[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
OVERSIGHT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF
HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 11, 2008
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services
Serial No. 110-97
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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES
BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts, Chairman
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama
MAXINE WATERS, California DEBORAH PRYCE, Ohio
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 RON PAUL, Texas
BRAD SHERMAN, California STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
DENNIS MOORE, Kansas WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts Carolina
RUBEN HINOJOSA, Texas JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
CAROLYN McCARTHY, New York GARY G. MILLER, California
JOE BACA, California SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts Virginia
BRAD MILLER, North Carolina TOM FEENEY, Florida
DAVID SCOTT, Georgia JEB HENSARLING, Texas
AL GREEN, Texas SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey
EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida
MELISSA L. BEAN, Illinois J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin, JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas
KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota TOM PRICE, Georgia
RON KLEIN, Florida GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky
TIM MAHONEY, Florida PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio JOHN CAMPBELL, California
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado ADAM PUTNAM, Florida
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut MICHELE BACHMANN, Minnesota
JOE DONNELLY, Indiana PETER J. ROSKAM, Illinois
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida THADDEUS G. McCOTTER, Michigan
JIM MARSHALL, Georgia KEVIN McCARTHY, California
DAN BOREN, Oklahoma DEAN HELLER, Nevada
Jeanne M. Roslanowick, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on:
March 11, 2008............................................... 1
Appendix:
March 11, 2008............................................... 51
WITNESSES
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Jackson, Hon. Alphonso, Secretary, U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development.............................................. 5
APPENDIX
Prepared statements:
Brown-Waite, Hon. Ginny...................................... 52
Jackson, Hon. Alphonso....................................... 53
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Frank, Hon. Barney:
Written responses to questions submitted to Hon. Alphonso
Jackson.................................................... 62
Letter from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), dated
March 10, 2008............................................. 78
Statement of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board
(MSRB), dated March 12, 2008............................... 82
Letter from the National Association of Housing and
Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO), dated March 11, 2008...... 99
Ellison, Hon. Keith:
Written responses to questions submitted to Hon. Alphonso
Jackson.................................................... 105
OVERSIGHT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF
HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
----------
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Financial Services,
Washington, D.C.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in
room 2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Barney Frank
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Members present: Representatives Frank, Waters, Maloney,
Velazquez, Watt, Meeks, Moore of Kansas, Capuano, Clay,
McCarthy of New York, Baca, Lynch, Scott, Green, Cleaver,
Ellison; Bachus, Jones, Biggert, Miller of California, Capito,
Feeney, Hensarling, Neugebauer, Marchant, McCarthy of
California, and Heller.
The Chairman. I apologize for the little delay. The hearing
will come to order. This is the annual hearing on the budget of
the Department of Housing and Urban Development, specifically
the budget that was submitted. We will later this week be
voting on a somewhat different version, but this is our chance
to talk about it with the Secretary. Mr. Secretary, welcome.
Thank you for accommodating our schedule.
Secretary Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. I want to begin by saying that the budget
that the President submitted is not disappointing, because I
had no expectations, but it is seriously inadequate to the job
that this country faces, particularly in light of the subprime
crisis.
Now let me say, Mr. Secretary, we will be asking you about
the budget, and you are a loyal member of this Administration
and I do not expect you to share your innermost thoughts, and
indeed, it would be inappropriate. You are a member of the
Administration, and I understand your obligations. It is not my
impression that this is a budget that reflects what the people
who have operating responsibilities of HUD would have liked,
and so when I talk about its severe shortcomings, I really am
describing, I believe, decisions made elsewhere. But we need to
talk about the consequences.
The cutbacks that we see in programs like Community
Development Block Grant (CDBG) would have been distressing in
any period. They are especially distressing this year when we
have at the city level in particular the consequences of the
subprime crisis and the foreclosures.
I will be speaking later to the National League of Cities
and I will be expressing my sympathy for the problems not of
their making which have landed in their laps. One of the
problems they have now is a good deal of foreclosed property,
property that used to pay taxes, now not only does not pay
taxes, but consumer services; police services, fire services,
and building inspection services.
To propose reductions in Community Development Block Grant
funding in the face of this is as stark an abdication of what
the Federal Government's responsibility ought to be to our
partners in governance at the local level as I could imagine.
There are also reductions proposed for the construction of
housing for the elderly and for the disabled. These are grave
errors, in my judgment. One of the things we learned, I
believe, from the subprime crisis is that a shortage of
affordable rental housing has consequences beyond simply the
denial of opportunity for people to live good lives, but there
was a push factor into this housing situation.
Basically, we have a national policy that has decided to
fund a war in Iraq, a very expensive war, which I thought was a
mistake from the outset, while making substantial reductions in
other programs. One of the jobs of this committee is to help
show the consequences of those cuts. I will also be talking to
you, Mr. Secretary, about a very specific issue, and that is
the situation in Mississippi concerning money that this
committee initiated in a collaboration between our colleague
from North Carolina, Mr. Watt, and our former colleague from
Louisiana, Mr. Baker. They took the lead in trying to put some
money toward alleviating the plight of people, particularly
lower income people, who were hurt by Hurricane Katrina in
Mississippi. That has not worked out as we thought, but I
understand that there may be frankly some flaws in the way we
did that legislatively and I will be looking to you to see that
we--assuming some disasters will come again--legislate better
for it.
But the basic point of this statement is to say that in the
current situation with urban America in a difficult situation,
with urban America bearing the brunt of the national crisis, it
really is outrageous that the Administration, to fund its war
in Iraq, comes forward with a budget that so substantially
underfunds these important urban initiatives.
Finally, let me say, and I am glad the whole team is here,
there are some areas of agreement and at 5:00 today, the
ranking member and I will be once again going over to the
Senate to see if we can work out an FHA bill. We are hoping
that we can do that. The Commissioner is here. That is a
collaborative effort that I hope will go forward.
But we cannot, in this hearing, focus on other things to
the exclusion of our deep unhappiness. I will just summarize.
To cut Community Development Block Grants, which has been such
an important program dating from the days of Richard Nixon,
that provides such important support to the cities, when they
are under the extreme stress brought about by the subprime
crisis, is one of the most blatantly uncompassionate examples
of public policy imaginable.
And the one thing that gives me some solace is that it is
clear to me that it will be ignored by the Budget Committee. It
will be ignored by the Appropriations Committee, and I think we
can confidently predict that in an overwhelmingly bipartisan
way, the Appropriations Committee will ignore this budget to a
great extent, and I doubt very much when it comes to the Floor
with the President's priorities repudiated that there will be
any substantial Republican effort to restore them.
The gentleman from Alabama.
Mr. Bachus. I thank the chairman for convening this
oversight hearing of the Department of Housing and Urban
Development. Let me begin by welcoming Secretary Jackson back
to the committee.
Secretary Jackson. Thank you.
Mr. Bachus. I have always found your testimony to be
insightful, and I look forward to hearing your assessment of
the state of America's housing markets. Immediately after your
testimony, I will be leaving to address the Conference of State
Treasurers, and Secretary Paulson speaks right after I do, and
then we're on a panel. And even though I don't mind being late,
I don't want to make him late.
I look forward, as I say, to hearing your testimony and
your assessment of the state of America's housing markets and
the role that HUD, and particularly the Federal Housing
Administration, can play in helping to stabilize these markets
during the current downturn. You have been a forceful advocate
for legislation to modernize the FHA, and I know you share my
view that it is long past time for the Congress to get a bill
to the President's desk that will allow FHA to assist more
Americans seeking to buy a home or refinance an existing
mortgage.
In recent years, the housing market has fueled this
Nation's economy as Americans bought and refinanced homes in
record numbers. Now nearly 70 percent of American families own
their own home. But recently we have seen a growing inventory
of unsold properties that has resulted in falling prices. A
sharp rise in the number of foreclosures has caused investors
to reassess the risk inherent in the housing market, which in
turn has constricted the availability of mortgage credit.
Many Americans are struggling to make their mortgage
payments, and a growing number of homeowners find themselves in
a negative equity position with the size of their mortgages
exceeding the current value of their homes. These are difficult
times, and it's not surprising that some are beginning to look
to the Federal Government for solutions to the serious problems
that exist in the housing sector.
As I previously stated, I believe it is important that
before we authorize any broad new government intervention into
the mortgage market we make sure that we're not creating new
moral hazards that we will pay for dearly later, and above all,
that we're being fair to all Americans.
There are millions of homeowners who have carefully
budgeted and planned to pay for their homes and are doing so,
and we should think very carefully before we ask them to
subsidize those who weren't so careful or are now having second
thoughts about financial decisions that were made when everyone
believed housing prices would climb forever. Whatever action we
take should not penalize those homeowners who are making
sacrifices to honor their obligations and their contract and
keep their families in their homes, or those who are renting
while they try to accumulate the necessary savings to achieve
homeownership.
It doesn't seem fair to shift the risk and responsibility
that investors, lenders, and borrowers willingly and eagerly
assumed when home prices were on the way up to the great
majority of taxpayers who were not party to these mortgage
transactions now that prices are going down.
Mr. Secretary, we would welcome your views on what effect a
multi-billion-dollar Federal program to assume troubled
mortgages could be expected to have on FHA's safety and
soundness. We also hope you will update the committee on your
efforts to reform housing programs under HUD's jurisdiction and
make them more efficient and cost-effective, and particularly
on your recent initiative to reform and simplify implementation
of the Real Estate Settlement Procedure Act, RESPA. We have
obviously been down the RESPA reform road in this committee
before, and I'm anxious to hear from you today how this latest
proposal differs from previous efforts.
Mr. Secretary, we thank you again for being here. I look
forward to your testimony.
Secretary Jackson. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. The gentlewoman from California, the Chair of
the Housing and Community Opportunity Subcommittee, is now
recognized for 3 minutes. Ms. Waters.
Ms. Waters. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I think this
is an important hearing that we're having today. We have so
many important questions that have been generated by members of
this committee, and it is no secret that there is a great
difference of opinion about this President's budget and the
direction that many of us would like to see our government take
on behalf of working people and poor people.
For the 8th straight fiscal year, the Administration's
budget slashes programs that provide housing and supportive
services to our country's poorest, disabled, and elderly
households. It underfunds the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher
Program, starves local housing authorities of the resources
they need to sustain and modernize public housing stock, and
cripples the Community Development Block Grant program.
Allow me to summarize just a few of these proposals.
Funding levels for HUD 811 supportive housing for the disabled
and HUD 202 supportive housing for the elderly are cut by 32
percent and 27 percent, respectively. If enacted, these
reductions would leave these programs at funding levels 40
percent below their Fiscal Year 2001 appropriations. The budget
reduces funding for the maintenance and modernization of aging
public housing units of $400 million relative to Fiscal Year
2008. Collectively, the President's Public Housing and
Operating Subsidy requests for public housing would cut this
essential program by fully one quarter in comparison to its
Fiscal Year 2001 appropriation.
HUD remains determined to continue an unsustainable policy
of incrementally funding Project-Based Section 8 contracts,
which threatens the participation of thousands of private
owners in the program. The budget once again proposes to
eliminate the HOPE VI program, which the House of
Representatives recently voted to reauthorize on a bipartisan
vote of 271 to 130.
Finally, the budget zeros out the Section 108 local
guarantee program and basically ends with the Community
Development Block Grant program being cut by $657 million
compared to last year. If enacted, the President's budget would
put CDBG funding at about one-half its appropriation in Fiscal
Year 2001.
From a technical budgeting perspective, the analysis I have
seen suggests that we can't count on a large recapture in the
Section 8 program to make it easier to bail out as it
recaptures--well, let me just go to the second point. Second,
the Nation is today in a housing crisis unlike any since the
Great Depression, much less in comparison to prior fiscal years
under President Bush. In light of skyrocketing foreclosure
figures across the country, with block after block of homes
already sitting abandoned in some cities, it simply boggles the
mind that the President would put before Congress a Fiscal Year
2009 budget that disinvents in the Federal affordable housing
and community development safety first.
Mr. Chairman, instead of completing my statement, which is
rather long, I'm going to yield back my time so other members
will have an opportunity for an opening statement. But I think
that the sense of where I'm coming from with this budget is
captured in the limited time that I had to make the
presentation. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. I thank the gentlewoman. We were going to
have another opening statement from the ranking member of the
Housing Subcommittee, but in the interest of time, if there is
no objection, we will allow her a couple of extra minutes when
she gets to her 5-minute question period so that she can
preface her 5 minutes of questions with an opening statement.
If there is no objection, we will proceed that way. Mr.
Secretary, please go ahead.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ALPHONSO JACKSON, SECRETARY, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
Secretary Jackson. Thank you, Chairman Frank. And I want to
thank you and Ranking Member Bachus and the members of this
committee for this opportunity to appear here today.
Mr. Chairman, I am here to present the Fiscal Year 2009 HUD
budget. But before I do that, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you
and the entire committee for the priority given to FHA
modernization. And I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, that we need
the legislation right away. As you and your Senate colleagues
finish work on this important legislation, I should mention the
Administration's priority with respect to what's in the final
bill.
First, the legislation must allow HUD to address the recent
explosion of loans where a seller provided buyers with
downpayment assistance and then is added to the price of the
home. These loans have a foreclosure rate 2 to 3 times the
norm. They are costing hardworking Americans their homes, and
these types of loans have pushed FHA to the brink of
insolvency.
Second, Congress should allow FHA to proceed later this
year with some flexibility in setting premiums. I assure you,
we have no intentions of increasing premiums on the bread-and-
butter customers. But a few modest changes will strengthen
FHA's ability to offer a safe alternate to homeowners who want
to refinance out of high-cost subprime loans and will actually
allow us to reduce premiums from our potential homeowners with
lower incomes.
Such legislation would fit in well with the general
direction of the President's budget. The proposed budget is
fiscally sound, representing a historical investment of $38.5
billion for the programs at HUD. This is an increase of more
than $3 billion, or 9 percent over last year's budget. The
budget is almost $1 billion more than our current budget
authority. The funding will be timely and on target for people
served by the Department. We need this budget to maintain
current homeownership and stimulate new purchases. It will help
us expand our current efforts.
And let me put the budget in context. Last year, the
President and I introduced FHA Secure to help more Americans
facing foreclosure to refinance into safe and more secure FHA
loans. We did this using the current regulatory authority. And
we have been able to make FHA available to more qualified
families. There has been a noticeable increase in the number of
closings. We believe that FHA Secure will help about 300,000
families refinance into affordable FHA insurance. FHA Secure
has proven to be extremely valuable.
Mr. Chairman, you should also know that in only 5 months
from September 2007 through January 2008, FHA has pumped more
than $37.5 billion of much-needed mortgage activity into the
housing market as of today. More than $14.7 billion of the
investment came through FHA Secure. FHA modernization would
greatly assist our effort. As you know, the economic stimulus
package provided a temporary 10-month window. We now announce
the new loan limits--we announced new loan limits last week.
They will help hundreds of thousands of people nationwide in
this country.
But this is no substitute for FHA modernization, which
would raise the loan limit permanently and also provide other
important changes that would benefit American homeowners. In
addition to these actions, we also take steps to ensure it is
easy for homeowners to understand the fine print when they do
sign on the dotted line. That's why we are committed to RESPA.
We're in the process of publishing the Real Estate Settlement
Procedure Act rules and hope it will bring much needed
transparency to the home buying process.
Now the budget will work in concert with these actions. For
instance, the proposed budget appropriately increases the
funding for housing counseling. America needs the President's
request for $65 million in the budget for housing counseling.
These funds, in addition to NeighborWorks America's $180
million, provide great services to those who reach out. Many
Americans facing foreclosure would have greatly benefitted from
housing counseling. We know it works. Last year 96 percent of
the households that saw HUD-approved housing counseling and
completed the program avoided foreclosure. This fund will help
partially address the crisis and prevent another such situation
in this country.
We also need to continue government efforts to partner with
the private sector to help build back the housing market. The
HOPE NOW Alliance is a good example. HOPE NOW is a private
sector volunteer industry efforts to address foreclosure
through freezing interest rates and working directly with
financially troubled homeowners. I also commend a recent effort
by the HOPE VI Alliance members to provide temporary pause for
homeowners in foreclosure proceedings. These actions provide
direct assistance to those who need it right now. They are the
sort of responses providing quick help for the homeowners
today.
As in the past, Mr. Chairman, the largest part of the
budget is for affordable rental housing. Combined, this budget
seeks more than $29 billion for our rental assistance program,
which we expect will help more than 4.8 million households. We
are mindful of the continuing need for more affordable rental
housing, especially for low- and moderate-income workers still
finding themselves priced out of the market in many of our
cities. We need to maintain the units currently available and
expand the numbers. The budget will help us do that.
Finally Mr. Chairman, the homeless must not be forgotten.
We are making strides to cut the number of chronic homeless
within our continuum of care approach. For the first time ever,
we saw a decrease in the number of chronic homeless last year,
a drop of 12 percent. We must continue the progress. Our budget
once again seeks to increase the homeless programs to continue
this good work.
Mr. Chairman, I know that you are mindful of the need to
help our Nation's homeless veterans. Americans are deeply,
profoundly grateful for the service and sacrifice these
veterans have made. In this proposed budget, there is a request
for $75 million for our Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing
program. Prior to 2008, this Program had not been funded since
1993. Working with the Veterans Administration, we will create
an additional 9,800 vouchers for Fiscal Year 2009. This will
bring the total to approximately 20,000 homeless veterans being
served through housing and social service needs.
Overall, this is a good budget for the Department--
balanced, reasonable, approachable, and workable. It will allow
us to operate within the framework of cooperation and
partnership with related Federal agencies and other levels of
government and nonprofit agencies.
Mr. Chairman, as we proceed through the budget process, I
look forward to working with you and the members of the
committee and thank you for listening.
[The prepared statement of Secretary Jackson can be found
on page 53 of the appendix.]
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Let me begin with
one very important point that is very much an issue now. You
mentioned in your written testimony, and you also said orally,
``By temporarily increasing FHA loan limits we can back more
safe, sound mortgages in high-cost States and help homeowners
trapped in exotic subprime loans to hold on to their houses.''
That is now being discussed. What would the consequence be if
in the FHA modernization bill we did not take action and the
loan limit went back to what it was, $362,000? What impact
would that have going forward?
Secretary Jackson. I think, Mr. Chairman, it would have a
devastating effect on places like Virginia all the way back to
Maine, Vermont, Utah, all the way back to California. I was out
in California with Governor Schwarzenegger and announced the
$729,000. The Realtors were overjoyed, because finally we will
be able to help people within those markets. As of to date, we
would not be able to help any persons out west or the east
coast for that matter if we went back to $360,000.
The Chairman. Thank you. And I think frankly, having gone
to the higher limit, if we were now to drop back that would be
exactly the kind of destabilizing, ``Oh there goes the
unreliable government again.'' I should also add that some have
argued, ``Oh well, don't help--don't go to the higher limits,''
which are median prices; they are not for wealthy people in
some parts of the country, given the house prices. Because
people say well, that will come at the expense of the low-
income people. But in fact, the Congressional Budget Office
gives us a positive score when we do that, so that in fact
generates money that we can use for the increased FHA
counseling, for instance, that we are all in agreement with. So
it is exactly the opposite, the argument that if you raise the
limits you somehow take it away from lower income people. You
increase the resources within the FHA for that purpose.
Let me say with regard to the rate setting--and I
understand your point, and I will tell you this--I'm not going
to ask you for any extensive comment. If there was no OMB, we
would be a lot more willing to give you the freedom. But when
you are, Mr. Secretary, free at last you come back here, and we
will talk about giving you some of that authority. But right
now there is something over there to stick with, the same
motif, and I don't think we can afford you that.
Let me turn to the issue of Mississippi, because I want to
be honest. I was critical when you gave the waiver to the
Mississippi, and we discussed it; you were available. But I now
believe that a large part of the problem came with our
drafting. And I was pleased, frankly, and I'm going enter into
the record your letter dated January 25th--or at least I
received it on January 25th, I don't know when it was actually
sent--to Governor Barbour in which you say--as you grant him
the permission to divert funds from CDBG to a port project. And
you say, ``Although economic development is important, the port
expansion will create jobs and serve as a significant regional
economic driver, I remain concerned that this expansion does
indeed divert emergency Federal funding from other more
pressing recover needs, most notably affordable housing.'' And
then you mention they try to put some money in. In the future,
when we do this kind of legislation, would you advise us to be
more--to give you more discretion to say, ``yes,'' or ``no,''
and to in fact have some ability to say, ``Well, no. That's not
a good diversion?'' Would you respond? What would your advice
be? And, you know, we are going to have emergencies in the
future. What should we do?
Secretary Jackson. As I said to you when I spoke to you,
Mr. Chairman, and also responding to the chairwoman of the
subcommittee's response, I think it would be a positive step
that we have more flexibility to approve what occurs. At this
specific time, the language was very clear.
The Chairman. I think this is a rare case where what you
need is more flexibility to disapprove. That's because as you
interpret this--and we can have some differences --but I do
think--
Secretary Jackson. I think I made it very clear in that
letter that I would prefer that--
The Chairman. Right. There is one criticism that I would
make of the procedure, Mr. Secretary, and that is that we
didn't find any record that--it did give you the power to grant
the waiver, but they didn't actually ask for a waiver, as we
can see it. It just wasn't done in a formal way. The problem
there is that, even if we did this badly, we want to make it
very clear that this is not what CDBG was meant to do, and we
don't want to set the precedent that this is an appropriate use
of Community Development Block Grant funds. We would have liked
to have the waiver actually document what did and didn't
happen. And I think, even by their own admission, the
percentages of 50 percent for low- and moderate-income people,
51 percent of the jobs for low- and moderate-income people,
that Mississippi didn't comply with that. Now, I agree we could
have done a better job of giving the ability to resist that.
But I do think it should have been documented better.
With that I'm going to turn to the ranking member of the
subcommittee who was here, and we are going to give her 3
minutes for her opening statement, and then her 5 minutes for
questions or 7 minutes for a really long question. Ms. Capito.
Ms. Capito. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr.
Secretary. I'd like to welcome you back to the committee. As
the ranking Republican on the Housing and Community Opportunity
Subcommittee, I have a particular interest in two programs I
want to talk about.
First, I want to commend you for your commitment to the
housing for the disabled. The Section 811 program provides
assistance to expand the supply of housing equipped with
supportive services for persons with disability. The Fiscal
Year 2009 budget requests $160 million for the Section 811
program budget, a $35 million increase over the 2008 budget
request. This program is especially important to my
constituents in the second congressional district of West
Virginia. It's my hope we'll continue to improve this for the
21st century.
The other program I'd like to talk about is the President's
budget of $540 million for the supportive services for the
elderly, the Section 202. Up to $80 million of these grant
funds will be targeted to the service coordinators who will
help elderly residents obtain supportive services from the
community. Last year, with bipartisan support, this House
passed H.R. 2930: Section 202 Supportive Housing for the
Elderly Act of 2007, on a motion to suspend the rules. But
while we were drafting this legislation, I had heard concerns
from many housing advocates in my district about the ability of
rural States to use all of the funds, because the program
included a mandated allocation of a percentage of funds to non-
metropolitan areas. For a small State like West Virginia, this
could mean a loss of four to five units, because it is
difficult to find developers willing to work on such small
projects in rural communities. Thankfully, we were able to
correct this problem by moving the mandated allocation from the
State level to the regional level, and I thank you for working
with us on that. I look forward to continuing the work on
ensuring that rural seniors receive the benefits of affordable
housing, and I urge the Senate to take action on this Section
202 legislation.
I want to applaud the Secretary's innovative approach to
financing Sections 202 and 811. The President's Fiscal Year
2009 budget requests $10 million and $15 million mixed
financing demonstration projects for Section 811 and Section
202. These projects will remove some barriers from using low-
income housing tax credits and will help develop more units to
serve our most vulnerable populations. Mr. Secretary, again
we're very pleased to have you here, and I look forward to
working with you. And I'd like to ask you a couple of questions
if I may.
Secretary Jackson. Thank you.
Ms. Capito. First of all, last year in testimony before
this committee, there was a bit of a controversy in terms of
the late housing assistant payments, and I think we did a
temporary fix to try to patch that up. In your testimony, you
described how you're going to be updating your aging IT
infrastructure with $313 million of a budget request for
working capital. Will this help resolve some of these problems,
and what is the status of that particular issue right now?
Secretary Jackson. We have come very close to resolving it.
We have clearly enough funding to go into 2009 to make sure
that all of the providers are paid on time. It is important
that we upgrade our capital improvement system. We're pretty
close to being on top of this subject, and I think that if we
can get monies for our information technology fund we can
really address this issue very clearly. But one of the
priorities that I have made to not only the chairman here, but
also the chairman on the Senate side is that we are going to do
everything to make sure that there is continuity, so that the
providers will be paid in a timely manner, and we will not have
this issue again facing us as we did the last couple of years.
Ms. Capito. I think we were all stunned, and I in
particular, to realize that you were waiting in the mail for
things to arrive and things to be date stamped and all those
sorts of things when in this day of technology so many things,
including our tax returns soon, are done online. So I
appreciate any movement you can do on that and keep us up-to-
date.
The Chairman. That is a very good point. Look, when we get
into the budget process or the appropriations process, we are
often tempted to go to some of the administrative accounts to
fund the things that have more political appeal: ``Oh, let's
cut this thing.'' I'm struck by this. I think we probably--I
hope we can have a kind of bipartisan alliance on this
committee to protect the IT account, for example. Because we
can predict when an appropriations bill comes to the Floor,
giving the allocation that somebody is going to say, ``Well,
let's do more Section 8,'' or other things that will have some
political appeal. And I would look forward to working together.
Maybe we can go to our friends on the--the appropriators
generally do the right thing. And then on the Floor, these
things are kind of easy pickings. I would hope we could work
together and agree on the Floor that we would, in a bipartisan
way, defend these unglamorous but very necessary accounts. I
thank the gentlewoman.
Secretary Jackson. Mr. Chairman, I truly appreciate that.
Because right now, we are funded to about 9 months, and this is
very critical. We have cut down on the number of IT systems
that we had in HUD, and the quicker we get this resolved, the
less problems we are going to have making sure that this does
not happen to the providers.
Ms. Capito. Thank you. I have one last question then. I had
a meeting in my home office with some constituents and a
developer who uses the low-income housing tax credits to
develop some very nice properties in our State. And they are
extremely concerned about the credit crunch and how this is--
what do I want to say? It's becoming an issue not only in
housing and in mortgages but into the ability or the
willingness of developers to want to jump into this. Are you
finding that nationwide? And how are you going to address this?
Mr. Secretary. Yes. And let me have Brian Montgomery speak
to that specifically. It is becoming a problem.
The Chairman. Commissioner, why don't you come up? We will
have the Commissioner speak to it. And I took some of the
gentlewomen's time, so the time will be standard.
Mr. Montgomery. Yes. There has been a constriction of the
use of tax credits. It varies State by State. I think a couple
of months ago, tax credits were probably getting 90 or 93 cents
on the dollar. I think you're seeing that down, down to 80 or
82 cents on the dollar. So some States are looking for better
uses of the tax credits. And I mean the beauty of the program
is the fact that States make the decision, but you see a
shortfall in some States. Other States don't know what to do
with it, which is why we propose those two demonstration
projects to better target via a set-aside, a qualified
allocation plan, whatever, the use of credits for Sections 202
and 811 for elderly and disabled housing.
Ms. Waters. Let me ask the gentlewoman to yield again,
because as the members already know and the staff has been
talking, we have been collaborating since last January with the
Ways and Means Committee. And we expect soon to have
legislation that will take the low-income housing tax credits
requirements and those that come from the appropriations
process, like Sections 811 and 202, and mesh them better.
Everybody I have ever talked to who has tried to get them
together tears their hair out because the Congress has given
them somewhat inconsistent rules, and we hope--and think this
would be virtually unanimous--it will save a lot of time and
energy in the private sector. We hope fairly soon, and we're
just waiting for Joint Tax to give us their reports, to have
legislation that will make it possible for a developer who is
trying to use low-income housing tax credits and the
appropriations process to have them work together in a much
easier, less frictional fashion.
Ms. Capito. I think that's a good collaborative effort, and
I certainly support that. And I--
The Chairman. Okay. We'll probably have our piece--it's
going to be done--the member should know--Ways and Means is
going to do their piece, and we will do our piece. I expect it
to pass through markup; I think it will be overwhelmingly
supported; and then the Rules Committee will merge the two.
Ms. Capito. And finally, I'd just like to make a comment
that FHA modernization, I think, is something that we can't
keep stuck in the mud here. We have--it has broad-based, I
think, collaborative feeling that this is a lifeline to some
people who are having difficulty with their housing. It also is
something whose time is well past due, and something that we
need to do. So I would encourage the members of the committee,
and I want to thank HUD for their ingenuity and energy in
trying to move this forward with the rest of us. Thank you.
Secretary Jackson. Thank you all.
The Chairman. The gentlewoman from California, the Chair of
the Housing Subcommittee.
Ms. Waters. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr.
Secretary, as you know, the unmet needs in the Gulf Coast are
still overwhelming. Whether we talk about Mississippi or New
Orleans, we still have people who are displaced living in other
sections of the country. Many would like to return. The housing
production certainly has not been what many of us believe it
could have been. You recently got some surveys back. As you
know, I have been focused on public housing. You got a survey
back that talked about who wanted to come back and who did not
want to come back. And in that survey you talked about 35
percent of those who lived in public housing didn't really want
to return to public housing. Can you explain to me how you
intend to accommodate even the 35 percent? What are you going
to do with the other 65 percent who may be out there on Section
8? And where are you in your dismantlement of public housing
units? Have you renovated any of those units? And can I get a
correct count on the offsite public housing that you're
supposed to have, where the numbers change quite often, as I
try and check on what you have that's scattered housing? Can
you help me understand how you're meeting these needs? And also
help me to understand what kind of assurances did you have from
Governor Barbour about diverting the $600 million to a port,
when I don't think the assurances were there to tell you how
he's going to met the unmet needs in Mississippi for housing?
Can you help me understand this?
Secretary Jackson. Sure. I think that's a fair question.
Let me answer Mississippi first. In approving the $600 million
for the port, one of the things that we did extract from
Governor Barbour and the State of Mississippi is an additional
$200 million, which brings the limit up to $350 million that is
used for low- and moderate-income workforce housing. And we'll
be happy to share that with you, because it's very clear--
Ms. Waters. Where does the $250 million come from?
Secretary Jackson. He had $150 million already in there,
and we asked for an additional $200 million, which he added to
the process. So we have $350 million right now for low- and
moderate-income workforce housing.
Ms. Waters. That's in phase two?
Secretary Jackson. That's in phase two. Yes.
Ms. Waters. $350 million left over?
Secretary Jackson. That's what we made--I won't say we made
him--asked him to allocate, and he did.
Ms. Waters. Go ahead, please.
Secretary Jackson. Okay. I can't tell you the intricacies
of the studies that we had done. All I know is we tried to be
extremely fair. We had a very diverse group of people who put
the questions in place to be used by the University of Texas,
and one of the persons was a person who was very intricately
involved in bringing the lawsuit, so we tried to include
everyone. And we wanted to make sure that there was no
deceptive practice on the part of anybody, that we got as fair
and accurate answers as we could. And we think we have gotten
that. For those persons who want to come back, we are going to
do everything in our power to make that happen. To date, there
is no one who is in public housing or on a voucher who does not
have a place to stay or live today. And we're going to make
sure that occurs until the public housing is rebuilt, because I
think that would be somewhat cynical if we didn't do that. So I
believe we're doing everything in our power. And lastly, let me
say this to you. I respect and agree with you that I want
everyone who wants to come back to have an opportunity to come
back. I don't want to deter anyone from coming back to their
home.
Ms. Waters. Mr. Secretary, why can't you fill the so-
called, ``scattered housing'' that you have claimed over the
past 2 years that you have with people who want to return?
Secretary Jackson. If there is anyone who wants to return,
we are doing everything in our power really to get them back.
Ms. Waters. Why can't you get--how many scattered units do
you have available?
Secretary Jackson. I don't have the answer right off the
top of my head. I'll be happy to get--
Ms. Waters. Can you guess?
Secretary Jackson. No. I don't want to make a guesstimate.
Ms. Waters. Do you have any units available in any of the
other public housing, like the Gouest or any of those? Do you
have any available units?
Secretary Jackson. We still, right now, have about a little
over 250 units that are available. All we have to do is move
the stove in, the air conditioning in. That's all that's
necessary.
Ms. Waters. Mr. Secretary, you have been telling me that
you have had units available for the past year-and-a-half or
so. Why can't you move people back who want to return to those
units and put them in those units, whether they're scattered or
whether they're in the public housing?
Secretary Jackson. Well, I will say this. I think that if
you read the survey, many of the people do not want to come
back to those units.
Ms. Waters. Let's just talk about the 35 percent who do
want to come back. And the units that you have told me that you
have had available for the past almost 2 years? Why can't you
connect people with available units? Whether it's scattered or
whether it's in public housing, it doesn't matter. Why can't
that happen?
Secretary Jackson. I can't make people do what they don't
want to do. I don't have that authority or that power. We have
asked if they want to come back. We're willing to pay for the
lease counseling, the lease. We're willing to do everything.
We're willing to move them. But if they do not want to come
back I can't--
Ms. Waters. No. I'm only talking about those who want to
come back. I went to Texas, and I met with groups of people who
desperately wanted to come back. I did casework trying to
connect those people with HANO and HUD to get them back. I
can't seem to find a way to get HUD or HANO to take the people
who are ready, want to come back, and where you claim you have
units to put them in, to get them connected with those units.
What does it take?
Secretary Jackson. Well, I will say this. We're doing
everything in our power. And I would respectfully disagree.
The Chairman. If the gentlewoman would yield, let me
propose this: We are out of here, but when we come back, Mr.
Secretary, I think we will ask you to send up an Assistant
Secretary, somebody with the power here and have a meeting. We
will be ready. And we would ask you to come up here and when we
come back, and let's have a--we will have a special session
just on this one issue.
Secretary Jackson. I'll be happy to do that.
The Chairman. And we will do our documentation when we come
back in April.
Secretary Jackson. Mr. Chairman, and Chairwoman Waters, any
documentation that you need will be happily provided.
Ms. Waters. I appreciate that. You can imagine my
frustration over the length of time I have been working on this
issue.
The Chairman. I understand. And I--
Ms. Waters. And what I need, which I cannot get, is I
cannot get documentation of units available, whether they are
scattered or whether they are in housing developments. I cannot
get a description of the process by which they take people who
are supposedly online or inline to return to tell me how they
do that.
The Chairman. I think that is a fair point, and I know how
long we've been working. That data should be available. Could
we get that fairly soon?
Secretary Jackson. Absolutely.
The Chairman. When we get that fairly soon--I'd like to get
it within a few days--and depending what it looks like, we may
just have to have a public hearing on that one topic. But we
would like to get the data, the gentlewoman's questions,
specifically answered as soon as possible.
Ms. Waters. The last question, Mr. Chairman, is how many
public housing units have you demolished?
Secretary Jackson. To date, I can't tell you that, because
we just started the process.
Ms. Waters. No. The process started about 3 or 4 months
ago, didn't it?
Secretary Jackson. On one development. Not on all of the
developments.
Ms. Waters. How many have you destroyed so far?
Secretary Jackson. I don't know, as of to date.
The Chairman. So shouldn't somebody be keeping track of
that, Mr. Secretary?
Secretary Jackson. Well, that's locally. I can--
The Chairman. No. But you're local. You're the--you run a
housing authority.
Secretary Jackson. Right. I can get that for you.
The Chairman. I'm troubled that you don't have it, to be
honest.
Secretary Jackson. No. I really don't. And I'm not going to
tell you that I--
The Chairman. I understand that. But that would seem to be
something that--there are a lot of people behind you. We didn't
expect you to have it all in your head, but you have a row of
people behind you.
Secretary Jackson. How many have we demolished? Which one
is that? At Cooper, Ms. Bloom said that it's 15 percent of the
site to date that has been demolished.
Ms. Waters. And what about Lafitte?
Secretary Jackson. Nothing has been done to--
Ms. Waters. What about St. Bernard?
Secretary Jackson. St. Bernard has just started.
Ms. Waters. How many have been demolished at St. Bernard?
Secretary Jackson. I don't know exactly.
The Chairman. Well, Mr. Secretary, we are going to run out
of time here. But let me just say this. You know we have had
some differences, and your inability to tell us how many have
been demolished, frankly, is going to reinforce the feeling
that some of us have that there really has not been enough
evaluation of these. I mean demolishing public housing
shouldn't be done without a lot more care. The gentlewoman from
Illinois.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me ask one--
first of all--I have a couple of questions, so I'm going to try
and rush through them. Once again, the Administration has
prioritized comprehensive reform of the FHA single-family
mortgage program, including a shift in the risk-based premiums,
which would allow FHA to serve the low- to moderate-income
borrowers. Both the House and the Senate have approved FHA
reform legislation, but they take different approaches to
authorize in the risk-based premiums. The upfront and annual
premium caps are very different. And the Senate bill has a
moratorium for 1 year. Of the two proposals, which do you think
is the best approach to the FHA modernization? If you can
comment on that. And what, if anything, would you like to see
added to the final FHA reform bill?
Secretary Jackson. As I said before, my only concern is
with the ability for FHA to have risk-based pricing. I think
that we will work with both the House and the Senate. What we
want more than anything else, and I think the chairman spoke to
that a few minutes ago, is the ability to have an acceptable
loan limit, so that we can touch those parts of the country
that we were unable to touch until the stimulus package came
into being. So that, to me, is the most critical part, because
having traveled to the West Coast last week, I know how elated
people were in California and Nevada that finally the loan
limit had been increased.
Mrs. Biggert. Well, there are several ideas floating around
for the housing stimulus package, and some proposals suggest
expanding FHA Secure. And if the final modernization bill is
signed into law, could you expand FHA Secure to help more
borrowers without jeopardizing the financial security of the
FHA program? I am worried about, and it has been talked about,
if you need credit subsidy or raise premiums should this be
passed.
Secretary Jackson. And I think that's a fair question,
Congresswoman. We're not going to do anything that would
jeopardize the existence of the program. We think that we must
be extremely judicious in exercising all of the options that we
have to make sure that FHA remains a viable alternate to help
people pursue their dream of homeownership. It has been around
for 75 years. We have had some down periods. But as I said in
my testimony a few minutes ago, we have done almost some $37
billion worth of injection of finances into the system since
this process has started with the downturn. And we think it's
only going to get stronger if we have the opportunity to help
other homeowners. So I think we will make quite a great
impression to the economy if given the opportunity with the
high-loan limit.
Mrs. Biggert. But should Congress be concerned about the
health of the fund?
Secretary Jackson. Well, I think that we should all be
concerned about the health of the Fund. Do I think the Fund is
going to be insolvent? I don't think so, and I hope not. And
we're going to do everything in our power to make sure it
doesn't happen.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you. Then I'm going to come back to my
issue that has always been of concern to me and that's the
homeless. We have had hearings on this. And the
Administration's homeless consolidation proposal does not
include children or families in the definition of chronic
homelessness, and this has been of concern. Aside from the
budget considerations, why is it difficult to categorize
families and children as chronically homeless? And how do the
living patterns of the homeless families, and particularly
children lacking permanent housing, compare with homeless
single individuals? I know what you're doing for the veterans,
and I think that this is a very important issue too. But I'm
really concerned about the families and children.
Secretary Jackson. Congresswoman, let the Deputy Secretary
speak to that issue, please.
Mr. Bernardi. Congresswoman, the definition of chronically
homeless is an individual who has been out on the street for a
certain period of time and has had recurring incidents. We
believe firmly that our budget also takes care of families with
children; 50 percent of the budget goes to families with
children. But only the chronic homeless is dealing with that,
stopping that recidivism, getting these hard street individuals
off the street permanently, providing them not only with
emergency housing but then transitional and permanent housing.
And in the final analysis, they utilize about 50 percent of the
budget. So the goal is to make sure that the chronically
homeless are--that we reduce that number substantially. And we
have. I think the Secretary mentioned that we reduced that by
12 percent from 2005 to 2006. But at the same time our
resources are there. And each year in this Administration since
2001, we have had a substantial increase in the amount of money
that we use for homelessness.
Mrs. Biggert. Well, I appreciate your answer, but I think
this is--you know what came up in the hearing too is whether it
could be expanded to include people who either double-up or are
living in hotels or motels, because of housing. And McKinney-
Vento for example, reauthorization, takes a much different view
of the definition. And that bill does so. I just don't know why
we can't expand the definition of chronically homeless.
Secretary Jackson. Congresswoman, I think you can. I mean
Congress has the power to expand. And if they do, we will
implement it.
Mrs. Biggert. That's a good answer. Thank you. I yield
back.
Mr. Bernardi. But if I may, when it comes to families with
children, the homelessness there doesn't last that long,
fortunately. In many instances transitional housing services
are provided, and you see those folks move on. It's the
chronically homeless who are constantly there and utilizing the
resources.
Mrs. Biggert. Well, I think from the testimony that we have
had that it's not--that's not necessarily true. The concern I
have is that everybody expects that they are immediately
finding a home, but in reality in some of the cases that we
have--
The Chairman. Will the gentlewoman yield? Just to direct
you to one of--some these predate a foreclosure crisis. And as
we know, one of the problems with foreclosures is that tenants
are evicted. You know, there are innocent tenants who are
sitting there, and their landlord got foreclosed. Is that
having an impact on the homeless problem? It would intuitively
seem to be. That as you increase evictions--
Secretary Jackson. Yes. That is clear, because there are
renters who were not aware that the owners of the homes were in
foreclosure.
The Chairman. And in some cases, they hare given very
little notice. We are trying to deal with that in our bill, but
I would think in support of what the gentlewoman said that
those would be families--that a family would find itself
evicted with no preparation, no notice; they didn't know what
was going on with the lender. And they have 30 days to vacate.
And I would guess that would be part of this problem.
Mrs. Biggert. And I would just--to yield back--say that I
really think that--I would argue that homeless children should
be our top priority. And then I would yield back.
Secretary Jackson. Thank you.
The Chairman. The gentlewoman from New York, the Chair of
the Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you. I'd like to ask a few questions
about one of the most successful programs to help deserving
people with housing in New York City and probably across the
country, which is Section 8. You have not asked for the $9
billion that is needed to fully fund Project-Based Section 8.
And my question is why are you just asking for funding through
this fiscal year, through September 30th, and why not for the
full 12 months? Because owners of buildings that would be
getting this Section 8 are very nervous, will not take it now,
because they have no confidence that the program is going to be
fully funded. So it appears to me that the policy that you're
following is a way to de-fund or unravel Section 8 for Project-
Based housing.
Secretary Jackson. I would respectfully disagree with you,
Congresswoman. I think that if you had said that a year ago,
you would have been absolutely correct. We have begun to
address that issue. And I think the chairman asked that just
before you came in. We feel very comfortable that every
landlord or provider knows now that they are going to be paid,
and paid timely.
Mrs. Maloney. Now how do they know that they are going to
be paid timely if you're only funding it through September
30th?
Secretary Jackson. No, it is funded to the 2009 period.
Mrs. Maloney. It is funded through 2009?
Secretary Jackson. Yes. It is.
Mrs. Maloney. With how much money?
Secretary Jackson. I'm not sure how much money. I think
it's totally funded where we will pay every provider.
Mrs. Maloney. Can you get us how much you put in the
budget?
Secretary Jackson. I'll be more than happy to.
Mrs. Maloney. To pay every provider through 2009?
Secretary Jackson. I sure will.
Mrs. Maloney. Because I feel that it's estimated to be $9
billion, yet it's not in your budget, as I understand. Or your
proposed budget.
Secretary Jackson. I'll be happy to get that for you.
There's no problem.
Mrs. Maloney. And the tenant-based formula. In the tenant-
based formula, why is the Department going back to the old
formula based on data that is 2 years old? And as I understand
it from the central staff of the committee, this would result
in a loss of over 100,000 vouchers across the country, and many
of course would be in New York City. So why are you basing it
on a formula that is 2 years old, thereby lowering the number
of vouchers?
Secretary Jackson. We're not, Congresswoman. What we have
done is budget-based. We're no longer using unit-based costs
to--
Mrs. Maloney. You no longer use--pardon me? The what?
Secretary Jackson. Unit-based.
Mrs. Maloney. You no longer use the tenant-based? You're
just doing project-based?
Secretary Jackson. No. Budget-based. We're giving the
housing authority a budget to work with so they'll have more
flexibility in how they manage the program. We went off the
unit-based pricing 2 years ago, and that's what they're
speaking in reference to.
Mrs. Maloney. So you no longer fund Tenant-Based Section 8?
Secretary Jackson. No. We do, but it's budget-based. It's
not based on units, as it had been the past.
Mrs. Maloney. And when you say units, you mean tenants?
Secretary Jackson. No. Units.
Mrs. Maloney. Excuse me. You know--I don't see what you've
changed. You say you no longer fund Tenant-Based Section 8,
where the tenant can shop for the Section 8 housing?
Secretary Jackson. We do.
Mrs. Maloney. But you've changed it to unit-based?
Secretary Jackson. No. It was unit-based to the housing
authority. They got a number of units. Let's say that Fort
Worth, Texas, got 400 units.
Mrs. Maloney. So in other words, your Section 8 can only go
to public housing?
Secretary Jackson. The Section 8 program is funded and
actually administrated by the public housing agency. The
tenant-based. It's not administered by anyone else. The
project-based is to a project that has been developed.
Mrs. Maloney. But in New York, at one point, they could
take a Section 8 voucher and go to any housing project. The
tenant made the decision of where they went.
Secretary Jackson. No. They didn't go to any housing
development. They went to a market-rate apartment somewhere in
the City of New York.
Mrs. Maloney. Exactly. But they made that choice. The
tenant made that choice. So you have taken it away from the
tenant making the choice and giving it the public housing
project. Is that what you're saying?
Secretary Jackson. No. That's not what I'm saying.
Mrs. Maloney. What are you saying?
Secretary Jackson. I'm saying that the program is always
administered from the housing authority, period. They have to
allocate the voucher to the person.
Mrs. Maloney. Right.
Secretary Jackson. The person has the flexibility to go
shop the voucher around to find the apartment that he or she
wants to live in.
The Chairman. And that hasn't changed?
The Secretary Jackson. That has not changed.
Mrs. Maloney. But have the number--the vouchers have fallen
by 100,000--according to central staff--that you're providing.
Secretary Jackson. No. Because it's budget-based, we're no
longer having unit-based. We're not giving the housing
authority of New York City units. We're giving them a budget,
and they can operate within that budget structure.
Mrs. Maloney. Well, I have been told that it will be a loss
of 100,000 vouchers. Whether you call it a unit or a tenant-
based or a housing authority based, and any cutback in Section
8 is bad news for public housing, period.
Secretary Jackson. We've increased the budget each year, so
I really feel comfortable that New York, as other areas, can
operate. And I've had this conversation before.
Mrs. Maloney. So the number of Section 8 vouchers going to
New York and other places is increasing this year?
Secretary Jackson. We've increased the budget by $100
million.
Mrs. Maloney. Does that mean 100 more tenants will be able
to afford housing?
Secretary Jackson. It's according to what section of the
country you're in, because you have a higher per capital plan
in New York than you would have in Dallas, Texas. It's
according to where you live.
Mrs. Maloney. My time is up, thank you.
The Chairman. The gentleman from California.
Mr. Miller of California. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have
been a developer for over 35 years, and you and I have talked
about recession, Mr. Secretary. And I think at the time if you
have a significant housing recession, at that time it's the
worst anybody has ever seen, they say.
Near the 1980's, I remember when the prime rate went to 21
percent, and you couldn't get a loan. It was awful. During the
1990's, when it was awful also starting in about February/March
of 2000, it was awful for a long time. And the problem was
within those recessions we had high unemployment.
This time it is also bad again, and it's not surprising
that we have all-time record foreclosures, because we have all-
time record homeownership at the same time. And much of the
problem we face today is in the subprime market, which is
expanded. And most of those loans should be considered
predatory, because when you make a loan to somebody you know
can't pay it back, it is problematic.
Chairman Frank touched on something that he and I worked
very hard on for a long time, and that is raising conforming in
high-cost areas and FHA in high-cost areas. And your statement
I think is most proper saying that this temporary increase will
help a lot of people out there who are stuck in the exotic
loans to be able to maintain homeownership.
That I think is absolutely true, but would not it also be
applicable to say doing this permanently would in the long run
help a lot of people in the future be able to buy a home,
understanding that FHA and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have good
underwriting standards? They are not going to you know,
decrease those in any way, shape, or form. Would it be a good
program to continue permanently rather than just on a temporary
basis?
Secretary Jackson. Congressman, yes. And I think I said
that to the chairman when he asked.
Mr. Miller of California. I just wanted to hear you say it
again, because I have been waiting for a long time to hear you
say that.
Secretary Jackson. I agree, I agree.
The Chairman. We need you to say it really loud so they
hear it in the Senate.
Mr. Miller of California. Some don't have ears.
Secretary Jackson. Absolutely, I think that it would be a
major plus. And that is why we want it at an acceptable level,
and that is why we want FHA modernization passed. And I think
the stimulus package demonstrates that when we raised it to the
limit that we did.
I was out in your State last week, and it was unbelievable
when I gave the answer to Los Angeles and Orange County,
because immediately the Realtors realized that they would be
able to refinance into a safe, secure loan with FHA.
Mr. Miller of California. It has a huge positive impact. In
fact, Barney and I suffered the banks fighting us for years.
And I have heard many Presidents and CEO's of banks saying what
a great program it is to do this, because when they sell high-
cost areas they can buy a home in the low-cost areas, but they
can't move out of the high-cost to move into a low-cost.
Another area that I have some concerns with, I remember we
all fought for the American Dream Downpayment Assistance
Program that we implemented. And we talked, we gave speeches.
And a lot of the arguments we heard in favor of that was to
pattern it after the private sector downpayment assistance
program. Now there seems to be an argument today that program
is awful, it's horrible, the foreclosures are extremely high.
I mean, of the nonprofit downpayment assistance program
they probably put a million people in homes who wouldn't have a
home otherwise. And some argument is being made that perhaps 20
percent of those might be in some problematic stage. That still
leaves 800,000 people in homes who wouldn't be in the homes.
But when I met with the Commissioner, I had a concern when
they said that the foreclosure rate was higher than the
nonprofit, you know, private sector downpayments assistance
programs. And I said, ``Can you give me the data showing what
percentage are in trouble on the private sector versus what
percentage are in the American Dream Downpayment systems?''
I was supposed to get that, but then about a week later,
they came back and said, ``Well, the information is not
available to us to give to you.'' Can you please explain to me
how then HUD believes that the private sector is undergoing
extremely high percentage of foreclosures and not American
Dream Downpayment Assistance Act when we don't have the data in
HUD differentiating the two?
Secretary Jackson. I wish I could, but Congressman I cannot
comment, because this matter right now is under current
litigation.
Mr. Miller of California. I thought those were all settled.
Secretary Jackson. No.
Mr. Miller of California. Oh, so there are two lawsuits
that have been resolved, but there are still more underway?
Secretary Jackson. I cannot comment as the Secretary.
The Chairman. Excuse me, Mr. Secretary, but I know that
people often say that. Has any judge ordered you not to comment
on this?
Secretary Jackson. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. Can I see the order from the judge?
Mr. Miller of California. They have, they have yes. But I
didn't know I couldn't talk about the program in general. I
knew I wasn't going to speak specifically to the litigation,
which I wasn't trying to do. My concern is that I believe the
private sector is doing a good job. And they put a million
people in homes who would otherwise not have a home.
And if we are saying that there is a problem in that
sector, if we mandate that they have the same identical
underwriting standards as HUD uses on the American Dream
Downpayment Program, if they use the same standards, the same
underwriting, the same appraisal standards, why would one be
problematic when the other one is not if they are using the
same standard?
I know you can't answer this, but this is a real concern
for me, because I remember hearing speeches when I voted for
the American Dream Downpayment Assistance Program that this
worked so well in the private sector that we need to expand it
by having government get involved, because we can put all these
people in homes who could not otherwise afford a home. Look at
how much more we can do by involving the government.
And if we just look at the numbers, I mean it seems like
there is something we could do. Let me ask you another question
then. I heard arguments saying that the MMFI and the HUD's
budget is problematic because of the high foreclosure rate. Is
there a minimum capital ratio that is for the MMIF, percentage-
wise?
Secretary Jackson. Brian.
Mr. Montgomery. The capital ratio that Congress sets for
the MMIF fund is 2 percent, and currently we are at about 6
percent.
Mr. Miller of California. That is what I thought. And my
concern Mr. Chairman is, and the information given to me, if we
require 2 percent and I checked the data and you had 6 percent,
and your projections between 2007-2014 that your actual
increase 50 percent. How can there be a problem if we are
triple the requirement that we are supposed to have currently?
I mean, I would honestly expect that the foreclosure rates
for people who don't have any money would probably be higher
than people who have money. So if a person doesn't have 3
percent down, and they want to participate in the American
Dream Downpayment Assistance Program, we are going to give them
3 percent. Or if they want to participate in the private
sector, somebody other than the government is going to give
them 3 percent.
And I would, I would actually expect that the foreclosure
rates would be higher for people who don't have any money. And
Mr. Secretary, you and I have talked about helping people get
into houses. So I really would like the data when you get it,
because I am having trouble understanding--
The Chairman. Well let me, we are going to run out of time,
but see if they have a response for the gentleman--
Mr. Miller of California. Oh, okay. I don't believe you
can, but okay.
Secretary Jackson. We will try to, we will get it to you
today.
The Chairman. As long as you have a court--
Secretary Jackson. You have a 6 percent, that's--
The Chairman. I can't imagine that a court order would
interfere with the transmission of factual data.
Secretary Jackson. No.
Mr. Miller of California. You said the funds at risk, you
are required to have a 2 percent and you have a 6, I don't see
a risk.
Mr. Montgomery. If I could respond to that, the Credit
Reform Act requires those loans, a book of business made in
that fiscal year beyond budget. Yes, over the net present value
of those loans, over the life of those loans, yes, we have a
great capital reserve meeting over those 30-year programs.
Based on our modeling right now, we will keep $21 billion more
than we will pay out.
For credit reform requires again, those books of business
beyond budget for that year, and this year is where the problem
is.
Mr. Miller of California. Well, I would expect there to be
a problem--
The Chairman. Your time has expired.
Mr. Miller of California. Oh, that's too bad, thank you.
The Chairman. The gentlewoman from New York.
Ms. Velazquez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Jackson,
local governments rely on CDBG to create fertile environments
for families and jobs to grow in our communities. The City of
New York for example, uses it for everything from going after
landlords and cleaning up the Bronx river to providing funding
after the 9/11 attacks to help businesses and the community to
get back on their feet. However, the President's budget will
cut funding for CDBG by nearly 20 percent. How do you expect
States and cities to continue their economic development
activities given the proposed cuts?
Secretary Jackson. We have put before you on a number of
occasions proposals to revamp the Community Development Block
Grant to make sure that it addresses the needs of cities that
really need the program. I don't doubt for one moment that New
York needs the program, but there are certain cities around
this country that don't.
And I think it is very important that we begin--
Ms. Velazquez. You are telling me that there is no city
across America that does not need funds to promote economic
development?
Secretary Jackson. Yes.
Ms. Velazquez. And create jobs?
Secretary Jackson. Yes, yes.
Ms. Velazquez. So why are you cutting the budget for CDBG?
Secretary Jackson. I said there are certain cities that
from our perspective do not need the concentration of Community
Development Block Grant Funds.
Ms. Velazquez. Which cities?
Secretary Jackson. Like Palm Beach, Florida, one of the
richest cities in the country.
Ms. Velazquez. So then why can't you use the entire, that
money to increase the investment of resources to continue to
promote economic development and job creation at a time when
the economy is suffering so much?
Secretary Jackson. That is a very excellent question. If
you--
Ms. Velazquez. Yes, because it could respond to the intent
of the stimulus package.
Secretary Jackson. May I answer please?
Ms. Velazquez. Yes, sure.
Secretary Jackson. If you would pass the proposed
legislation that we have, we would be able to use the money by
specifically pinpointing those cities that deserve it most. And
that is all we are saying, is that the formula that we have had
since 1974 does not fit the needs of major cities today, and I
would like to zero in on those cities.
The best example I can give you is Canton, Ohio, where I
know you have severe problems, or Dayton, Ohio, which I was
just at, you have severe problems, or portions of New York City
where you have severe problems.
Ms. Velazquez. Have you proposed legislation to this
committee?
Secretary Jackson. Yes, I have.
Ms. Velazquez. Well, I'll look into that. Sir, most of our
Nation's public housing developments range in age from 40 to 70
years old and are getting older everyday. For seniors and
families in public housing, one more year adds to the cost of
needed repairs.
So these needs are so great that your agency has encouraged
PHAs to borrow funds from the capital market to pay for their
current repair needs. PHAs use public housing Capital Fund
grants to pay for both the repair needs and the financing. In
the President's Fiscal Year 2009 budget however, he is
proposing to cut Public Housing Capital Fund grants by over
$400 million. It is a 17 percent decrease from last year. Can
you explain why you urge PHAs to borrow on one hand and cut
their means to borrow with the other?
Secretary Jackson. Let me say this, that back in the early
1990's, we had what we called the Commission on Severely
Distressed Public Housing. We came to the conclusion that there
were 88,000 subprime units in this country and they should be
demolished. To date, we have demolished 150,000. So a lot of
housing authorities have less units than they had.
And I think that the capital funds that they had, it kept
pace with that. Also, what is very, very important is this:
Many of the properties that are in these major cities have
increased so much in value that they can issue bonds to make
sure that the property is maintained. And we can still pay the
payment back to us to make sure that the property sustains
itself.
I think that having done that myself, I don't have a
problem.
Ms. Velazquez. So the Federal Government is running away
from its responsibility--
Secretary Jackson. No.
Ms. Velazquez. --to provide for capital funds to keep those
projects.
Secretary Jackson. No. I would not say we are moving away
from our responsibility. I think we have the appropriate amount
of capital funds going to the major housing authorities in this
country. I think that if they use innovativeness and use their
bonding power, they can address their needs.
Also, it is important that we are going to asset-based
management. You know we have many housing authorities around
this country that buildings are sitting empty and we are paying
people for them.
Ms. Velazquez. It is okay, you have an excellent question
for every answer. My last question sir, your agency estimates
the percentage of elderly heads of households assisted by HUD
to be 35 percent in New York, 35 percent in Chicago, 34 percent
in Boston, and 31 percent in Los Angeles. Can you tell me in
what ways HUD is identifying any program or creating any
program to provide services to the aging population within
public housing?
Secretary Jackson. I am sorry Congresswoman, I really
didn't get the question.
Ms. Velazquez. There is a growing need, special needs for
those who live in public housing who are becoming seniors. And
they live in public housing, they are not on Section 202. So
what types of programs do you have in place to address the
health needs and other services that are going to be required
by this aging population?
Secretary Jackson. Well I will tell you that our
responsibility as the Department of Housing and Urban
Development is to provide them housing, decent, safe, and
sanitary conditions. We don't address the medical issues or the
issues that might come from living in assisted living. That is
not something that is within our mandate.
Ms. Velazquez. Okay, maybe you need to introduce
legislation to do that.
The Chairman. Mr. Secretary, I may have missed something. I
thought you said there were 88,000 distressed units, of which
150,000 have been demolished. So we demolished what, 62,000
non-distressed units?
Secretary Jackson. No. What happened, as the years went by,
more and more units were distressed, and they took that into
consideration and began to demolish those units.
The Chairman. How many were replaced, do we know?
Secretary Jackson. We have had a substantial number of
those--
The Chairman. We don't know?
Secretary Jackson. No.
The Chairman. All right. That reinforces my view that there
is a lack of concern here. When we know more about how many
were destroyed than we know about how many were replaced, I
think that is symptomatic of an undervaluing of the existence
of the units.
Secretary Jackson. No sir, I would disagree.
The Chairman. Well then, why don't we know how many were
replaced?
Secretary Jackson. Because we have outstanding right--to
date, $1.4 billion dollars in HOPE VI monies that were supposed
to do those units that have not been used as of today by how--
The Chairman. I have seen it, but that doesn't--you still
should know how many were replaced if we are concerned about
that. We are trying to fix up the HOPE VI program.
Secretary Jackson. As of to date, 60,000 have been
replaced.
The Chairman. Well, you got that answer in a hurry, thank
you.
Secretary Jackson. I got it from my person.
The Chairman. Credit, those people are doing something
sitting back there. The gentleman from Texas.
Mr. Neugebauer. Thank you. Mr. Secretary, it is good to
have you here again. And I was glad to hear you say that FHA
has underwritten about $37 billion worth of mortgages to help
bring some additional liquidity. Were all of those loans made
to refinance subprime loans that were already on the books?
Mr. Montgomery. Between October 1st and January 1st, the
number is about $38 billion that we have injected into the
market. About $15 billion of that is FHA secure. So $38 billion
total, $15 billion of that is FHA secure.
Secretary Jackson. That is the new program that the
President, the Congressman, and I announced in August.
Mr. Neugebauer. You know one of the things that I think has
been kind of interesting and obviously, many of us are ready to
get the FHA reform bill passed and get to making FHA even more
than it is today. But I think it is kind of interesting, we
have had diminished interest in FHA, and now all of a sudden we
have a bunch of folks who are in trouble and everybody is
looking for someone to come in and just step in and fill some
of those voids.
My big concern here is that we do not want to diminish the
solvency of FHA. I just want to be on the record and be very
clear to you that as we are underwriting these loans, I hope we
are learning lessons from the past here. And how we got into
this dilemma was the fact that we were not appropriately
underwriting many of these loans. And in many cases, the risk
being taken far exceeded the potential return on that mortgage.
So I'm hopeful that as you are looking at those, and
certainly I think with the additional loan limits, that is
going to open up some new avenues for you. But I think it's, we
need to be very clear here that we have to get back to basics
with housing. How we got in the housing jam today is that we
got very creative in one way but we got very careless in
another way.
And I think it's more the carelessness than the creative. I
am not opposed to creativity. But when you start not getting
appraisals and not verifying people's income and their assets.
And I have heard this term used, and I think it has been used a
lot here lately, we are putting people in homes who ordinarily
couldn't afford one, and we thought that was a good thing.
Secretary Jackson. Right.
Mr. Neugebauer. But what we do to people when we put them
in a home that they can't afford is we set them up for failure.
And so we have to be very careful here as we make policy in
this Congress that we are not putting people in a home that
they can't afford, but that we are giving people an
opportunity. And when we start talking about downpayment
assistance and where we are, basically putting people into a
home that have no equity, no skin in the game if we would.
I think we have to be very careful of that. The principle
that most Americans grew up in is you save up money so that you
can own a home, and until you do that you live in other forms
of housing. And that's the reason you are the Secretary of
Housing, that homeownership is one aspect of housing, but we
have been talking about others.
Which brings me to my question, what is the status, and we
have heard a lot about other agencies of what their loan
portfolios are. What does the FHA portfolio look like? What are
your delinquency rates? What are your foreclosure rates and are
you within your statutory requirement?
Secretary Jackson. Right.
Mr. Montgomery. Our foreclosure rate is a little less than
2 percent. A lot of the problems that you are seeing in the
subprime market you are not seeing within the FHA program. We,
our delinquency rate is about 6 or 7 percent, but that also has
a lot to do with the fact that FHA has excellent loss
mitigation programs, which is a technical term for foreclosure
prevention.
The last thing that we want to do is foreclose on an FHA
borrower, so we have various steps along the way when a
borrower gets in trouble to prevent them from going to
foreclosure. As a matter of fact, families who hit a rough spot
and go through the program, 2 years later, 92 percent of them
are still in their homes, and that is a good record, we think.
Mr. Neugebauer. And as far as your reserve requirement in
statutory, what is your number today?
Mr. Montgomery. The capital reserve requirement is 2
percent, we are at a little more than 6 percent, somewhere
around $20 billion. But again, that is not to be confused with
what the Credit Reform Act requires. Our long-term outlook is
good using the capital reserve standard. But again, from the
Credit Reform Act, the fact that we are taking in too many
higher-risk loans, that is what threatens our solvency for this
year.
Mr. Neugebauer. And when you say you are taking too many,
do you believe you are taking too many?
Mr. Montgomery. Well, these are not the refinancings that
are causing us to go more positive in our credit subsidy. Quite
frankly, a lot of the conventional FHA refinancings that we are
doing right now, which we have done 117,000 in the last 5
months, have a decent amount of equity in it. Again, it is more
borrowers, purchase borrowers who are using the seller-funded
activity that are the higher-risk loans now.
They have default rates, or rather claim rates 2\1/2\ times
higher than those who don't have that type of assistance.
Mr. Neugebauer. Thank you.
The Chairman. If I may, the gentleman pursued a very useful
line of questioning. And this is the second time, Commissioner,
that you have noted a pessimism on the Credit Reform Act that
does not appear to be based in the economic reality of your
reserves. And I wonder whether you might be willing to work
with us on a better appraisal.
This sounds like a case where if we mark-to-market, it
would go up rather than down. So I think maybe on a bipartisan
basis, we might want to work with you to see, because this is
the second time you have mentioned that the credit, and answer
the question if you weren't--other. But it does look like the
Credit Reform Act may be unduly restrictive and might in fact
lead to an argument for increases when the economic reality
doesn't require them.
So I think that is something that if the gentleman from
Texas is interested in, we will be working on. And I think that
was very useful, thank you. The gentleman from North Carolina.
Mr. Watt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome Secretary
Jackson. I just want to raise one line of questions, and then I
am going to give you an opportunity to explain your overall
plan here. But I want to raise the totality of the concerns
about fair housing enforcement activities, and then have you
kind of help us understand how this all fits together.
If I am looking at the budget, we go from $50 million to
$51 million for Fair Housing, $50 million to $65 million for
Housing Counseling, and $33.5 million to zero for NCBI LISC
enterprise. I assume those would be the three programs in which
you would have the most impact on fair housing. I have
information that suggests that 13 fair housing groups that were
funded previously were not funded in the last round of Fair
Housing Grants that were made and 26 Fair Housing Centers
either have closed or are at risk of closing due to lack of
funding.
I have concerns about what, in the context of the
Mississippi transfer of funds to the port, what plans you made
for fair housing in that context. And then I have something
that suggests, or confirms I guess, which you can refute if
it's not the case, that HUD changed its Fair Housing Handbook
to prohibit employees to say that a complaint, or prohibit the
filing of anonymous complaints about housing. It has to be
attributed to somebody now so that they can be identified and
potentially retaliated against.
I am just, I know you have a strong commitment to fair
housing.
Secretary Jackson. That is correct.
Mr. Watt. So there must be something in this context that
is a plan for aggressive fair housing enforcement. It is just
escaping me.
Secretary Jackson. Okay, I understand.
Mr. Watt. Can you use the rest of my time to kind of
explain what your vision is? And I see you have somebody who is
working with you on that. So you all help me to understand what
your plan is.
Secretary Jackson. Thanks, Mr. Watt. I would like for Kim
Kendrick, who is the Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and
Equal Opportunity to have a chance to address that issue.
Mr. Watt. She is prettier than you and probably knows more
about it too. So I am delighted to have her in.
Secretary Jackson. I won't debate that with you.
Ms. Kendrick. Good morning, sir. Well, let me address first
the number of fair housing groups. You said 13 have lost their
funding. That is probably correct. But one of the things that
we did this year, what we have done for the last 3 years is we
are now funding groups for 3-year cycles. So we have 45 groups
that now have funding for 3 years instead of just having groups
that are funded at 1 year.
One of the problems with just funding groups for 1 year is
that if they lose their funding then we lose the ability of
those groups to enforce the Fair Housing Act across the
country. So what we have decided to do with the money that we
have available is to fund groups for 3-year cycles. That gives
them the ability to stay in business for that number of years.
As a result of that, because we do have a budget, we do
unfortunately, lose some of those groups.
Mr. Watt. We don't appropriate but for 1 year. How do you
do that?
Ms. Kendrick. It is paid for.
Mr. Watt. So basically that means you have groups that are
able to do fair housing enforcement. They have the expectation
that they can do it for 3 years, but that last year they still
are going to have some insecurity. And then parts of the
country that don't have any groups doing fair housing
enforcement for any years. So I still don't understand how that
gives you a more effective plan.
Ms. Kendrick. I don't think we have two States that, we
have three States that don't have any fair housing laws right
now. But we still have the Federal Fair Housing Act, which
means that our Federal Fair Housing Act covers the entire
Nation. So even though we may not have local groups on the
ground, we have our own HUD groups on the ground there. So we
have enforcement powers for all 50 States. We don't have any
State where we don't have any enforcement power, so even though
we may not have individual fair housing, independent fair
housing groups, we do have a Federal presence in those States.
Mr. Watt. I don't know where that comes in this budget
then. We have a net reduction if I put all three of those
categories together; where I would expect fair housing to be
most involved, there is a net reduction of over $15 million.
Secretary Jackson. Congressman, let me say this. When you
talk about LISC enterprise that was not fair housing, that was
an allocation made that, in fact, we were making grants to them
to help build more affordable housing around the country. And
Congress insisted that we do this on a competitive basis, and
that is done on a competitive basis.
And basically that is what you see.
Mr. Watt. Well you can't compete for zero dollars here,
though. I mean--
Secretary Jackson. But that was not for fair housing.
Mrs. Maloney. [presiding] The gentleman's time has expired
and additional questions can be placed in writing.
Congressman Capuano.
Mr. Capuano. Thank you, Mr. Secretary for being here. Mr.
Secretary, I want to start out by saying that I like some of
the budget proposals you've had. I certainly like the increase
in fair housing. I really like the increase, the proposed
increase in housing counseling and downpayment grants and self-
help habitat. There are several things here that I like and
support. But, of course, I'm not going to focus on that,
because that's good job. Now let's move on to the stuff I don't
like.
On the CDBG block grants, you pointed out Palm Beach,
Florida, as a potential city that maybe shouldn't qualify under
your judgment, and that's fair. Do you plan on denying them
CDBG block grant money this year?
Secretary Jackson. No, I don't have the authority to do
that.
Mr. Capuano. So you have no discretion in that matter?
Secretary Jackson. No.
Mr. Capuano. So that because you don't like a few cities,
you're now going to cut back 18 percent on every other city in
America because you don't have the discretion that you think is
right?
Secretary Jackson. No. That's not what I'm saying. I said
we have proposed legislation before you.
Mr. Capuano. I understand that, but the legislation hasn't
passed, and when it passes, that's fine. I'd like to--are there
elderly that you don't like getting money as well, Section 202
money?
Secretary Jackson. No. We have demonstration programs that
are going on where we're leveraging the money, and we think
that all of those developments now are in full swing. I think
we have about 250 Section 202s and we have about 202 Section
811s in progress of being developed right now.
Mr. Capuano. So all seniors and disabled people have
appropriate and adequate housing in America?
Secretary Jackson. Well, I don't think we're going to ever
get to that point, Congressman.
Mr. Capuano. I don't think so either. That's why I don't
support a 26 percent and a 32 percent cut in those programs.
Have we solved all the lead paint problems in America?
Secretary Jackson. No we have not.
Mr. Capuano. There's no lead paint anywhere?
Secretary Jackson. No we have not.
Mr. Capuano. But a 20 percent cut. Brownfields--all the
brownfields in America are all cleaned up?
Secretary Jackson. Well, we really feel that that's not
really our responsibility, and I've said that on a number of
occasions here before you.
Mr. Capuano. So it's not our responsibility to make healthy
neighborhoods?
Secretary Jackson. No. I think that is one of the other
agency's responsibility. Our responsibility is to provide
decent, safe, and sanitary housing, and we're going to continue
to do that.
Mr. Capuano. That's fair enough. I don't agree with you,
but I respect the difference of opinion. I want to move on
because, I mean, we're going to have some differences of
opinion on budgetary matters and priorities, and I understand
that. But it's the lack of discretion and the ability of
discretion that really troubles me, because I think that's
really what it's all about. Once you get to a bottom line, it
really does depend on your discretion and the discretion of the
people who work for you. And I will tell you that the letter to
the Governor of Mississippi was troubling to me. I just want to
ask. When you say that you have little discretion--in your
letter, you said you have little discretion--does that mean no
discretion? Or does that mean little discretion?
Secretary Jackson. I think the legislation was very clear.
It said ``we shall.'' It didn't say ``we may.''
Mr. Capuano. So that you don't have little discretion. You
have no discretion?
Secretary Jackson. Basically, no discretion.
Mr. Capuano. All right. Because ``little discretion''
troubles me, because I always argue with people that when you
have a little discretion, use it. And especially when you go on
to say you're concerned that there may be significant unmet
needs of affordable housing, which I agree with, but I'd like
to know what is it that you think that is unmet in the region?
Secretary Jackson. Well, I don't think that everything has
been provided to low- and moderate-income people that should be
provided for housing or infrastructure. So I totally agree with
you. But had I had my d'ruthers, I probably would have said,
sir, I don't think we should be using this money and I would
not approve it. But I didn't have that kind of authority.
Mr. Capuano. I appreciate that, but again, when I see the
word ``little discretion,'' that means there's something. That
means there's something you hang your hat on. And I would
prefer, especially if I believe in something, if I have
something to hang my hat on, unless I know I'm absolutely not
going to win, I push for what I believe in, and if I lose in
court or I lose later on, so be it. But if you really felt
strongly about it that the people in that area had not been
fairly met, their needs hadn't been met, I would have suggested
that you should have done what you think is right and let the
Governor of Mississippi chase us.
Secretary Jackson. Well, Congressman, I would say that
under normal circumstances, that would be the case. But when
you ask your general counsel what is the authority that you
have to authorize this and they tell you that clearly there is
none, then you have to do exactly what they say.
Mr. Capuano. Well, two things happen. Number one, I've had
general counsel, and when the general counsel tells me that I
can write a letter that says I have little discretion, that
means my general counsel has told me I have something. And then
I turn to my general counsel and say, well, thank you for your
advice. I'm the boss. This is what we're going to do. And your
general counsel says, okay, I understand. As long as I can
defend you and I can't tell you you're breaking the law. And if
your general counsel then quits the next day, well, then maybe
you went a little too far.
Secretary Jackson. Well, I think under normal
circumstances, I would agree with you again. But when the
legislation is very clear, and that's what they're there for is
to interpret the legislation that you passed, and you all
passed this legislation and that's the interpretation.
Mr. Capuano. Then I would suggest that the next letter you
write should clearly say, ``I have no discretion,'' as opposed
to little discretion. But I also want to talk about the next
batch of money. Now I will tell you that, you know, I have,
hey, let's talk. I have some needs in the Boston harbor, and
I'd love to expand it. Can we talk? Do you have any extra money
that you have some discretion over that, you know, would help
low- and moderate-income people? It would create jobs.
Secretary Jackson. If you'll pass the legislation, we'll
authorize it.
Mr. Capuano. I would if you give me some money.
Secretary Jackson. Well, we don't give money. You give us
the money.
Mr. Capuano. So if I do that with an earmark to Boston
harbor, you're all set?
Secretary Jackson. Well, if you pass it, yes.
Mrs. Maloney. The gentleman's time has expired. Additional
questions can be placed in writing. Congressman Clay.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Mr. Secretary, good
morning.
Secretary Jackson. Good morning.
Mr. Clay. I visited New Orleans with my family in November
of 2007, and the tourist area looks as if nothing had happened
to it, and that part of the City was still beautiful. Then I
toured the devastated areas of the City that was caused by the
hurricane. I was shocked and appalled by the ghost town that I
observed.
Commercial streets had heavy traffic. However, the shopping
centers were deserted. There were no grocery stores, no drug
stores, and not too many schools were open. No Burger Kings, no
McDonald's, no Kentucky Fried Chicken. Parking lots were
overgrown with grass, and residential streets were deserted.
Sometimes one house on a block was occupied. Sometimes one
would go three blocks before seeing an occupied house. There
were no children playing and very few children to be seen at
all.
What happened? I remember the speech that President Bush
made at Jackson Square that promised to rebuild the City. What
happened to all of the promises that he made? And why is over
60 percent of the pre-hurricane population, why is it still not
back in New Orleans? What has happened to the billions and
billions of dollars that were poured into the City for its
rebuilding?
Secretary Jackson. Congressman, I think that's a fair
question. What I can tell you is this: We allocated the money
to the State of Louisiana. They set up the Louisiana Recovery
Authority, which was to administer the money. President Bush
made it clear to us that we were not to dictate what occurs in
that State; that was the Governor's responsibility.
To date, they hired an agency called--a group called ICF.
They were to disburse money, help people get back in their
homes. They have paid them an extraordinary amount of money,
but we have not seen the results of what has been accomplished
in that process. So I can't sit here and debate with you that
as I travel back and forth to New Orleans, I can't debate with
you that things are not where I want them to be, because
they're not where I want them to be. I would think with the
amount of money that we allocated to Louisiana, they should be
further ahead than where they are.
And I think that the present Governor, Governor Jindahl,
will tell you that, that we--I won't say we--for some strange
reason, the money was not used very well, and I'm not sure what
kind of audit is being done at this point on the ICF to
demonstrate the amount of money that they were paid compared to
the assistance that they gave many of the residents in New
Orleans.
Now with the process of bringing people back home, I can't
speak to everyone, but we have done everything in our power for
those who were on subsidies, whether it was public housing or
Section 8, to get them back. In fact, in many cases, we were
paying 150 percent over market rate, some places 170 percent
over market rate, because we want to do everything that we can
in our power to get people back who want to come back home. I
think that's the only right thing to do, and the President has
instructed us to continue to do that.
And that's why we did the survey at the request of
Chairwoman Waters. She wanted a survey to see who wanted to
come back home. We did the survey. And we had some of the
people who basically were suing us as part of the survey team,
because we wanted a balanced answer to the question.
Mr. Clay. Is that indicative of why the President's point
man left? I just read recently where he resigned from, you
know, from being the liaison to the White House over the
reconstruction of the Gulf Coast.
Secretary Jackson. I can't tell you specifically, but I can
say this about my friend, Don Powell. He was very frustrated in
working with Louisiana, very frustrated.
Mr. Clay. I can imagine. Can we move on to Mississippi?
There's one issue--and my colleagues have brought up the issue
of the money for building docks and dredging the harbor, but
why was $25 million diverted to a project in northern
Mississippi that was not in the affected area, and how do we
account for these dollars?
Secretary Jackson. I don't know exactly what you're
speaking in reference to, but if you'll tell us, I will be
happy to get--
The Chairman. If the gentleman would yield, it is a Toyota
plant in northern Mississippi that is getting some money.
Secretary Jackson. I will get an answer. Do you have an
answer? This is Nelson Bregon--
Mr. Clay. Good morning.
Secretary Jackson. --the General Assistant Secretary of
Redevelopment and Planning.
Mr. Clay. Good morning.
Mr. Bregon. We do not have a proposal right now from the
State of Mississippi to undertake any activity or project
related to a Toyota plant. We have heard the same thing you
have heard, but the State of Mississippi has not provided us
with any information. They have not put a request through a
disaster plan, which is what they have to do for us to look and
concur with whether in fact this is an eligible activity and it
meets the other program guidelines.
The Chairman. If the gentleman would yield, I did have a
meeting with Governor Barbour, and I think the Secretary may
have indicated to Governor Barbour that it would make the
Secretary's life a little easier if the Governor came and
talked to us, and if so, I think that was a reasonable--
although it would have made all of our lives easier, frankly,
if Governor Barbour had talked to our colleague, Bennie
Thompson, and I think they finally did that, and I think the
Governor was deficient in not having done that before.
But when he spoke to me, he told me that as of now, the
Toyota plant that people have talked about, that the funding
there is going to come out of some State funds that were freed
up by something else, and I think some of this conversation--I
don't know what originally was planned there.
But I think some of the conversation that has happened may
have influenced the decision for it not to come out of these
funds but to come out of the State funds. So as of now,
apparently they are talking about State funds for this,
although I am not convinced that was their original intention.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
The Chairman. The gentleman from California.
Mr. Baca. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary,
San Bernardino and Riverside County, which is my area, has the
highest foreclosure rate in the country. As you know, the
committee is working on housing stimulus legislation to help
stabilize the housing market. I have introduced legislation
similar to a bill introduced by Chairman Dobbs in the Senate
that establishes a family foreclosure rescue corporation that
will buy mortgages from the originators and finance loans based
on reduced value of properties, making the payments more
manageable for the homeowners, and that's important to all of
us to maintain that American dream and stabilize and be in your
home.
This proposal is to create a temporary institution to help
stop the crisis. The concept has support from the conservative
American Enterprise Institute and the liberal Center for
American Progress. What are your thoughts? And would this be
something you would support?
Secretary Jackson. Congressman, I really think that if we
can get FHA modernization with the high loan limits, at an
acceptable loan limit, we can address the issues in San
Bernardino the same as Compton, the same as the others. I
really believe that if we can reconcile, as the chairman has
tried to do with the Senate side, and I hope it comes to
fruition this afternoon, we can help.
It was clear when I was in California last week for the
announcement of the loan limit at $729,000 that the Realtors
were very pleased. And immediately they said that they can
resolve many of the problems that you've just talked about if
we keep the loan limit at an acceptable level. We don't have to
have any other bills. If we just reconcile FHA modernization,
we can address many of the issues that you are faced with.
Mr. Baca. It's essential, because most of the people right
now are, you know, facing this crisis, the drama of being
displaced, being homeless, not having a place to go. And we
need to take immediate action, because someone who is in a home
will not have a home anymore. And when they get these payments,
who knows what's going to happen? I just saw some comedian
movie the other day of some foreclosures that were going on,
and they're going around robbing banks or whatever just to
survive. And I said, you know, we don't want to get into that
kind of a crisis where many of our individuals are now looking
at how do they stay in their home? How do they maintain their
mortgage payments that they have? And we have one solution, and
hopefully that's another one.
Another question that I have is that the President's Fiscal
Year 2009 budget contains an 18.3 percent cut in the CDBG
program. What is the rationale for a cut of this magnitude?
Secretary Jackson. Well, as I--
Mr. Baca. Question number one.
Secretary Jackson. As I said to the Congressman a few
minutes ago, we believe that there's a proposal before you all
to be able to zero in on those cities that are much in need of
Community Development Block Grant funds. To date, we're still
operating on a formula that was set in 1974. That formula today
is not applicable to what is occurring in this country today.
I mean, we have major cities in this country today that are
suffering, whether it's Dayton, Ohio, whether it's Canton,
whether it's Detroit, where if we could specifically point the
money in the direction for 2 or 3 years to bring those cities
back, it would be more positively--more positive--
Mr. Baca. Isn't that saying that we need to increase it,
not cut it, and redirect the money? I mean, that's what I'm
hearing you say at one point. If we need to direct it to those
cities that do need it, and if there are cities that don't,
then we need to redirect that and put the additional funding
that is there to assure that it's there for those cities that
need it.
Secretary Jackson. I don't disagree. I think we have the
funding at the level that we have if we can direct it to the
cities that are most in need. And only you can do that. Our
proposal is--
Mr. Baca. But directing it doesn't mean that we have a
cutback. And we have a cutback right now of 18.3 percent, and
then there also has been a total--and it comes out to 44.9
percent since the year 2001. It seems like we continue to cut
when there's still a need in other cities. I'm not saying that
you're wrong and some of the cities don't need it. We need to
redirect that. But increase the funding at a time when we're
going into a recession, that we should be able to provide for
many of the poor, the disadvantaged, or individuals who need
this.
Secretary Jackson. I'm not saying that you are wrong,
Congressman. What I am saying--
Mr. Baca. I'm glad you said that. I'm not wrong. Thank you.
Secretary Jackson. But I am saying that I think that in the
budget we have enough money to address the needs if we pass the
proposed legislation that we've presented to you. Second of
all, I guess I would disagree with you. I don't think we're
going into a recession. I think the economy has--
Mr. Baca. We're already in a recession. Okay. I'm sorry. I
should have said we're already in a recession, not going into
one. All right. Thank you for clarifying that.
Secretary Jackson. Thank you.
Mr. Baca. The next question that I have--
The Chairman. Would the gentleman yield for a second? Mr.
Secretary, let me see if I understand you. As I understand the
budget, it proposes the cut. It doesn't say change the formula
and reallocate. Are you saying that if we were to adopt your
change in formula and then took the extra money that was saved
by that and put it to the other--the remaining cities, that the
Administration would approve that?
Secretary Jackson. No, sir, that's not what I said. I
said--
The Chairman. In other words, what you're proposing is that
we cut out the cities you don't think should get it, but that
would not be of any benefit to the other cities?
Secretary Jackson. No. I think what I'm saying is that I
think we have enough money allocated in the--
The Chairman. Right. But the argument that if we cut from
them, you could reallocate it, that's not what you're arguing?
Secretary Jackson. No.
The Chairman. So that even if we cut out the cities that
you think don't need it, that wouldn't bring another penny to
the ones that would still be eligible, correct?
Secretary Jackson. What I'm saying to you--
The Chairman. No, is that yes or no? That your proposal is
to cut out money from the cities that you think don't need it,
but not to provide any more than the budget for the ones that
are already in it?
Secretary Jackson. No. I'm saying to you, Mr. Chairman,
that we would specifically zero in on those cities that we see
are extremely devastated by the downturn and try to--
The Chairman. I didn't see that in--but you're reducing the
amount of money by ``X'' percent. I assume that was based on
the cities that you thought didn't deserve it. So then the
question is, that money then is reduced. What's left? Where is
there money to give to anybody else? How do you give more money
to the other cities?
Secretary Jackson. We think that if we have the $3 billion
that's in the budget we can address this with the recalculation
of the formula.
Mr. Baca. But there's a cutback in the budget.
The Chairman. Yes. You're cutting out the cities that you
think don't deserve it, correct?
Mr. Bregon. Mr. Chairman?
The Chairman. Yes.
Mr. Bregon. The CDBG program distributes the money with a
formula.
The Chairman. No, we know that, sir.
Mr. Bregon. So it's not--
The Chairman. Excuse me.
Mr. Bregon. --like we are taking--
The Chairman. Excuse me. Stop. We know that.
Mr. Bregon. So--
The Chairman. No. Stop.
Mr. Bregon. But the proposed formula--
The Chairman. Please stop, because you're evading the
question, and I don't think people should leave false
impressions. The budget request is 18 percent below. Now I
assume that cut was based on the calculation that there are
cities that didn't deserve it. If you reduce the amount by
taking out from the cities that don't deserve it, that doesn't
give you any ability to reallocate it. You didn't ask for an
ability to reallocate based on need. You asked to cut out the
ones that you thought weren't needy, but nothing in there goes
to increase the ones that are needy.
Mr. Bregon. Yes. I mean, the formula would give more monies
to communities that have a greater need, and it would--
The Chairman. But you'd cut the overall amount?
Mr. Bregon. Yes.
The Chairman. How did you decide to cut 18 percent?
Mr. Bregon. We know that the gap--we know that when we look
at the new formula, if we look at the--
The Chairman. No. I asked--excuse me, sir. I asked you
questions. I'd like answers.
Mr. Bregon. $400 million.
The Chairman. How did you arrive at that amount to cut,
based on what calculation?
Mr. Bregon. No. The four hundred--
The Chairman. No. How did you decide to reduce? What
calculation led you to decide you could save that money?
Mr. Bregon. Well, that decision was made on a budget--
The Chairman. Oh, by OMB? Okay. That's the answer.
Mr. Bregon. The formula I'm talking about--
The Chairman. So let's not--all right. Now we know where it
is. OMB told you that's all you can have. Let's not dance
around and try and put a dress on OMB's decision. I thank the
gentleman.
Mr. Baca. Thank you. Reclaiming my time. Thank you very
much for pursuing that, and I think we still have a lot of work
because there's a lot of need out there, and hopefully we can
reallocate it to those areas.
The next question I have concerns the fact that the
homeless numbers are growing in the Central City Lutheran
Mission homeless shelters in San Bernardino in my district.
Homelessness, as you know, boundaries no country. Thousands of
men and women and children live in cars, on streets, in
shelters, and in parks. In fact, a new survey shows that a 39
percent increase since the year 2003, the rise of foreclosures
will ultimately increase the numbers.
Even though you increased the homeless assistance grant,
your proposed cuts in community development grants, public
housing, elderly housing, disabled housing, you also eliminate
rural housing grants, funding for the LISCs and Enterprise in
Section 108 of the CDBG loans. So doesn't the rest of HUD's
budget proposal jeopardize visibility of the housing serving
over 1 million extremely-low-income families?
Secretary Jackson. No, Congressman, I don't. I think that
we have allocated monies based on the needs and from our
assessment. And also, we have seen the reduction in the
homeless population of 12 percent for the first time. We can
calculate exactly why and what means it takes to get the people
off the street. So I think that we have tried to be as fair.
The budget is--
Mr. Baca. What does it take to get the people off the
streets?
Secretary Jackson. Well, there are programs. The best
example I can give you is the PATH program in Los Angeles,
which starts basically by taking the person off the street,
cleaning them up, then giving them the psychological and
medical help that they need, putting them through a training
program, and then looking for a job for many of them. They have
been very, very successful, to the tune of about 85 percent
over the last 5 years.
And I toured that program with Governor Schwarzenegger, I
guess it was about a year-and-a-half ago, maybe 2 years--
absolutely awed by the effect that it has had. I think it's
being replicated throughout the State of California. In fact,
Governor Schwarzenegger just allocated monies to certain parts
of the State to strengthen the program.
Mr. Baca. Well, it's to have the shelters, and I also
believe that, you know, we should also implement the kind of
programs--I know this is done at the local level--is to go
around and picking up all of the homeless during a certain
period of time, taking them to these shelters and assuring that
those shelters are available, cleaning them up, checking them,
doing whatever, and then putting them back instead of keeping
them out on the streets. These are some of the things that
maybe cities and others should implement as well in terms of a
curfew to allow that there will be a bus or someone that can go
around picking them up. But you have to have the transportation
to get them to the shelters as well.
I know that my time has expired. Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from New
York.
Mr. Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Secretary, we have, as you can see, I
think six more members. If you can give us another 30 or 40
minutes, we'll finish up. We appreciate your indulgence.
Mr. Meeks. It is good to see you, Mr. Secretary.
Secretary Jackson. It is good to see you.
Mr. Meeks. I have concerns about what's happening with
FHIP, with the budget in FHIP, the Federal Housing Initiatives
Program, because it seems to me what is happening there is a
significant cut at the time when we least can afford it. From
what I understand, the proposed budget is listed at $26
million, and HUD has called for $6 million of that funding
level for a study on housing discrimination, leaving an
automatic programmatic FHIP funding at just $20 million, which
is less than the President's budget for FHIP in Fiscal Year
2008, which was $21.8 million.
So how can the Administration propose, and how, you know,
how are you dealing with this slashed funding for a program at
HUD aimed at educating consumers? With the crisis that we're
currently having right now with subprime mortgages and subprime
lending, here's a program directly aimed at consumers and yet--
so that we can avoid this--but yet it looks like we're having
the slashing of the FHIP program. Can you tell me what's
happening there? Do you know?
Secretary Jackson. Congressman, I'll let Ms. Kendrick, who
is the Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal
Opportunity address that.
Ms. Kendrick. Good afternoon. This is the Fair Housing
Initiatives Program. Is that the program?
Mr. Meeks. Yes.
Ms. Kendrick. The Fair Housing Initiatives Program, I
talked a little bit about this with Congressman Watt. And one
of the things that we're doing in this program to address,
because we do have a budget and what we're trying to do is work
within that budget, because that's the budget that we've been
given. And so what we're doing with that budget is we are
funding our fair housing groups for multiple years.
We're also using some of the money, the $1 million, to have
a national campaign to address some of the issues you're
talking about right now. For example, this year in Fiscal Year
2008, we have a $1 million media campaign to address predatory
lending, fair lending issues across the Nation. So what we're
doing is we're using our money more wisely so that we can
address these issues across the Nation instead of just
developing these issues with the expertise within one group.
Mr. Meeks. But what I'm finding is that a quarter of the
country's fair housing centers are closing as a result of the
lack of funding, where you reach out to people, where the
people are. The places where the people need the help, you
know, those places are going away because of no money. They're
shutting down in our communities.
Ms. Kendrick. Well, actually, we have 104 organizations
that we funded last year, and we were able to keep all of those
groups except for about 13 of those groups. But what we did,
because we could not fund those 13 groups, we actually funded
another 39 groups for 3 years, so we don't have this issue with
those groups for next year, so depending on appropriations, we
will be able to fund those 39 groups for another year and then,
depending on appropriations again, fund those exact same groups
for another year.
So we will have those groups working 3 years so they are
working on the fair housing issues across the Nation instead of
coming to HUD and writing applications for each of those years.
So we think that we're using our money a little bit more
smartly.
Mr. Meeks. So you're telling me that the centers across the
Nation, the information that I receive, they're not going to be
closed? The communities that I'm starting to hear from that are
saying that there are centers where they were going to for
information, that they're going away, you're telling me that
those are--they are not going away? They're still going to be
there?
Ms. Kendrick. No. Some of those centers will go away, and
I'm sorry that they will be going away, because they provide
important functions in this Nation. But we will now have groups
who will have--they will have 3-year funding so we won't have
to worry about those 39 organizations going away next year, nor
will we have to worry about them going away the following year.
Secretary Jackson. See, one of the problems, Congressman,
and I think you've asked a very critical question, is
continuity. We are trying to create continuity, to make sure
that there is some constancy in this process, where before they
were funded for 1 year and they might not have been funded the
very next year, and they didn't render the services that they
could have performed had we been doing it on a--
Mr. Meeks. But that's why I'm concerned about the cutting,
because then you could keep those that we have and still focus
on the continuity if we weren't having the cutbacks that we're
having, which is in fact a decrease in this budget, in this
very special effort. If we would keep it funded at least at the
level that it was and then we can talk about the continuity so
we can move on. But if you're cutting funds, and you're cutting
back to have less, then it seems to me that it seems as though
it is not a priority of HUD then to move.
And I understood, I heard your line of questioning before,
so--but, you know, just to me, given the climate in which we
currently are in, if ever there's a time to try to educate a
consumer about fair housing, it is now.
Ms. Kendrick. And I think, Congressman, that that's what we
want to do. We want to use our money smarter. We don't want to
have the 39 organizations that we funded for 3 years, we don't
want them to close next year. We don't want them to close the
year after. So, therefore, these groups will be having a
constant presence in those communities.
We also have our fair housing staff that works in all 50
States that are also addressing fair housing issues. In
addition, we have opened a fair lending division to address
particularly the issues on discriminatory lending and predatory
lending. So we have a whole unit at HUD right now that's
working on these issues, handling high profile cases and cases
that will have a nationwide impact, not just impacts in one
little community.
Mr. Meeks. I'm out of time.
Secretary Jackson. And also, Congressman, which is very
important, we have allocated for the 2009 budget $65 million
for housing counseling, and they do the same thing. We have
2,300 counseling centers around the country. And we've also
allocated to NeighborWorks $180 million, who also does very
much the same thing. So we're covering the Nation. There's just
no question about it, and it's very important.
Mr. Meeks. So you're--and I'm going to leave it alone, but
you're telling me you're covering the Nation with less money?
Secretary Jackson. No. I just said that--
Mr. Meeks. Well, we're having cutbacks, and we have to
eliminate now so that we can have continuity, so we have to
have less money.
Secretary Jackson. No, Congressman. I just said that we
have gone from $50 million in Housing Counseling, which does
the same thing in many cases that fair housing does, to $65
million. We've gone from $120 million to NeighborWorks to $180
million. So we're addressing it. You might see it over here,
but we're addressing it over here, too.
Mr. Meeks. Thank you.
The Chairman. The gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr.
Secretary, for appearing before us today. I want to go back--I
have a similar situation in my district as Mr. Baca was
describing, although perhaps not to the degree. But I just had
a foreclosure prevention workshop. I put it together in my
district at a local high school, and we brought in some
mortgage experts, some banks. I had 400 people show up. I
didn't do a whole lot of outreach, but we had 400 people show
up, and it indicated to me the size of the problem we have.
A lot of the people who came to that foreclosure prevention
workshop in my district were seniors, and a lot of them were
veterans. But because of the gaps in the Administration's
program, this HOPE NOW program and some others, a lot of these
folks weren't helped, so they have nowhere to turn, and they
are getting thrown out of their homes. A lot of them are
seniors. Like I said, a lot of them are veterans who served
this country very well, very proudly. And now I see in your
budget, the President's budget, that we're going to cut out
$195 million out of Section 202 housing, senior housing. And I
just think that it's disgraceful, quite frankly.
I just--here we have a tidal wave of need. These folks have
been in their own homes. We're having an unprecedented collapse
in the housing industry. These folks are being thrown out of
their homes. It's a very emotional time for all these families,
and the very people they've come to ask for help, the people
who should be here, are people in government. This is why
government exists, to help folks out when they don't have any
power and no leverage.
These folks, some of them were living in their houses for
15 or 20 years, and now they're basically facing the street.
And here we are, the President has a policy to basically, you
know, pull the net out from under them. We're going to cut in
this budget, we're going to cut $195 million out of a senior
housing program that's the core of our senior housing program
when you have a lot of people being forced out of their homes
and who otherwise would be relying on this for the first time
in their lives?
And also I see this veterans housing piece. And, you know,
I just came back from my 7th visit to Iraq and Afghanistan, and
we're seeing our folks coming back there who deserve our help.
A lot of them are on their 3rd, 4th, or 5th tour, so they are
completely separated from their prior employment. They're going
to need some help as well. We have a lot of folks who are World
War II veterans, or veterans of Korea, Vietnam, or the Gulf
War, who need this stuff as well. And we're supposed to be
there and to provide some type of assistance. And I see cuts. I
see cuts, and I see total inadequacy on the programs that are
being maintained.
And, sir, I just have to ask you, what were you thinking?
What is the President thinking in putting this agenda out,
given the facts that we have right now, given the reality that
our people, our constituents, the people that you and I serve,
given what they're facing? How can you come up with a straight
face and present this budget to the United States Congress?
Secretary Jackson. Congressman, I have to respectfully
disagree with you. We have 210 units--210 projects in the
pipeline right now for seniors, and I think we have about 215
in the pipeline in Section 811 for veterans. Secondly, we have
allocated $75 million, which will create 10,000 more vouchers
for veterans as they come home. And we expect to continue to do
that, because that was a commitment that we made to Veterans
Affairs. We have not increased the number of vouchers that
veterans get since 1993. For the first time in our budget, we
have that. So we are addressing this. We have a number of
Section 811/202 projects that are going on today that will
address the need.
Lastly, let me say this to you about anybody within your
district who needs help at this point in time, we have raised
the loan limit to $729,000. FHA is standing, willing, and ready
to work with anyone. I've traveled around this country, and I
agree with you. I just came out of California where there were
1,000 people sitting there. And when I told them that the loan
limit had been raised in California, they stood up, because
probably 800 of those 1,000 people could probably make a loan
there with FHA, and FHA secure, where before we passed the
stimulus package. That was not the case. We could not deal with
the market.
So I am extremely sympathetic, but I think that the budget
addresses that and I can say it with a straight face that we're
leveraging the money with developers for the Sections 202 and
811. If I had thought for one moment, because I am extremely
partial toward senior citizens and veterans, so I would not in
my mind do anything to hamper their abilities to come back into
this country and have a decent, safe place to live after
sacrificing so much for us.
Mr. Lynch. Well, I have to tell you, that's not what I see
in my district. I see on average at my senior, my Section 202
housing developments, senior housing, I probably see between
100 and 200 people on the waiting list, and those folks on that
waiting list aren't getting any younger. And every once in a
while, a unit might open up.
Secretary Jackson. Well--
Mr. Lynch. Let me just finish. And I just finished a tour
with my veterans agents. In Massachusetts, every town has a
veterans agent to watch out for them. And we're scrambling
right now. We're putting folks in nursing homes and basically
warehousing them just until we can find a suitable home for a
lot of our veterans, and they, quite frankly, they deserve
better than that. And I just don't see anything in this budget
that offers them hope in the near term. And you might have
stuff in the pipeline, but my folks can't live in a pipeline.
They're looking for housing right now. And it's a crisis
situation.
And by the way, you know, I probably have in New England,
probably $3- to $5 billion worth of variable loans that are
going to reset. Thank God right now the rates are pretty low,
but some of these mortgages, the spreads are pretty big on
them, and it's going to push more people into foreclosure. So,
you know, this is not--this wave is just beginning to hit, and
I'm very, very troubled by the trend, and I'm also troubled by
the information in this budget.
Mr. Chairman, I know my time has expired.
The Chairman. The gentleman from Georgia.
Mr. Scott. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and Mr.
Secretary, welcome to the committee.
Secretary Jackson. Thank you.
Mr. Scott. I appreciate your service. Let me talk about a
couple of things here. I want to talk about Section 8. I want
to talk about a major concern of my constituents. I've just
completed a series of town hall meetings in my district, you're
familiar with my district. You've helped me on a number of
occasions there, which I appreciate.
But these complaints fall into two areas. The first area is
that there's a lack of HUD inspections and compliance with
inspection and code enforcement with Section 8 housing that is
in my area.
The other issue is that municipalities are circumventing
the HUD concentration rules. In other words, residents in my
district are alleging that certain local housing authorities
are issuing Section 8 vouchers to eligible individuals but then
are steering those voucher holders to other nearby communities.
For example, the Atlanta Housing Authority would issue the
voucher, but the individual would be steered into Clayton
County or into South Fulton County.
This presents a major issue. So we have two of them here,
the steering of those into an area, and then when you get them
in there, the folks are not keeping up their property. They're
not forced to do it, and I have a serious problem. So I want to
address that, and I need your help, somebody on your staff to
assign to work with my staff so we can make sure this is right.
Because I asked the question in the meeting, the same
question I think you're going to ask me in a minute when you
get to respond. Are you sure these are Section 8 housing? Or
are they just low-income renters from absentee landowners? And
they say unequivocally that they're Section 8. We've had a few
meetings in the office and I came to that conclusion myself.
Then the next question, is it a myth or is it a reality
that as a result of all the tearing down of all of the housing
projects inside the City of Atlanta that these folks are being
dumped into nearby Clayton County and South Fulton County? And
then of course the question of whether or not with this
unfortunate mounting number of foreclosures, are private
investors buying these up--houses for cheap, as they're doing,
and then renting them out to low-income buyers?
Regardless of what the complications of the matter happen
to be, my constituents have a problem, and they are blaming the
Federal Agency--HUD. We have to find out where your Section 8
housing is, why and if they're being targeted out of the City
of Atlanta into the suburban areas, and how we get a plan
developed to go forward.
Secondly, we need to find who is the front line entity for
code enforcement. Because it is a terrible shame in my suburban
district where people have invested their hard-earned money
years back, come into a community, paid $300-, $400-, or
$500,000 for homes, and because of no fault of their own,
because Atlanta's tearing down their housing projects, folks
have to go someplace, and they're being steered and dumped into
an area, and the property not being kept up.
So we have a major, major dilemma that I'd like for you to
address on each of those three points if we could, unless you
and I get a plan together where we can go and make sure that
these houses are being kept up. Could you respond?
Secretary Jackson. Yes. Congressman, I agree with you in
the sense that I can't tell you specifically about your
district. But what you've just described is similar to what was
described to me by Commissioner Jack Johnson in Prince Georges
County, Maryland, with the onset of many of the public housing
developments being demolished here in the District, and people
being shipped there.
If that is the case, we will work with you wholeheartedly,
because I don't believe that people should go into communities
where people have worked hard--whether it be police officers,
nurses, teachers, principals--to acquire their home, and then
see people come in and not take care of the property. So I will
tell you that I will have our person in Atlanta, who is the
Acting Regional Director, work with you directly.
And I have no compunction at all coming to deal with the
Atlanta Housing Authority, because if they are doing what you
allege they're doing, that is the wrong thing. I think they
should make every effort before they send a person out into one
of these communities that they have all of the proper training.
One of the things that occurred when I was running the Dallas
Housing Authority is I would not send people out there without
having a 3- or 4-time counseling session with them for them to
understand that they're going into a community that is
stabilized, and they should understand their responsibility
going into that community.
Second of all, I think it's very important that you don't
send people into the community who are going to sit there all
day long and watch television. You hope that at least people
will have a productive job and do something that will be
positive and add something to the community. So you will get a
great deal of sympathy from me on this process, because I think
it's wrong to send people into communities if they're going to
destroy the community.
Mr. Scott. During my 2-week recess coming up, I want to set
up a meeting in my district office to address this, so who is
that person that you will assign to meet with us so we can
really go at this problem?
Secretary Jackson. She will be the acting region--Pat, what
is it? Pat Hoban Moore.
Mr. Scott. Pat?
Secretary Jackson. Hoban, H-o-b-a-n Moore. And I will call
her and tell her that she should get in touch with you.
Mr. Scott. Okay. We'll follow up and I'll have my staff get
in touch and we'll set a meeting up. Thank you, sir.
The Chairman. The gentleman from Texas.
Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for hosting
the hearing, and thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here. I
want to thank Mr. Montgomery, Mr. Secretary, in your presence.
He has been very helpful, and I am confident that you have in
him someone who has your best interests at heart.
Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you for coming to Houston
and announcing your initiative to fight discrimination in
housing as it related to the Katrina evacuees.
Secretary Jackson. Right.
Mr. Green. I thought that was a good thing to do, and I
believe that it has been helpful, which is a good segue into
the FHIP program, the Fair Housing Initiative Program, that is
being cut, $26 million proposed, $6 million of that will be cut
from the program. Actually, I guess it's still a part of the
budget, but it goes to a study, which means that in the final
analysis, as it relates to FHIP, in my opinion, there is a cut.
I know that the Assistant Secretary spoke well as she
talked of how we can fund 39 programs for 36 months, 3 years,
as opposed to 52 programs for 36 months, which would be 3
years. And I guess that's where we have a difference in
thought, because I'm hopeful that we can fund all of the
programs, including the Greater Houston Fair Housing Center,
which is not receiving any funding this year, would like to see
that program get some funding.
I think the $52 million funding level is one that would
allow us to do the very same thing that the Assistant Secretary
has referenced, but to do it with all of the programs, and that
way make sure that we get all of the programs doing the thing
that they do best, which is helping us with housing concerns.
And especially the Fair Housing Initiative Program, which
allows us to do testing. Testing is by far the best way for us
to impact discrimination in housing.
Secretary Jackson. That's correct.
Mr. Green. There really is nothing else that comes close to
testing. And we need to pour more of our money into testing
because we get the empirical evidence to support litigation
when necessary, negotiation most of the time, and a means by
which we can resolve problems a good deal of the time.
My understanding is that we had about 27,000 housing
discrimination complaints, of which about 18,000 were resolved.
And the resolutions, a good many of them, came from these
centers that are funded. So my appeal to you is this: Let's try
to fund all of them as opposed to fund some of them. It's
difficult to select one child over another. It's difficult to
select one of these centers over another. Let's try to fund all
of them. And because I know where we will end up, I have one
question. Here is the question. If we fund--if we fund to the
$52 million level in Congress, will you be sending the money
back?
Secretary Jackson. No. I'm--let me say this to you. One
thing I have learned from my encounter with the Financial
Services Committee is that if you allocate monies and say you
want it spent, I will spend the money. I mean, that's--see, I
understand--I know the chairman once got upset with me when I
told him that I understand Article I, Section 9, that says
Congress is the authorizer and the appropriator. So I
understand that when you authorize and appropriate, you want us
to do what you said to do.
Mr. Green. Well, I'm pleased to hear you say that, and I
understand that OMB has an impact on the process. But I'm
hopeful that you will continue to encourage an expansion, and
if we can continue to fund, maybe at some point that we'll
connect and get this done. But it is important that we fund
these programs.
Secretary Jackson. Thank you.
Mr. Green. It is. And because time is of the essence, I
will yield back the balance of my time. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
The Chairman. The gentleman from Missouri.
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being
here, Mr. Secretary.
Secretary Jackson. Thank you.
Mr. Cleaver. If we can go back a little to the Governor
Barbour letter, as a mayor, you would probably expect me to go
here, and I won't disappoint you. I have some concern that the
CDBG funds that Governor Barbour used and reprogrammed, which
you did not have the authority to direct or redirect.
When money goes to the State, certainly in Missouri, the
Class B and C cities are the ones who then competitively apply
for those dollars through the State as opposed to HUD. And the
first class cities in our State--St. Louis, Kansas City,
Springfield--would get the direct CDBG grant. And then there
are requirements to the CDBG grants, and one, and perhaps the
most significant and the most irritating, is the requirement
for a public hearing.
And my concern is that when these dollars went directly to
Governor Barbour, and then he reprogrammed it to some kind of
port restoration program, that there was no public hearing,
which in fact violates the rules of Community Development Block
Grant. And so, I mean, if there was a public hearing, just so I
can tell my former colleagues, many of whom are in town now for
the winter meeting, that the HUD guidelines were in fact
followed.
Secretary Jackson. Let me say this to you, then I'll let
Nelson Bregon go in depth. From my understanding with the
legislation, no public meeting was required. I mean, we were
told what to do in the legislation, and it was not a matter,
Congressman, of whether we may. They said we shall. And I think
if you want to further address--
Mr. Bregon. Congressman, you are correct. There are
citizens participation requirements in the CDBG program, and
those also apply to the supplemental appropriation which the
State of Mississippi receives. What the Secretary has the
authority under the waiver authority of the supplemental
appropriation was to perhaps be more flexible on the public
hearing.
There was a public hearing held in Mississippi, and usually
what the State does is they give a 30-day notice to the
citizens advertising a public hearing.
Mr. Cleaver. Okay.
Mr. Bregon. In this case, that 30-day notice did not occur,
but they did hold a public hearing, and we have a certification
to that effect.
Mr. Cleaver. Yes. I went into Mississippi. I asked that
very question. No one could answer it. People did say they were
given some kind of a notice but that it was a very short
notice, and that people in Mississippi who hold public office
said they knew nothing about an actual hearing that took place.
Am I correct?
Mr. Bregon. The State has told us that they have had public
hearings. We can definitely look into it. We can ask them for
copies of the transcripts of those hearings and make those
available to you.
Mr. Cleaver. So individuals actually came to the public
hearing?
Mr. Bregon. I don't know whether individuals actually went
to the public hearings, but they did advertise a public
hearing. They held a public hearing. Many times, cities have
public hearings and nobody shows up. So I'm not able to tell
you--
Mr. Cleaver. I have never--
Mr. Bregon. And you know as a former mayor--
Mr. Cleaver. In 8 years, you can't get in city hall when
there's a CDBG public hearing. And so I'm stunned that in the
aftermath of the worst storm in U.S. history, that same thing
didn't happen if in fact people were notified.
My concern is that $600 million was sent into Mississippi
for one purpose. It ended up being used for another purpose.
And the other issue is in the letter, the language says the
additional $100 million brings the State of Mississippi's total
financial obligation--it's irrelevant. I guess the concern is,
the word ``additional.'' It says, ``This additional $100
million.'' My understanding is that this additional $100
million came out of Phase 2 of the Homeowners Assistance
Program.
Secretary Jackson. That's correct.
Mr. Cleaver. Which means that it's not $100 million
additionally.
Secretary Jackson. Yes, it is, in the sense that what we
were trying to do, and I think I explained it to the chairman,
we were trying to zero in to make sure that we have enough
money to make sure that low- and moderate-income and working
families have an opportunity to rebuild, and even rentals, the
people who own rental housing, have the ability to rebuild.
I will say this to you, Congressman, as I said to the
chairman. I'm not disagreeing with you. I just--I did not, as I
told the Congressman, I don't have the authority.
Mr. Cleaver. Yes.
Secretary Jackson. If I had the authority or the
flexibility, I probably would have said no. But I didn't have
the authority or the flexibility based on what your General
Counsel's office told us.
Mr. Cleaver. Well, we need to change that, Mr. Secretary. I
mean, you need that responsibility, and we need to change that.
And also, I'm still not real sure, and I don't want to take up
the time now, about the public hearing. I mean, something needs
to be in your discretion--maybe it shouldn't be a discretion
there, that a public hearing has to be held and they're untidy.
I mean, you know how they go. I mean, I don't know a mayor in
the country unless he's schizophrenic who is happy for a public
hearing, but that's the way it happens.
Secretary Jackson. That's true.
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. I don't think you have to tell the Secretary
about how sometimes people wish they didn't have to come to
public hearings. I think he knows that.
[Laughter]
The Chairman. But let me just take 1 minute before I go to
the gentleman from Minnesota. We had a request from the
American Civil Liberties Union to submit a letter to the record
in which they express their continuing concern that women who
are the victims of domestic violence in public housing find
themselves evicted under an, I think, inappropriate
interpretation of the one strike rule. And I would ask you to
take a look at that letter.
Secretary Jackson. I sure will.
The Chairman. And secondly, the National Association of
Housing and Redevelopment Officials has submitted a letter
which I ask unanimous consent to put in the record as well,
which I think summarizes the views of many of us, at least on
this side. NAHRO believes that the Administration's 2009 budget
request, if adopted, would continue a pattern of large-scale
disinvestment in our Nation's irreplaceable inventory of
affordable housing and would undermine efforts to sustain
vibrant communities.
Let me just emphasize, because I know the gentleman from
Missouri's questions are absolutely right, part of the problem
here, Mr. Secretary, and I realize we didn't draft this
legislation. The legislation was drafted in a prior Congress,
and if it was up to us, and in the future, it will be drafted
more clearly to give you that discretion, but part of the
problem is it does appear that they didn't actually formally
apply for a waiver, that there was a procedural problem there,
and if the had actually been made to apply for the waiver
rather than have it granted without formal application, the
problems that the gentleman from Missouri talked about could
have been addressed. So even with the little discretion that
you had, more could have been done to make them go through the
steps, and that would have at least focused some attention. And
there we are.
The gentleman from Minnesota.
Mr. Ellison. Mr. Secretary, you were talking a little while
ago about maintaining the neighborhoods and making sure they
continue to look good and trying to avoid things that might
promote people to misuse property, so I kind want to get your
thinking around the zero funding for HOPE VI. Could you talk
about how zeroing out HOPE VI will impact our public housing
infrastructure?
Secretary Jackson. I think, again Congressman, I think
that's a fair question, and let me tell you my concern is right
now we still have outstanding $1.4 billion in HOPE VI monies
that has been outstanding for more than probably 8 to 10 years,
some of it has been. What I have suggested is to recapture that
money and allocate it out to those cities who have performed
very well, and you have a city that has performed very well. So
I would have no problems at all making sure that the money is
used wisely.
But we cannot continue to fund a program that has, out of
the 260 or so that we've funded, only 75 have been completed
since the beginning of the program in the early 1990's. That's
my only concern. And I will tell you that I was part of the
Committee that created--the Committee for Severely Distressed
Public Housing--that created the HOPE VI program. And, in fact,
I've said it on a number of occasions, we were in Chicago one
night when we came up with that name, at least I did, Housing
Opportunity for People Everywhere. It's what it stands for. So
I believe in the program and I don't want anyone to think that
I don't believe in the HOPE VI program. Where it has worked, it
has worked well. You have two cities--Minneapolis and St.
Paul--where it has worked well. But if we could get people to
spend the money, I'd be the first to go.
Mr. Ellison. If I may, Mr. Secretary, thank you for that
explanation. I want you to know that I just talked with my
folks in Minneapolis and we're looking at $223 million in
capital needs that will become severely distressed if not
addressed soon and the Glendale building, which I don't expect
you to know, but you might, near Prospect Park, which is a
Minneapolis area, there are 182 units on the verge of being
dilapidated and eligible for HOPE VI. So I guess my thing is, I
guess my question is, is withholding and zeroing out the money
the only way to make those other jurisdictions spend the money.
Do you understand my question? So if the problem is that they
won't spend it, don't you have any carrots and sticks to make
them do that rather than defund the program?
Secretary Jackson. I really wish I had. If I had it, I'd
use it today or yesterday, because I believe that where this
program has worked well, there are still great needs. And I
wouldn't doubt when you said that you have--I know a couple of
your HOPE VI--I wouldn't doubt--I know the executive director.
He's a very fine person. They'd use the money. But I don't have
the ability to recapture the money, to redistribute the money.
The money sits there, and in many cases it's been, the
administrative fees have been used up and they can't bill.
Mr. Ellison. Yes, but we still have the zero when it comes
to the budget number and I just think that it's a drastic way
to solve a problem of not making some of these other
jurisdictions get after spending that money, you know what I
mean? I think that what ends up happening is you punish the
good doers and you don't really punish the bad doers because
they're really not using the money anyway.
Secretary Jackson. Now that, I won't disagree with you.
Sometimes I have to sit and think about that situation and
there are so many cities that I think could really--
Mr. Ellison. What if you had some other tools, like you
could--what if you had, for example, just go to those
jurisdictions and say, you're not using this money. You might
have it withdrawn if you don't use it rather than having--
because when you talk about a zero dollar figure, that impacts
everybody.
Secretary Jackson. Well, I will tell you we zero it out
each year but you all put the money back in each year.
Mr. Ellison. I know, but when you zero it out, I mean, what
does that say? That makes a statement. I mean, a budget is a
moral document in my opinion. It states what we care about as a
society; what we think is important and also what we think is
not important.
Secretary Jackson. Well, I would disagree with you. I'm
with you. I think it's very important but I have to use
judgment and that's my judgment. I think that's where we
disagree. We're not going to disagree about the importance of
what the program produces. I can't argue that with you.
Mr. Ellison. Well, Mr. Secretary, I would respectfully just
ask if you could look at other ways of making people comply
with the money; use the money they got rather than zeroing it
out. Let me just ask another question if I have time. People in
my area are concerned about rescinded funds being recycled into
existing Section 8 contracts. I have some background I could
share with you, but do you know what I'm talking about right
now? Let me give you a little background because I didn't want
to read this whole long paragraph if you already knew what I
was talking about.
Secretary Jackson. Is it the reserve fund?
Mr. Ellison. Yes, I think it is the reserve fund. There
have been a series of letters going back and forth between the
public housing authorities and my district and Corva Corby and
Tim Thompson and they're concerned locally about this concern
because they're concerned about how HUD applies recision
measures to funds, which are covered by section 8(b)(B). Does
that give you any more clarification?
Mr. Ozdinec. Good afternoon, Mr. Congressman.
Mr. Ellison. Good afternoon, sir.
Mr. Ozdinec. I'm Milan Ozdinec. I'm the Director of the
Office of Public Housing and Voucher Programs at HUD.
Mr. Ellison. Okay. Do you understand?
Mr. Ozdinec. Yes, I believe you are talking about the net
restricted assets.
Mr. Ellison. Yes.
Mr. Ozdinec. Currently there is about $2.2 billion that
sits in Housing Authority's bank accounts as it relates to
Section 8. These are monies that Congress has previously
appropriated and housing authorities retain those funds to use
for HAP payments and for administrative fees. Last year the
Congress in the appropriations process used $723 million as an
offset for housing authorities. For housing authorities that
are above their cap, and the Secretary and Congresswoman
Maloney talked a little earlier about the cap and how the
budget process works as it relates to how the Congress
appropriates the money. Well, in 2008, the Congress instructed
us to use $723 million in an offset and take that money away,
or offset that money with housing authorities that have net
restricted assets that are called unusable. These are housing
authorities that have leased up to their authorized amount so
by law they cannot exceed that amount, but yet still have money
in their bank accounts. So the instruction from the
appropriations was to offset that money and force the housing
authorities to use that money as opposed to new appropriations.
The Chairman. Let me ask, was that part of what we did to
hold some people harmless when we did the change in the funding
formula?
Mr. Ozdinec. Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure about holding
people harmless. Of the $2.2--
The Chairman. I mean, the authorities. There was some
concern about the changes in the formula that we fought about
several times and I thought there was some effort to use some
of those funds so that nobody lost out as we went from one year
to the next.
Mr. Ozdinec. Indeed that's true, because these funds are
unusable because--
The Chairman. I mean, Dade County, for example, I think was
our biggest issue about that.
Mr. Ozdinec. Right, we've proposed in the last three
budgets, I believe, to remove the caps, the authorized caps so
that housing authorities could use that net restricted asset to
indeed issue more vouchers; to go above what they were
authorized. If housing authorities were good stewards with the
money, if they stabilized their payment standards, improved
their utility allowance, set a minimum rent at $10 or $20, they
could indeed squeeze efficiencies out of their program and we
wanted them by--
The Chairman. Let me say to the gentleman it is a serious
issue but it's one that we need to share with our--the
appropriators have more to say about it than we do, and we will
talk to them about it.
Mr. Ozdinec. And we would love to have that conversation,
Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. I thank you, Mr. Secretary. And we do all
want to repeat that the chairwoman is very concerned about the
figures on New Orleans--whether or not people want to return.
We would hope to get those before the end of the week and then
we will get back to you.
[Whereupon, at 12:38 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
March 11, 2008
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