mr. Ney. So all this arguing is really about nothing. What
the argument is that people in Washington do not trust local
public housing authorities to meet the needs of local people.
Secretary Jackson. Well, Congressman----
Mr. Ney. That is what I am seeing. We want to try to give
local agencies more control. I want you to respond to that.
Secretary Jackson. That is baffling to me because a lot of
times they say they trust them, and they do not necessarily
trust HUD. We asked for the flexibility so they can run it, and
now they are telling us they cannot run it. So I do not think
they can have it both ways. Either we believe the housing
authorities can run it or we do not. I am one who believes that
they can. I ran three of them, and I ran them with limited
resources, and people stayed and did very well.
I also, in all three, I charged rent. No one lived in
public housing free with me, because I knew if they lived
there, they could afford to pay, other than those who were
physically or mentally handicapped. Again, I go back to tell
you. Seniors pay their rent. It is physically, able-bodied
people that are in that 50 to 55 percent.
Mr. Ney. And if you are handicapped and you are elderly, we
are not going to do a thing to throw you out.
Secretary Jackson. That is right. Nothing.
Mr. Ney. You are going to continue where you are at.
Secretary Jackson. That is right.
Mr. Ney. I guess the thing that bothers me is the goal
here--and I have told you my problems with HUD in the past.
Secretary Jackson. That is correct.
Mr. Ney. I did not think there was any accountability. I
did not think they really cared. They had these guidelines that
one size fits all, and you had to live with them, like it or
not. But for us to go to say that Chicago, New York, Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, you all have different
needs; you all have different situations. We are going to give
you a guideline. We want to make sure that 90 percent go to
that 60 percent or below, but you determine your needs in the
community.
What we have to do is you have to give PHAs an incentive to
control costs to help people to become self-sufficient. That
seems to be the goal because you just cannot continue a program
that is just going to fail. We have a long waiting list even in
my district. How do we move people into self-sufficiency so we
can basically serve more people. That has got to be the goal
here. Do you not agree?
Secretary Jackson. I agree. Let me say this to you. First
of all, I appreciate your sponsoring the bill, but what I have
seen in dealing with many of the persons in public housing and
dealing with many of the advocates is they come to those
persons in public housing or on a voucher with a very
paternalistic and patronizing attitude. They do not believe
that they have the same sense of work that they have, and they
must be in poverty for the rest of their lives.
I do not believe that. I cannot believe that because the
record is very clear. The last place that I was in in Dallas,
we moved a lot of people out. In fact, we educated more than
900 public housing kids through college, and they are not back
in public housing. We have to believe that they have the same
sense of work that we do, and as my mother used to say, get up
on the same side of the bed and want exactly the same thing
that we want. I do believe that.
Mr. Ney. Some try to say that this shifts the need from
those at the lower income bracket and just serves those who
basically have higher income, those families. I want you to
address that, and have the time to address that because I do
not think you have had time to specifically deal with that. Do
you really think we are in any way taking money away from the
people who really are poor and giving it to people who have
less of a need?
Secretary Jackson. Absolutely not. What we have said is
that 90 percent of the vouchers will go to 60 percent of the
people who are less than median. Today, 75 percent of the
vouchers go to 30 percent, and 25 percent can be used all the
way up to 80 percent. So the top level between 60 and 80
percent are effectively being cut out. It is 60 percent or less
of median. That is very important.
Again, we have heard people say, well, it is going to
affect the homeless. The homeless population does not get
preferential treatment, period, today. You have to go and apply
for public housing. But I do think that in my travels, as I
have traveled around this country, when I see people, as I have
said before, when I was in Las Vegas, like the Gonzalez's, who
are at about 40 percent, who are working every day and paying
close to 50 percent of their income for rent, they deserve a
hand-up too. They are working every day.
And there are people with the same physical ability today
sitting in public housing or on the voucher who are not
working. And I do not think that that is right. We can all
believe that everybody who has a voucher or even 50 percent of
them or 60 percent of them, cannot work. I do not buy that. It
was the most amazing thing when we made a decision in Dallas to
charge everybody rent. I had the advocates. I had legal aid
lawyers saying that people are going to be evicted overnight.
Well, no one got evicted, but they came up with the minimum
rent. When I demanded, they came up with it.
Mr. Ney. And based on your experience, you believe that
public housing authorities have a much better ability to
determine who is able to pay and who is not than the Federal
Government sitting here in Washington, D.C.?
Secretary Jackson. Absolutely, because it is the same thing
with the fair market rents that we put in place. I do not think
we should be in the business of telling Boston or New York or
Connecticut what the fair market rent is. I think that is best
determined by the local housing authority.
Mr. Ney. Thank you. My time has expired.
Mr. Davis?
Mr. Davis of Alabama. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jackson, Mr. Secretary, let me go back to one of your
major premises in your colloquy with Ms. Waters earlier. You
stated several times in your written testimony that people are
staying on Section 8 too long; the lifetime of people in
Section 8 is longer than it should be. That suggests, I guess
to some of us, that this is a matter of choice, that people can
be incentivized into making choices to leave the program, so I
want to test that proposition for a moment.
Looking at the bottom 30 percent of median income, what we
call the very poor of the poor, over the last 4 years have the
wages of those people in the bottom 30 percent gone up or down
or stayed the same in this country?
Secretary Jackson. You would have the individual housing
authority. I do not think that question can be answered because
most of the housing authorities----
Mr. Davis of Alabama. No, I am asking you a basic question.
Secretary Jackson. No, no. I cannot answer that question
for you.
Mr. Davis of Alabama. Okay, so you cannot answer the
question.
Secretary Jackson. Not that way. The question should be
asked, if they do the necessary investigation, they will be
able to answer that question.
Mr. Davis of Alabama. Okay. Well, let me ask the questions,
and you can tell me either that you cannot answer them or not.
You are unable to tell us if the wages have gone up for people
in the bottom 30 percent. I will represent to you based on my
own personal knowledge from reading statistics in this country
in the last several years that wages for the lowest income
Americans have actually stayed stagnant or gone down in most
communities. I will represent that to you, and you do not
appear to be in a position to challenge it.
I will ask the second question. Has the unemployment
level----
Secretary Jackson. No. Are you telling me that you know
specifically that the 30 percent that we serve are in the low
income----
Mr. Davis of Alabama. No, sir, I am asking you. You can
feel free to not like my question or like it, but I have the
time, and I am going to struggle through and ask it.
Looking at the bottom 30 percent of the population of the
people, the bottom 30 percent income level, less than 30
percent of median income, let's look at their unemployment
levels. Have their unemployment levels gone up or down in the
last 4 years?
Secretary Jackson. I cannot answer that.
Mr. Davis of Alabama. Okay. So you cannot answer that.
Secretary Jackson. No, you are talking about the general
population. I am talking about those persons who are in public
housing or on vouchers.
Mr. Davis of Alabama. Okay, well, then let's limit it to
that. Let's limit it to those in public housing. The bottom 30
percent of median income, have their unemployment levels gone
up or down or stayed the same in the last 4 years?
Secretary Jackson. That is for the housing authorities to
decide.
Mr. Davis of Alabama. Do you happen to know?
Secretary Jackson. That is for the housing authority to
decide.
Mr. Davis of Alabama. So I take that as a no.
Secretary Jackson. No, no. HUD does not do the evaluation
or the work for housing authorities. Each housing authority is
independent.
Mr. Davis of Alabama. Let me make the point then fairly
directly, Mr. Secretary. My proposition to you is that I think
your major premise is wrong. Your major premise is that----
Secretary Jackson. That is your right.
Mr. Davis of Alabama.--people who are staying on Section 8
are doing it somehow because of a behavioral choice, that they
just like the idea of being on Section 8, that they want to
linger on Section 8, and that if we have time limits, if we
give the local housing authorities more ability to limit their
timeframe, they will get their act together and get off the
program. I would submit to you that I think that major premise
is wrong.
Secretary Jackson. That is your assessment. That is not
what I said. That is what you said.
Mr. Davis of Alabama. Well, let me finish my point, please,
sir.
I would submit to you that if you look at the unemployment
levels, if you look at the percentage of people in Section 8
who are in poverty, if you look at the percentage of the people
in Section 8 who are not working or whose wages have been
stagnant, that their conditions have not improved in the last 4
years and that rather than it being a matter of laziness or
behavioral incentives on their part, that that is why they are
staying on Section 8 longer.
Let me shift to another line of questions. When your boss,
the President, came into office in 2001, he announced a goal of
reducing chronic homelessness; let me get the exact quote here,
ending chronic homelessness. Excuse me, not reducing it, but
ending chronic homelessness within 10 years. We are approaching
year 5 of the Bush presidency. Has chronic homelessness been
reduced in half in this country, Mr. Secretary, in the last 4
1/2 years?
Secretary Jackson. No, and we are working very hard to----
Mr. Davis of Alabama. Tell me how close the Administration
is----
Secretary Jackson. I am sorry?
Mr. Davis of Alabama. Tell me how close the Administration
is.
Secretary Jackson. I think----
Mr. Davis of Alabama. Let me finish my question, please.
Secretary Jackson. Okay.
Mr. Davis of Alabama. Tell me how close the Administration
is to meeting its goal of eliminating chronic homelessness in
10 years, because the answer can be we are really, really
close, in which case you guys should be touting that; the
answer could be we are no where near it; or the answer could be
something more complex than that.
Secretary Jackson. I think we are doing extremely well
because we are funding it at the highest level it has ever been
funded at in this country.
Mr. Davis of Alabama. No, no, Mr. Secretary, you routinely
tell us that funding is not the test now, so I do not want you
to go there with me. Tell me the number of homeless people in
this country in 2001. What is the number of homeless people
today, and what was the number in 2001?
Secretary Jackson. I will be happy to get back to you. We
can get you a number.
Mr. Davis of Alabama. You do not know that?
Secretary Jackson. We can give you that.
Mr. Davis of Alabama. You do not know that?
Secretary Jackson. We will get back to you on that number.
Mr. Davis of Alabama. Okay. Well then let me conclude with
this proposition. Again, I would submit to you, and I think
most people in this room know the number of chronic homeless
people is actually a little bit worse today than it was 4 years
ago.
Secretary Jackson. That is absolutely not true,
Congressman.
Mr. Davis of Alabama. Well, you told me you did not know.
Secretary Jackson. Give me the facts that you have. You
have made a definitive statement. Tell me where you got it
from, and I will be happy to look it up.
Mr. Davis of Alabama. Well, I am basing it on what I have
read, and I think again----
Mr. Miller of California. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Davis of Alabama. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Miller of California. Mrs. Kelly?
Mrs. Kelly. Thank you.
Mr. Secretary, I thank you for coming before the committee
and explaining the Administration's intentions on the
legislative text that is in front of us. It is deeply
appreciated by this member and a welcome contrast to the
Administration's performance on the CDBG bill because we still
do not have legislative text or a full understanding of the
impact on the States or the localities on CDBGs.
I have been contacted by a number of public housing
authorities who have shared some concerns with the bill before
us and the Section 8 program administration. On their behalf, I
would like to pose a couple of questions. H.R. 1999 allows the
PHAs to target 90 percent of their assistance to those at or
below 60 percent of area median income, as I understand it,
while retaining the hard cap at 80 percent of income for any
assistance.
While I think this is admirable flexibility, many areas
have housing markets that place the vast majority of people
without adequate housing options between median income and 60
percent of median income, rather than at 60 percent and below.
I just want a yes or a no answer to this question. Isn't HUD's
ability to declare the nonperforming PHAs as troubled
protection enough against the fraud and ineffectiveness to
allow the PHAs to determine their own income caps and targets
below median income?
Secretary Jackson. No.
Mrs. Kelly. Okay. If H.R. 1999 is passed as drafted, what
kind of streamlined process will HUD have in place to adjust
income cap and target requests from the PHAs?
Secretary Jackson. They will always be able to appeal to
us.
Mrs. Kelly. They will be able to do what, sir?
Secretary Jackson. Appeal to us, to show us if they are----
Mrs. Kelly. To appeal? In other words, you are not
changing? You are not going to streamline the process? They can
do it by appeal? That is not streamlining.
Secretary Jackson. No, when we say we are streamlining the
project, Congresswoman Kelly, we are saying we are giving them
the flexibility to use the voucher as they see fit, not being
dictated by our mandates from HUD. Right now, if they want to
pay 110 percent of median, they have to get approval from us. I
do not think they should have to. I think if they realize
within their jurisdiction that 110 percent is the median cost,
they should be able to do it. If it is 150 percent,
understanding that they have a certain amount of money that
they have to work with. I think they should have that.
Mrs. Kelly. Okay. You mention in your testimony that
Section 8 has expanded from 36 percent of HUD's budget in 1998
to 57 percent of HUD's budget in 2005. In my analysis of your
budget request, it shows that to me Section 8's percentage of
HUD's budget increases next year to 72.9 percent of HUD's
budget if the CDBG program is moved from your department. If
you exclude the CDBG from the percentage of HUD resources that
you spend on Section 8, then that expands the Section 8 from
71.3 percent to 72.9 percent. That is a 1.6 percent increase.
You say that H.R. 1999 can help contain the cost growth and
improve the effectiveness, but the percentage of your agency
resources being consumed by Section 8 goes up if your own
proposals are enacted. How do you explain that?
Secretary Jackson. No, it does not.
Mrs. Kelly. Well, that is what your budget told me.
Secretary Jackson. If we do not enact the State and Local
Flexibility Act, it is going to go up, but we believe that
clearly if we will let the housing authorities around this
country have the flexible vouchers, it will go up minimally,
but not like it has in the past. It will not go up. That is why
we are here.
You have given us a 2004 budget that said clearly we are
going from unit-based to budget-based. We are on a budget base.
Now what we are asking you to do is give the housing
authorities the flexibility to be able to use the voucher as
they see best for themselves. But if it does not, then yes, if
we do not pass the flexible voucher program, yes, we are going
to have to come up with more money. We believe with the passage
of the bill, we will be able to minimize the increase.
Mrs. Kelly. In your proposed budget for 2006, housing for
the elderly is flatlined at $741 million, while Section 8 grows
by 1.6 percent, and the funds for housing for those with
disabilities declines by $118 million. Don't you think maybe
now it is time to establish a firewall between Section 8
funding and the other HUD programs to prevent a continuing
drain on the discretionary resources that you have?
Secretary Jackson. Absolutely.
Mrs. Kelly. I am very concerned about the housing for the
elderly and the housing for the disabled. My concern is what
you are saying to us. When I look at your budget----
Mr. Miller of California. The gentlelady's time has
expired.
Mrs. Kelly. Will the gentleman let me finish?
What I am concerned about here is that there will be
cohorts of people that are going to be ignored because Section
8 is going to grow. I think you need to very strongly have a
look at this, and I wish you would get back to this committee
about how you are going to handle these people, the elderly
flatlined and aid for disabilities declining by that much
money.
Secretary Jackson. I will be happy to do that,
Congresswoman. I will say this to you. The $1.1 million that we
added to the Section 8 voucher program is to help make the
transition toward the flexible voucher program. That we think
is very important.
Secondly, I think that it is important to understand that,
as I have said before, the physically, mentally, and seniors
will be grandfathered in. They will not be affected by this. We
are simply talking about those who can do it.
Mrs. Kelly. It is reflected in your budget. When you see
things like area housing----
Mr. Miller of California. The gentlelady's time has
expired.
Mrs. Lee?
Mrs. Kelly.--you know you are going to have more people in
Section 8.
Mr. Miller of California. Mrs. Lee?
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good to see you, Mr. Secretary.
All I have to say is, here we go again. You know, first of
all, let me just say to you, the more and more I listen to you,
the more and more I understand what you meant when you said
poverty was basically a state of mind.
Also, and you did not agree around CDBG, but again I am
going to have to say to you, this block granting of Section 8
and what you are doing under H.R. 1999 is another effort to
dismantle HUD. For whatever reason, this administration has it
out for the poor and the low income. Why, I do not know.
Let me ask you a couple of questions. In terms of
homelessness, don't you think first of all by changing this
formula you are going to actually increase the numbers of
homeless? And secondly, it is my understanding, and I want to
ask you, how do you determine what mechanisms you use to count
the number of homeless in this country?
And thirdly, some numbers that I have, and you may want to
go back and verify them, but you said that this is the highest
budget we have had for the homeless, but 10 years ago it was
$1.79 billion, and adjusted of course for inflation; in 2005 it
was $1.2 billion; and in 2006, $1.4 billion. So that does not
appear to be the highest amount of money that we have actually
spent, which again is very minimal, if you ask me, given what I
think may be 180,000 people who are homeless, but you guys do
not tell us because you do not know how to count, I guess.
So could you kind of give me some feedback on that first
question?
Secretary Jackson. Sure. Your figures as they relate to the
homeless population are pretty close. It is according to what
study you look at, whether it is 180,000 or 200,000 people. We
believe that clearly we will do everything in our power to end
chronic homelessness because it is very, very important.
I do not think that this present budget that we are
presenting for Section 8 we are trying to dismantle HUD. I do
not see----
Ms. Lee. Do you think this is going to increase the numbers
of those who are homeless, though?
Secretary Jackson. No.
Ms. Lee. What is going to happen to all these people who
are at the bottom of the barrel?
Secretary Jackson. Until 2000, homeless people rose to the
top of the Section 8 waiting list, the same in public housing.
That provision was struck out by Congress. That is not the
case. So we are not serving the homeless even today with the
present vouchers that we have. We are serving those who are the
top of the waiting list, and many of those persons are not
homeless, Congresswoman.
Ms. Lee. I am saying you are going to create more people.
Secretary Jackson. I do not see how the two connect.
Ms. Lee. If this goes through, in 3 years guarantee there
will be another 50,000 to 60,000 people homeless as a result of
this.
Secretary Jackson. I do not believe so, Congresswoman.
Ms. Lee. You do not believe so.
Secretary Jackson. No.
Ms. Lee. Okay, but would you let us know what mechanisms
you have in place to provide the numbers in terms of
statistical data for the homeless?
Secretary Jackson. I will be happy to.
Ms. Lee. Secondly, let me ask you about this provision
which of course I am really quite shocked about, and I did not
realize it until today. There is a provision of this bill that
eliminates the housing agency requirement to consult with
residents or the public in terms of changing the key housing
policies, and it prohibits voucher holders from serving on
public housing boards. Is that the case? And if it is----
Secretary Jackson. Will you give me that again? I am sorry.
Ms. Lee. Okay. There is some provision, and what is why I
am trying to clarify this, that actually prohibits voucher
holders from serving on public housing boards and also
eliminates current requirements to consult with residents in
public housing units and changes key housing policies as it
relates to the involvement and the participation by tenants.
Secretary Jackson. Let me say this to you, I am not
familiar with that portion, but if it is in there, I will tell
you personally I will look at that, because clearly I am a
person who believes that the residents should have say-so about
what affects their lives, whether they are in public housing or
on a voucher. I believe that residents should also serve on the
housing authority boards.
Ms. Lee. If that is in there, we have a commitment from you
at least to try to take it out?
Secretary Jackson. Yes, you do.
Ms. Lee. Okay. Thank you very much.
Secretary Jackson. I will tell you that, yes.
Ms. Lee. I appreciate that. And also, finally just in terms
of following up on Congresswoman Waters's questions with regard
to the time limits. You know, I am not an attorney, but I have
many friends who are lawyers, many on this committee. Listening
to you, you cite the worst cases, and I know they always say
worst case makes bad law. And you cite, you know, no program is
perfect, but you always cite some form of abuse or people
trying to beat the system.
But for the most part, that is a very small percentage of
those living on Section 8 vouchers. So why do you keep saying,
you know, giving us those examples when, in fact, those are the
smallest number of people, rather than showing us how the
program benefits people and how the majority of those on
Section 8 play by the rules?
Secretary Jackson. First of all, let me say this. I believe
that the Section 8 program does benefit people. I do not want
any misunderstanding. I think it does help the quality of life
of people. But Congresswoman, I have had the unique ability of
running three housing authorities. It is not a small number. It
is not a small number, and I do not know why people believe
that those persons who try to escape the system are small
numbers.
I can tell you, whether it was in St. Louis, whether it was
in Washington, D.C, or whether it was in Dallas, it was a large
number, and in many cases we were removing, in some cases 300
or 400 people off of our rolls about every, not even a year,
about every 6 to 8 months because we did find that they were
not honest with us. And when you have valuable vouchers, I
think it should be used for those persons who actually need the
vouchers, not those who are, in essence, conning the system.
So I do not think it is a small number. We disagree on
that.
Ms. Lee. Well, okay.
Mr. Miller of California. The gentlelady's time has
expired.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Miller of California. Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite?
Ms. Brown-Waite. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, just a couple of questions. Why does it seem
to take so long for vacant units to be inspected by housing
agencies before the unit is actually approved for a lease-up? I
am sorry I came in late. Someone may have already asked this
question. Is the problem the standards, the current housing
quality standards? Are they too stringent or too lenient? I
would appreciate your response.
Secretary Jackson. Yes. As I said before you came in,
Congresswoman, in many cases when we find a landlord who is
willing to rent to one of our voucher holders, it is somewhere
between 60 and 90 days before they can move in. In many cases,
the housing authority has said that their housing quality
inspectors are overworked by checking other units.
So what this bill has proposed is the same thing that we do
in the regular rental market. If clearly the unit is stable and
up to snuff, and the renter, that is the voucher holder, says
it is, they have an opportunity to move in. If within the 60
days of that period that they move in, we will do an inspection
to see if the unit is up to snuff. If it is not, then we will
hold the landlord responsible or tell the person they still
have their voucher, but they have to look for a better place to
live rather than waiting 60 to 90 days to move that person in,
yet we are still paying that landlord.
Ms. Brown-Waite. A follow-up question on the question that
Ms. Kelly asked. When I came in, she was asking it. Do I
understand you to say that the housing units and the
expenditures for housing units for seniors and disabled are not
being decreased?
Secretary Jackson. No. What I said is that if we institute
the flexible voucher program, many people have said, well, we
are going to push seniors, physically and mentally handicapped
people off of the rolls. No, we are not. They are not affected
by the flexible voucher program that we are talking about here
today. We are talking about those persons who are physically
capable of carrying out their daily lives.
Ms. Brown-Waite. Are there any provisions in the
flexibility plan that will protect the seniors and the disabled
in public housing?
Secretary Jackson. Yes.
Ms. Brown-Waite. Tell me what those protections are.
Secretary Jackson. It clearly says that they are not
included in the bill. It is just very clear.
Ms. Brown-Waite. And the funding that will specifically be
there for elder housing and for the disabled, that is the same?
Secretary Jackson. Yes, it is all in the voucher program
package.
Ms. Brown-Waite. It has not changed any?
Secretary Jackson. No, no.
Ms. Brown-Waite. So the housing authorities will be given
the same amount of money or more? Is it possible that there
will be more?
Secretary Jackson. There might be a possibility that there
will, but they will clearly be allocated the amount of money
that you all have given us for the 2005 and 2006 budget.
Ms. Brown-Waite. Okay. And if I go to your specific budget
request, I will see that the funding for seniors and the
disabled are not reduced.
Secretary Jackson. Yes. I cannot say you will see. The
funding was increased by $1.1 billion, period, the voucher
program, and that takes care of everybody. So it is not
dissected into whether it is senior. We do have some specific
811 program which is for the disabled.
Ms. Brown-Waite. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Miller of California. Mr. Lynch of Massachusetts?
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and the ranking member.
Mr. Secretary, thank you for your willingness to testify
and help this committee with its work. I want to follow up on a
point in your dialogue with Mr. Davis. You mentioned that a lot
of folks just stay too long in public housing. In your own
experience, how long do you think it should be before people
have the ability to move out and move off of either Section 8
assistance or move out of project-based housing?
Secretary Jackson. I guess that would depend on the needs
of each individual family. In a sense, I do think that
traditionally I did not think that 3 1/2 years on a voucher was
extensive. I do not think 3 or 4 years in a public housing unit
is extensive. I think that it gives the person an opportunity
to save and to increase the ability to go out in to the rental
market or to buy a home. I think that any way we can help them
increase their abilities to get off of public housing or a
voucher, we should help them.
Mr. Lynch. Yes, I just wanted to say this. I do feel that
some of your approach is more blaming the tenant, quite
frankly, in looking at their approach to life versus looking at
what their options might be. In my area in the city of Boston,
I actually grew up in the housing projects in South Boston in
the Old Colony housing projects myself and my five sisters. My
dad worked full time. My mom worked part time. It took us 15
years to finally get out of public housing. My mom and dad
wanted us out of there every single day. It is the poorest
predominantly white census tract in the United States, a lot of
single parents and a lot of hardship there.
Believe me, the families there, and I think in most cases,
they want to be out of public housing. I do not agree that they
are laying back and they are being insensitive to the needs of
their children to get out of that environment in many cases. In
the situation of my own family, we were able to buy a house for
$14,000 back then. Of course, it was across the street from the
housing project, so my parents never did get us out of there
even when we did ``move out.''
I spend a lot of time with my folks in public housing. That
is where I come from. Right now, a lot of those families are
faced with a couple of options. One, they can try to move out
and pay $1,500 a month rent. And if they want a two-or three-
bedroom, and a lot of these families have kids, they are
looking at $2,000 a month rent. And that is about $500 or $600
more than they make in a month, so there is a deficit here.
They want to eat and pay for clothing for their kids.
The other option is just to move out and go into a shelter.
That is why we are seeing a lot of the overcrowding in our
homeless shelters. I just do not, and you know, I have had some
time to spend with these families and they want desperately out
of public housing and they are working their way out, but there
are no alternatives for other housing, other than public
housing, for these families. We are trying to figure that out.
I just want you to realize that for a lot of these
families, they are doing the right thing and looking to get out
of a tough situation. This Section 8 situation is the only hope
that they have in many cases of getting their kids out of a
tough situation.
Mr. Miller of California. Would the gentleman yield for a
second?
Mr. Lynch. The gentleman will yield.
Mr. Miller of California. In the bill when we introduced
it, it is optional. We said that if you are going to have time
limits, it is no less than 5 years. It is optional.
Secretary Jackson. That is right.
Mr. Miller of California. We do not mandate that they set
any timeframe on it. The local public housing authority has the
right to determine how long they want if they want a time
limit.
Mr. Lynch. Right. But what I am saying, if I could reclaim
my time----
Mr. Miller of California. Yes, absolutely.
Mr. Lynch.--is that it obviously creates the opportunity
for discrimination. If you are making a case-by-case rule by
every individual in each individual circumstances with a couple
of million people, I would dare say that from PHA to PHA,
whether it is Baltimore or Boston, depending on that person's
location and their luck, they are going to be treated
differently under this policy. There is no hard and fast rule
if you are going to treat it on a case-by-case basis.
I am just very concerned about this. I do not see the
resources being put in this area. I see a pullback, quite
frankly. I understand because the budget is growing and we have
less money because we have to support those tax cuts for folks
in the top income brackets, and I understand the need to do
that. But in all seriousness, I just see a complete
retrenchment in terms of the Federal Government's commitment to
public housing. I see it every day, and I see it especially in
these hearings.
Secretary Jackson. Well, Congressman, I understand what you
said, but let me first say that I believe, and I think I said
it before you came in, that I have not met one person who wants
to stay in public housing or stay on a voucher. I agree wholly
with you on that point of view. The difference is, as Chairman
Miller just said, it is an option.
Secondly and thirdly, we have been criticized over the
years for being so prescriptive in the sense that we want
unanimity for the housing authority in New York to be the same
in San Francisco. They are totally different. They are totally
different. What we are saying to you today is we want to give
them the flexibility to be able to run their housing authority.
Some years ago, Congress gave us a demonstration program
called Move to Work. We have about 10 housing authorities. All
10 of them are different. One is Cambridge, within your, I am
not sure if within your congressional district, but Cambridge--
--
Mr. Frank. No, no, Cambridge is not in the Congressman's
district.
[Laughter.]
To their mutual relief, I think.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Miller of California. The gentleman's time has expired.
Secretary Jackson. But the key to it is, what we recognized
at that point in time, and I had said years before, these
housing authorities are different, and they should have the
flexibility to run their programs as they see fit. But
initially when we started the Move to Work, they said the best
model we have seen is Cambridge, so everybody should follow
that model. Well, it just did not work in Atlanta, so we had to
adjust the models and let the different agencies run their own
Move to Work. It would not work in Chicago, so I think
flexibility is very important.
Let me close by this. You know, I am very, very sensitive
to low-and moderate-income people, but I do not address them
the same way as many people. I do not address them from a very
paternalistic and patronizing manner. I think they have the
same sense of worth that I do, and I am going to help them if
they want to help themselves get out of public housing, get off
of the voucher.
I will do everything in my power to help them. I think that
if you go to either one of the housing authorities I ran, you
will do that. If you go to Brumley East and ask your people
there, they will tell you that I have probably been one of
their greatest advocates.
Mr. Miller of California. Mr. Lynch, that was a very good
question. The key to this bill is we do not mandate anything.
If they want to leave the system as it is, they can.
Secretary Jackson. That is right.
Mr. Miller of California. We are just saying to the local
PHA, if you want to mandate some type of time limits, you can
do that, but it can be no less than 5 years, so we try to put a
minimum standard on there.
Mr. Frank. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Miller of California. Yes.
Mr. Frank. I did want to say, because I would like to
consult with the gentlewoman from New York, and I did think,
Mr. Secretary, I hope you would address this. In her question
when she talked about a 1.6 percent budget increase, someone
got the impression that your answer was that would have been
under the old system. I think the gentleman is accurate that
the increase she talked about is the increase you asked for
assuming the new system was in place. So the gentlewoman's
assumption I think is that the 1.6 percent increase is what you
are asking for under the new system.
Secretary Jackson. Yes.
Mr. Frank. Well, I think your answer came out differently
to that.
Secretary Jackson. I am sorry if it did.
Mr. Miller of California. Okay, thank you.
Mr. Green?
Did that answer your question, Ms. Kelly? He rephrased his
answer.
Mrs. Kelly. I very much appreciate the gentleman's
comments, because yes, there was a misunderstanding in the way
that you responded to my question. So thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Miller of California. Mr. Green?
Secretary Jackson. Please excuse me. I did not understand
it. Thank you.
Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr.
Ranking Member.
And I thank the Secretary for giving us this portion of his
valuable time.
Mr. Secretary, perhaps I am restating what has been said,
but I too believe that most people receiving welfare really
want to say farewell to welfare. They do not care to be on
welfare. I had the opportunity for 26 years to sit as a judge
of a court that had exclusive jurisdiction over forcible entry
and detainer lawsuits commonly known as eviction lawsuits. So I
had an opportunity to interact with various housing
authorities.
I have had an opportunity to examine empirical data as it
relates to the persons who had zero-based rent. Over the years,
I consistently saw empirical data that indicated these persons
were receiving zero-based rent because of their inability to
afford some of the necessities of life. I saw justification for
zero-based rent.
My question is, if a person was receiving zero-based rent
and you imposed a standard that required the person to pay some
amount of rent, where were they to acquire these funds for this
rent? Did it matter where they were to get the money from,
given that they were qualified to receive zero-based rent?
Secretary Jackson. I think, Congressman, I do believe that
there are some people who are physically and mentally
handicapped who deserve to be on zero-based rent. I am of the
opinion that if you are physically capable of going to work and
in many cases most of the people are, they can come up with the
rent. As I said a few minutes ago, when I imposed a rent
requirement many people said people could not pay it, that we
would have huge evictions. We had no evictions. People came up
with the money.
Mr. Green. That was why I posed the question. Let me just
interrupt for a second because my time is short. That is why I
posed the question. Where do you think they are coming up with
the money from? I say this to you because to have zero-based
rent, by definition means that you could not afford some of the
necessities of life. So where do you come up with the money to
pay this rent?
Secretary Jackson. Congressman, and I do not want to sound
very harsh, but if they had zero-based rent, in many cases they
would not have any amenities within their apartment. It is my
belief that in many cases these people do have the ability to
make a living and in a lot of cases they do make a living. They
just do not report their income. I believe that if you are
physically or mentally handicapped, in some cases elderly
people, you might clearly have a serious problem with zero-
based rent. But I do not think if you are physically capable
that that is an issue.
Mr. Green. Let me go on. I have actually gone into homes as
a part of the judicial process. I have actually gone to
locations. I have seen the homes, and you are right. They had
very little in their homes. I will also tell you that usually
it was a female. Usually she had more than one child, more than
two, probably three or four children.
Notwithstanding what I would like America to be, they were
in a position where they could not work and take care of those
children, the needs of those young children. There was no day
care available for those children. They did not have a spouse
who was there to care for those children.
Literally, there are some people who merit zero-based rent,
who are physically capable of working. I marvel at the notion
that they all paid. That is why I asked where did they get the
money from.
Secretary Jackson. I cannot tell you that, but I know they
paid.
Mr. Miller of California. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Green. Thank you.
I thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Mr. Miller of California. Did you have a conclusion?
Mr. Cleaver?
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here. I am perhaps in a
unique position. I think one other person may be in the same
position. I both lived in public housing and appointed later in
life a public housing authority. My mother, father, and three
sisters, and I lived in this house for 7 years. It still stands
not far from the last place you served in Dallas, Texas. We
lived in here for 7 years.
My father paid $5 a week for us to live in here, and that
was too much, no running water, no plumbing. This is an alley.
We paid the Templeton family $5 a week to live in what used to
be a slave shanty. Mr. Chairman, we moved out of this shack
into public housing. We lived in public housing for 7 years. My
daddy is not trifling. My daddy worked two jobs and cut yards
on the weekend. My mother worked ironing, doing everything
else, and started college when I was in the eighth grade.
We lived in public housing for 7 years. To show you how
trifling my family was, all three of my sisters and I have
post-graduate degrees from this shack. Mr. Secretary, people
who live like this for the most part, and I am speaking
experientially, are struggling to do better. I agree with you.
Nobody enjoys living like this. Our disagreement comes when we
have a disagreement on zero rent because there are people who
are struggling every day, working hard, working two or three
jobs trying to elevate their families, who cannot pay.
I can call the names. This is not something I read in a
sociology book. I know people. I grew up with people. I know
people today who are struggling. It seems to me that the
responsibility of the United States Government is to do
everything conceivably possible to make sure that people do not
live like this, particularly those who are struggling to get
out.
I am troubled that I would be a Member of Congress when we
ended up passing legislation that would essentially put people
in the streets. I do think people will become homeless in
situations like this. We would have, my family would have
become homeless. If that had happened, they would not have
principals of schools in Houston, in Kansas City, Missouri, and
in Flint Michigan.
The proposed lower-income targeting in H.R. 1999 would
change the voucher program serving primarily the lowest of the
low, the extremely low-income families who are below 30 percent
of the median, to families with income up to 60 percent of the
median. Now, the change in the income targeting would have a
damaging impact on African Americans and Latinos. According to
the National Fair Housing Alliance, 53,000 African American
families and over 12,000 Latino families would lose their
vouchers.
So what do we say to them? How do we respond to them? What
help is available to them?
Secretary Jackson. Mr. Congressman, I do not know where
they got those figures from. Those persons who are presently on
vouchers will not lose their vouchers. That is again the
exaggeration that I go through every day. They are not going to
lose their vouchers.
Let me say something to you. It is clear to me that there
are people out there every day that clearly are struggling. I
am not in any way blind to that facet of life. I came from a
family. My father had a fifth grade education. I am the last of
12 children. They educated all 12 of us. We did not live much
better, but I remember something that happened that has always
stayed with me.
When my father got cancer, Congressman, the welfare worker
came by. She said, ``Mr. Barker,'' she called him, she says,
``You are entitled to Social Security, Social Security
supplement, welfare and food stamps.'' My father could barely
talk, but he said something that has stayed with me. He said,
``I have only earned two, that is Social Security and Social
Security supplement; I will not take welfare, and I will not
take food stamps.'' That was his belief, that he had the pride.
He had earned what he wanted.
So I am saying to you, I am in no way going to denigrate
anybody who is low-income in this country because I have been
through it. And due to the hard work of my mom and my dad, I am
sitting here because they, too, my mom worked every day. She
washed and cleaned white persons' homes. That is what she did.
So I am totally in agreement with you, but I do believe
this, that we must give people something to shoot for. If we do
not give them something to shoot for, then we leave and we
disrespect them. We are saying that they are not human beings
with the same sense of work as me. I am not going to do that. I
am not going to be patronizing and paternalistic to a person
because they are low-income. I believe we can help them if they
want to help themselves. My job is to help them, and that is
what I did with the three housing authorities that I ran.
I said earlier today, 900 kids came out of college because
we started a program. I did not want to see them going back to
public housing. I thought that they deserved better and we
should give them better if they had incentives. And they did.
Now we might disagree how we get there, but I think we agree
philosophically that there are people who are suffering, and I
do not disagree with that.
Mr. Miller of California. The gentleman's time has expired.
Thank you.
Mrs. Moore?
Ms. Moore of Wisconsin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Secretary Jackson.
I am focusing on page four of your testimony. I am looking
at, I will start from number two since my time is limited,
where you are really talking about 1998, those reforms that
gave PHAs greater control. Because HUD was paying more money,
that you gave them flexibility, thus allowing them to set the
standards between 90 and 110 percent of the local fair market
rate.
Secretary Jackson. Yes.
Ms. Moore of Wisconsin. So here you clearly laid out the
problem and why there were escalating costs in the program, but
then you concluded that it was the behavior or the wrong
program incentives, which is why we now need to give
flexibility to these agencies that already abused it. I was not
quite understanding that. Could you just clarify that cause-
effect relationship because I do not get it?
Secretary Jackson. What we are saying----
Ms. Moore of Wisconsin. And do not take all my time because
I have another question.
Secretary Jackson. All right. I won't.
Ms. Moore of Wisconsin. Okay.
Secretary Jackson. What we are saying is that we gave them
that incentive, but it was still based on units. It was a unit-
based cost. And they could go that high, but in the final
analysis what we are saying today is if they choose to pay 150
percent of median, that is their right if they think that is
the way they are going to be able to get a person or a family
of four into housing.
Now in New Hampshire, in California, even at the ability of
110 percent, they still cannot house a person. I am for giving
them the flexibility that they need to address the locale in
which they live.
Ms. Moore of Wisconsin. But you said that it was that abuse
that caused the costs to spiral, and now you----
Secretary Jackson. No, what we are saying is this,
Congresswoman, is that clearly because it was unit-based, there
was no incentive for public housing authorities to really make
an effort to bring down the cost of those units, even when the
market was less than what it was.
Ms. Moore of Wisconsin. Let me explain my background to you
a little bit. Notwithstanding the fact that I have a very
similar impoverished background, I want to tell you something
else about my background. I was an employee of the Wisconsin
Housing and Economic Development Authority for 15 of the 16
years I served in the State legislature and was an employee of
that agency.
I saw our creating Section 8 project-based and unit-based
Section 8 housing that offered opportunities to families with
higher and higher and higher incomes, thus squeezing out the
very, very, very low-income person. As a member of that board,
I squealed and whined and cried about approving every Section 8
project because, in fact, the lowest-income people were not
going to benefit from the program. So I see this bill as just
codifying what the public housing agencies are already doing,
squeezing out low-income people.
And let me tell you about those people who do not want to
be on welfare. Let me tell you; I want my welfare. When I put
in my mortgage interest deduction, the biggest housing welfare
program we have, I want that welfare because those kinds of
things really stabilize a family.
If you have a mortgage, Secretary Jackson, you know, at 4
percent, you have stabilized your housing costs. Maybe you
bought or if you bought property here in the D.C. area, maybe
you could direct me to how I can get some welfare or how I can
have bought a property 20 years ago for $20,000 at 6 percent
interest rate and maintained that same housing costs. Should we
kick those people out because they have been there for 5 years?
These poor people want the same sort of stability.
So I guess when we start talking about the character of
people and not changing the 30 percent, the Brooke amendment,
eliminating that. You have asked for hard-core data. I am from
Milwaukee, Wisconsin where according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, 59 percent of African American men have no jobs.
Our economy has changed. We have had loss of thousands of
manufacturing jobs. These are not people who are just trifling
and unwilling to work.
So I can tell you that I see your testimony being very
oxymoronic because you did identify the problem. You gave PHAs
flexibility, and as my nephews would say, they vicked you. And
you are now attributing those high soaring costs to the
behavior of poor people, and it is totally unfair.
Secretary Jackson. I would say this to you, Congresswoman.
No, I am not attributing those high costs to low-income people.
I do not believe that. I think that clearly the housing
authorities, as I said earlier, have not done their job. I am
not trivializing anyone because of their low-income status. I
would not do that.
Mr. Miller of California. The gentlelady's time has
expired.
Ms. Moore of Wisconsin. I just want a clarification, Mr.
Chairman. I did not say that. I said that you identified the
problem in your testimony that the flexibility that you
provided them and the extra cost that you picked up was the
problem, but you concluded with, we have to create an incentive
for people who do not have more than 30 percent; we have to
reward the bad behavior of the PHAs by giving them even more
flexibility. That is my read of your testimony.
Mr. Miller of California. Thank you.
Would you like to respond?
Secretary Jackson. I do not think, Congresswoman, that is
what I am saying; at least not from my perspective, that is not
what I am saying. I am not in any way trying to denigrate the
person who uses the voucher. What I am saying clearly is this,
is that HUD and the housing authority are both at fault because
we let this get out of hand. Today, we are trying to correct
it.
There is no question about it. You are right. The housing
authorities have not done what they should be doing, but HUD
did not do what it should have been doing either. Okay?
So I see this as a way and a mechanism to correct the
problem and yet serve more people who are in need. That is all
I am saying to you.
Mr. Miller of California. Thank you.
Mrs. Carson, it is good to see you up and about and here
with us today. You are recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Carson. Can I ask the gentleman a question?
Mr. Miller of California. Yes, you may.
Ms. Carson. Is it my turn?
Mr. Miller of California. Yes, it is. It is your time. You
are recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Carson. Thank you very much.
Mr. Miller of California. I am sorry. Mrs. Velazquez, you
are first.
I am sorry, Mrs. Carson. I am getting a look. I crossed you
off. I am sorry, just a second.
Ms. Velazquez?
Ms. Carson. That is all right. We both look alike. No
problem.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Velazquez. That is correct, sister.
Mr. Secretary, I think that the problem that we have with
this proposal is, and I am speaking in terms of myself and this
side of the aisle, is that my understanding is that this bill
rolls back 30 years worth of protection. I am here listening to
you saying that everything is going to be fine, that low-income
people are not going to be impacted, that they will not lose
their vouchers. Is that what you said?
Secretary Jackson. That is correct.
Ms. Velazquez. Are you prepared to send to us in a written
position stating and laying out how this will not happen?
Secretary Jackson. I have no problems at all,
Congresswoman, telling you that those persons who are currently
on a voucher, we are not going to go in and take those vouchers
away. If you want a letter from me saying that, I will be happy
to give it to you. We are not going to take a voucher from
anyone who presently has one.
Ms. Velazquez. Mr. Secretary, we all know that increasingly
more Section 8 buildings are reaching the end of their 20-year
contract. There are nearly 2,000 units in my district with
expiring contracts this year alone. Despite these figures, this
proposal limits the use of enhanced vouchers which protect
tenants from unmanageable rent increases.
This is happening in my district in New York City, where we
are facing a housing crisis right now. Rather than jeopardizing
people's housing stability by limiting enhanced vouchers,
wouldn't it be a wiser approach to preserve affordable units by
helping tenants find ways to purchase their buildings?
Secretary Jackson. I agree with that.
Ms. Velazquez. And?
Secretary Jackson. I agree with that.
Ms. Velazquez. So how are we going to do that?
Secretary Jackson. We are working every day to make sure
that if the tenants can do it, they can do it. And we are
working also to make sure that those persons who own those
buildings do not take them out of the program.
Ms. Velazquez. But do you have any specific ways to do it
right now?
Secretary Jackson. We work with the landlords who have
project-based subsidies. We are doing everything in our power.
Legally can we keep them from taking it out of the program once
the 30-year period is gone? No, but we are using all of our
moral persuasion to make sure that they do not. Because I agree
with you, where would many of the persons, whether they are in
New York or they are in Detroit or Chicago or wherever they
are, where do they go if that person decides to make the
complex market rate? I am totally in agreement with you, and we
will continue to do everything.
Ms. Velazquez. But what kind of assistance do you provide
to the tenants so that they are in a position to purchase those
properties?
Secretary Jackson. Well, we cannot provide the tenants any
provision to purchase the properties. What we can do is if the
tenants get together, whether they create a co-op or whatever,
and try to buy the property, we think that clearly we are going
to work with them, but we do not have monies to give them to
purchase the properties.
Ms. Velazquez. So how would you prevent a landlord who
wants to opt out and go to the market rate?
Secretary Jackson. You cannot prevent him if clearly the
project-based subsidy has run out. You can use moral
persuasion. Legally, there is nothing we can do.
Ms. Velazquez. I know that because this is happening in my
district every day. What I am asking you is, what is it that
you can do as a department who wants to end homelessness as we
know it, because by having this, what you are going to do is
increase homelessness everywhere in this country. What is it
that you can do to help these people?
Secretary Jackson. I think that you understand exactly what
I have just said. Legally, there is nothing we can do once the
subsidy has run. We cannot make the landlord stay in the
program.
Ms. Velazquez. I know that. What I am saying to you is, why
can't we think out of the box and put together a program that
will help tenants with resources so that they could purchase,
like if they want to link up with not-for-profit organizations
who will help them purchase those properties?
Secretary Jackson. I wish I could give you an answer. I am
saying to you that legally once the subsidy runs, the person
has a right to leave the program. We do not want them to leave
the program. We will ask them to sell the property to a
501(c)(3).
Ms. Velazquez. I am not talking about the landlord. I am
talking about the tenants.
Secretary Jackson. Well, when a tenant moves in on a
project-based certificate, they know that the certificate goes
with the apartment, not with them. They understand that.
Mr. Miller of California. The gentlelady's time has
expired.
Ms. Velazquez. No, I have not finished.
Mr. Miller of California. It has expired.
Ms. Velazquez. Oh, it is expired. You know what, it does
not make any difference. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Miller of California. I apologize for passing over you,
and I would never want that to happen again. It was an
interesting look you gave me, and I will make sure I never do
that again.
[Laughter.]
Mrs. Carson?
Ms. Carson. You would notice, Mrs. Velazquez, that I did
not allow him to do that either.
Mr. Secretary, I have a question on the fair housing
implications of H.R. 1999. I apologize if it is redundant or
repetitive because I was not here. I was like a runaway bride
when they had that airplane running around, so I was running
with everybody else.
Secretary Jackson. Okay.
H.R. 1999, the State and Local Housing Flexibility Act of
2005 would essentially eliminate portability in the voucher
program. The bill would allow, for example, a suburban housing
authority to reject a family from an urban housing authority.
How does HUD intend to follow its own fair housing goals of
desegregation, as well as the de-concentration of poverty by
eliminating this important aspect of the program?
Secretary Jackson. Congresswoman Carson, we are not
eliminating that. What we are saying is that the housing
authority will have the ability to say if you want to take the
portable voucher with you, we are not going to pay other than
what we agreed to pay when you were sitting here. They are not
saying that you cannot take that voucher with you.
You will probably end up paying more if it is a higher-
income area. But the way it stands now with portability, if you
move from Dallas, Texas from an apartment complex, the best
example I can give you, where it is two-bedroom and might cost
you, let's say, $850 a month, and you take that same voucher to
Chicago for a two-bedroom that is going to cost you $1,200 a
month. We are saying that the housing authority has the ability
to say we agreed when we signed the contract that we are paying
you $850, and that is what we are going to pay you.
It does not restrict the ability to take that voucher with
you. It is just that we are giving them the flexibility to say
no, we are not going to do it. Because when you move that
voucher from Dallas to Chicago, you are effectively taking $400
from some other person who could get that voucher. I think that
is absolutely wrong. I think that clearly when the housing
authority is allocated money, they should serve as many people
as they can. Portability has drained on a lot of housing
authorities. So we are not saying that the voucher is not
portable. We are giving the housing authority the right to say
we agreed on a contractual arrangement, but we will pay you
$850. We are not going to pay any more than that.
Ms. Carson. Just hypothetically, Mr. Secretary, if I can
further inquire here. If you have a tenant who is already
established as being eligible, number two, already establishes
being eligible at a point, at a level, then are you saying that
if something happens where the tenant cannot retain the housing
that they had and they have to move, that is just tough luck?
Secretary Jackson. No. That is not what I am saying.
Ms. Carson. You are saying you are not going to increase.
Secretary Jackson. I am saying the housing authority has
the flexibility to tell them, no, they are not going to
increase, because when you signed the contractual arrangement,
it was for a certain amount of money, and that is what the
housing authority agreed to pay. They must have, in my mind,
some sure ability about what they are going to pay out in the
coming year.
Ms. Carson. What happens if a dire emergency exists? Do you
make any exceptions?
Secretary Jackson. Of course, of course. I think that
clearly if a person in Dallas and the development that they
lived in or the apartment complex burned and the next one that
they came up to was $950, I think clearly the housing authority
would make that adjustment if they could not find another
apartment at $850 a month. Yes, we have to think that there are
always going to be the probabilities that you will have
emergencies or something very, very definitely could happen to
the person's ability to live in that apartment complex. It
could be lead or it could be some other things. All of that
must be taken into consideration.
Ms. Carson. So you do take some extraneous circumstances--
--
Secretary Jackson. Circumstances, yes.
Ms. Carson.--into consideration?
Secretary Jackson. Yes.
Ms. Carson. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Miller of California. Thank you very much.
Ms. Tubbs Jones, I know you left us to go on Ways and
Means. Did you change your mind?
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. Absolutely not.
Mr. Miller of California. I will give you 5 minutes anyway.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. I have constituents that are concerned
about housing, so I invited myself back to this hearing.
Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary. How are you?
Secretary Jackson. How are you doing, Congresswoman?
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. I am doing great. Thank you.
Secretary Jackson. I know you always do well.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. Blessed by the best, you know?
Let me ask you this question; when Congresswoman Sue Kelly
asked you the question about Section 8 vouchers and seniors and
people on disability, in fact, people on disability receive
Section 8 vouchers, don't they?
Secretary Jackson. Say that again to me.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. Finish with your staffer, and then I
will ask you.
Secretary Jackson. I have it.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. Are you straight now?
Secretary Jackson. Yes.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. All right. Now, Congresswoman Kelly
asked you specifically about seniors, the people on disability
and Section 8, and said that Section 8 increases were causing a
loss on behalf of the seniors and those among the disabled on
some functional charts she had. Correct?
Secretary Jackson. Right.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. In fact, Section 8 vouchers include
seniors and those on disability. Is that a correct statement?
Secretary Jackson. That is correct, yes.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. So you are really not playing them one
against another. You are actually all part of a Section 8
program.
Secretary Jackson. Well, yes, but also you have 811 which
is----
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. I understand that, but I am saying
conceptually they are all part of a Section 8 program.
Secretary Jackson. That is correct.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. Let me go on to something else. All of
the proposals that you have under H.R. 1999 deal with concept,
policy, philosophy. Is that correct conceptually?
Secretary Jackson. I think that----
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. Let me go through them and maybe you
will have a better understanding.
Secretary Jackson.--the bill that Congressman Miller
introduced is pretty specific as far as we are concerned in
that it addresses the needs that we think are very important at
HUD.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. Number two deals with flexibility and
simplification, right?
Secretary Jackson. Yes.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. Number one deals with, I am picking up,
having picked this up this afternoon, and section three allows
new options for homeownership; one does something else. I am
just not coming directly at it. But the law does not provide
any additional dollars to the housing authorities. It just says
that I used to give you $90,000, and under the old rules you
could spend $90,000 X-way, but under the new rules I am giving
you more flexibility, but I am not giving you any more money.
Secretary Jackson. Well, we increased the budget by $1.1
billion in 2006, so that is more money.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. But you are still not even with the
changes under this law. If this should pass, there is no new
money in this law to change.
Secretary Jackson. It is not in the law per se, but there
is never any new money in the law. The money comes by
appropriation from you all.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. I understand that. It comes by
appropriation, but this legislation does not provide for any
additional dollars.
Secretary Jackson. No, the legislation provides,
Congresswoman, a guideline.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. All I am saying to you is, folks,
change the way you do it, but I am not going to give you any
more money to do what you do.
Secretary Jackson. You allocate the money. That is Article
I, Section 7. You are the authorizer and the appropriator.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. Absolutely, I am.
Secretary Jackson. Okay.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. But understood, this is a piece of
legislation that you are promoting, and you are not saying give
me any more money; you are just saying allow me to do it in a
different way.
You do not want to take my line of questioning, Mr.
Secretary, so I am going to go on to something else.
Secretary Jackson. No, I think----
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. But it is clear from talking to all
that I see----
Secretary Jackson. Congresswoman, I think that would be
very presumptuous on my part to tell you how to do your
business.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. I do not want you to be presumptuous.
You are already that, generally, when we have a conversation.
The point I am trying to make is you are asking your
housing authorities to do more with less.
Secretary Jackson. No.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. Because you are saying I am going to be
flexible; I am going to make you flexible, but you still only
have the dollars that you already had.
Let me ask you about, I guess someone already really asked
this question of you, and I am concerned, too. I was the
Cuyahoga County prosecutor, and I worked very closely with the
Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority when we had police
officers, when we were doing drug elimination programs, when we
were doing all of that. Clearly, there were a group of people
within the housing authority that, A, we thought should not be
there, B, did not deserve to be there, and C, were causing
problems.
But the majority of the people living in public housing,
they do not love being there. They would love to be out of
there. A lot of them would love to be out of there if they only
had a job. But a lot of people right now are suffering even
though the economy is supposedly going up. There are a lot of
people suffering in my congressional district without a job,
60,000 without a job since 2001, who would love to walk up and
say, take your voucher and shove it, and then go buy a house,
but it is not happening.
And so when you sit there having come from where you come
from and say, you know, pull yourself up.
Mr. Miller of California. The gentlelady's time has
expired.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. I am almost done, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you very much.
Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you know, go on out
here and get a job, and if you had a job, you would not have to
be in the housing. It is really disingenuous because there are
so many people out there who want a job and cannot get one.
Secretary Jackson. Congresswoman, let me say this to you. I
disagree with you. I have never said pull yourself up by your
bootstraps.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. Same concept.
Secretary Jackson. May I finish? I believe that no one gets
anywhere without someone helping them. The problem becomes
whether you want or seek the help. I am saying where there are
people who want and seek the help, we should do everything in
our power to make sure that we do everything that is possible
to make sure they get out of the condition in which they live.
If you do not want the help, I have no sympathy for you.
Mr. Miller of California. I will answer the question you
were unable to answer. This bill does not require anything
additional of any housing authority anywhere in the United
States. It does only require that they have flexibility to do
what they want to do.
Secretary Jackson. That is correct.
Mr. Miller of California. But there is no additional
mandate that costs one penny in this bill.
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. I never said that it was, Mr. Chairman.
That was not my question.
Mr. Miller of California. You did not give me a chance to
answer that one. You said we were mandating they do more and
spend more money. No, we are not. We are just allowing them
flexibility to do what they think is----
Mrs. Jones of Ohio. I did not say that, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Miller of California. Then I misunderstood.
Mr. Jackson, would you like to answer anything that you
have not had a chance to answer today in your closing? I know
there has been a lot asked of you that you would like to
answer, and maybe you have not had a chance to.
Secretary Jackson. No. First of all, I would just like to
thank you for being the sponsor and the other cosponsors of the
bill because I think the bill will be very important for
housing authorities to have that flexibility. You know, it is
important when you think about some of the housing authorities
that welcome the flexibility. One of the most progressive
housing authorities in the country is Atlanta. They welcome the
responsibility of having the ability to do it, and they are not
by themselves. There are a number of housing authorities.
Now you have some that do not, and you have advocates that
do not, but then the advocates are going to be there because in
many cases their living is made off of the housing authority
making sure that they feel that they need their help and
support. I am saying to you in closing today that even when I
ran housing authorities, Mr. Chairman and members, I had
problems with the advocacy groups because they could disagree
with me, and they would think that probably I am not sensitive,
do not care. And I do.
But I believe that public housing residents, Section 8
residents, are human beings with the same sense of worth as me,
and I am not going to them and telling them how to live, nor am
I going to them being very paternalistic and patronizing to
them, as if they are children. They are human beings, and our
task and hopefully the flexible voucher will help housing
authorities move many of these people out of dependency towards
self-sufficiency.
Mr. Miller of California. Mr. Secretary, thank you for your
testimony. I am looking forward to working with my Republican
and Democrat colleagues to end up with a better situation in
public housing than we have today. That is our goal, not to
create a situation that is worse.
Secretary Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Miller of California. The Chair notes that some members
may have additional questions for this panel which they may
wish to submit in writing. Without objection, the hearing
record will remain open for 30 days for members to submit
written questions to these witnesses and place their responses
in the record.
Without any additional comments, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:10 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
May 11, 2005
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