    [Senate Hearing 116-453]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 116-453

      SENATE BUDGET COMMITTEE HOUSING ROUNDTABLE: EXAMING FEDERAL HOUSING
                              ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS

    =======================================================================

                                   ROUNDTABLE

                                   BEFORE THE

                            COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                         ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                               September 16, 2020

                                   __________

               Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    44-022                  WASHINGTON : 2021

                            COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

                       MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming, Chairman
    CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa            BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
    MIKE CRAPO, Idaho                    PATTY MURRAY, Washington
    LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina    RON WYDEN, Oregon
    PATRICK TOOMEY, Pennsylvania         DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan
    RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin               SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
    DAVID A. PERDUE, Georgia             MARK R. WARNER, Virginia
    MIKE BRAUN, Indiana                  JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon
    RICK SCOTT, Florida                  TIM KAINE, Virginia
    JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana              CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
    KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota           KAMALA D. HARRIS, California
                     Doug Dziak, Republican Staff Director
                    Warren Gunnels, Minority Staff Director

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                         WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

                                                                       Page

                        STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS

    Chairman Michael B. Enzi.........................................     1
    Senator Chris Van Hollen.........................................     4

                                   WITNESSES

    Garcia-Diaz, Daniel, Managing Director, Financial Markets and
      Community Investment Team, U.S. Government Accountability
      Office (GAO)...................................................     7
        Prepared Statement of Mr. Daniel Garcia-Diaz.................     9
        Questions and Answers (Post-Hearing) from:
            Chairman Michael B. Enzi.................................    73
            Senator Charles E. Grassley..............................    76
            Senator Mike Crapo.......................................    80

    Olsen, Edgar, Professor of Economics and Public Policy,
      University of Virginia (UVA)...................................    15
        Prepared Statement of Mr. Edgar Olsen........................    17
        Questions and Answers (Post-Hearing) from:
            Chairman Michael B. Enzi.................................    83
            Senator Charles E. Grassley..............................    87
            Senator Mike Crapo.......................................    91

    Yentel, Diane, President and Chief Executive Officer, National
      Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC)...........................    35
        Prepared Statement of Ms. Diane Yentel.......................    37
        Questions and Answers (Post-Hearing) from:
            Chairman Michael B. Enzi.................................    94

     SENATE BUDGET COMMITTEE HOUSING ROUNDTABLE: EXAMINING FEDERAL HOUSING
                              ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS

                                  ----------                              -

                         WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

                                           U.S. Senate,
                                       Committee on the Budget,
                                                       Washington, D.C.
        The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:32 p.m., in
    Room 608, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Michael B. Enzi,
    Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
        Present: Senators Enzi, Grassley, Crapo, Braun, Scott,
    Kaine, and Van Hollen.
        Staff Present: Doug Dziak, Republican Staff Director; and
    Alex Beaton, Minority Policy Advisor.

             OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MICHAEL B. ENZI

        Chairman Enzi. I will go ahead and call this meeting to
    order. Welcome to this roundtable. This is a topic where
    Senator Sanders and I probably have a lot of agreement. Senator
    Mikulski and I had success working some of these housing
    issues.
        I have worked on more and better housing for people since
    1975. I was mayor of a small boomtown. We were already impacted
    by oil development, but that was to be nothing compared to the
    power plant construction and the opening of 14 coal mines, one
    of which would turn out to be the world's largest producing
    coal mine.
        It takes people to do those things, and people need
    housing. I also found that once people had a home, they were
    ever more concerned about, and involved in their community. I
    worked to get affordable housing. I did a city plan that called
    for a mix of housing types in all the neighborhoods. The mix
    was more important before everyone had air conditioning,
    because people used to sit on the porch and visit with
    neighbors. There was more knowledge and understanding of
    neighbors.
        I did get companies to voluntarily even dig a channel
    through the community in order to change the 100-year flood
    plain, so houses could be built in logical places. I got
    companies to actually build a mix of housing. Wyoming
    recognized the housing problem and started the Wyoming
    Community Development Authority, whose primary instruction was
    to provide financing for first-time home buyers. People camped
    out at the offices in order to be early in the line, expecting
    the money would run out. It did, but it was quickly replenished
    because it was making a difference.
        When I was in the Wyoming legislature I participated in
    building Habitat for Humanity houses. I want you to know I am a
    great left-handed hammerer. There are some places where a
    right-handed hammerer almost has to be upside down to get at
    it. I was not just there for the photo opportunity, and later,
    because of Wyoming wind, campaign signs have to have particle
    board backing. Some of my signs are now donated parts of the
    subflooring in Habitat houses.
        Since coming to the Senate, I have been able to raise my
    interest to a new level, but I am appalled at how little
    progress we have made. We appear to be an employment agency for
    thousands of Federal workers. Competing regulations,
    duplication, and turf protection keeps people from homes. Our
    goal is not to have more in Federal employees. It is to get
    housing and homes for the millions.
        I visited one agency and found some people proofreading
    copies of documents. I asked how they correct the original if
    they found a mistake. They told me they did not have to worry
    about that because they seldom found a mistake. Put that effort
    in the category of wasted time, and it does not say much for
    management either.
        I have also discovered we are paying off thousands of
    housing units but the people we want to help do not get them
    when it is paid for. They get no ownership, and neither does
    the Federal Government. Yes, we subsidize construction and we
    pay off properties that then belong to the developer.
        A friend of mine, Pat Goggles of the Arapaho Tribe, used a
    gym on the reservation to put on a housing open house for
    Tribal members. There were several booths set up to teach and
    explain how to buy a house, care for it, handle emergencies,
    and pay for it. The first stop, though, was to get help filling
    out a housing loan application. He and I were both surprised to
    find that two-thirds of the families who came qualified for a
    home loan.
        The booths also had videos on the housing purchase process.
    Most importantly, trained staff were there to help figure out
    what programs would work best. I have been pleased at some of
    the unique efforts separate from Congress and the Federal
    Government.
        We have built a bureaucracy of 160 overlapping housing
    programs at a time when we need to change the focus to getting
    people into housing. One hundred sixty programs, administered
    by 20 different Federal agencies. I am pretty certain no
    Senator has looked at the details of those 160 programs. I even
    doubt that staff has. I asked the entities themselves to look
    at duplication. This probably will not surprise you. Each
    entity reported back that there is no duplication in their
    jurisdiction.
        I think that helps us to see the problem. Every agency
    wants the joy of talking to people about the potential for
    housing. We do not need talk. We need action. We need
    management and coordination. We need to resolve overlaps and
    confusion.
        I want to thank the Government Accountability Office, GAO,
    for all their work through the years. I hope the current
    document is not another effort that will just gather dust. It
    now requires some detailed work by several committees, which is
    where we run into the jurisdictional issues.
        At one time, Senator Kennedy and I were looking at
    preschool children's education programs, and we found 145
    different preschool--well, they were not different. Many had
    changed from education to babysitting. We got that number down
    to 45. You know why it was not less? Many of them were not in
    our jurisdiction, and that is a problem with housing as well.
        Today's Budget Committee roundtable purpose is to examine
    Federal housing assistance programs. The goal of this
    roundtable is to understand how housing assistance is
    delivered, and more importantly, how we can improve it. Rather
    than structure this as a hearing, which in my experience
    results in less learning on our part and more political points
    being made, I have structured this discussion as a roundtable.
        A roundtable is designed to gather information, to allow
    witnesses and members to engage in thoughtful conversation, and
    hopefully identify some solutions to the specific problems.
    This works a little different than a regular hearing. After the
    opening statements and then the witness statements we will ask
    some questions, but rather than a question just being directed
    to one witness, other witnesses can comment. Given that all of
    our witnesses are appearing by video, I would ask that they
    raise their hand if they want to speak, when a topic comes up.
        Hopefully, as a result, we will come away with many ideas,
    and that has been my experience with roundtables.
        I would like to welcome the three experts joining us today,
    Daniel Garcia-Diaz of the Government Accountability Office,
    GAO; Professor Edgar Olsen of the University of Virginia; and
    Diane Yentel, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the
    National Low Income Housing Coalition. Thank you all for
    joining us. I look forward to your testimony.
        We can come together at a difficult time for our nation. A
    global pandemic has sent shockwaves through our economy. It has
    caused businesses to shutter and it has caused jobs to be lost.
    Against this backdrop, the Federal Government's current
    approach to housing assistance is falling short in many ways.
    As Congress considers additional measures to address housing
    needs in the wake of COVID, it is worth reviewing the current
    state of Federal housing programs and seeing what works and
    what does not, so that we can better determine what form those
    measures should take.
        I know some would disagree. Critics may argue that working
    to reform the system could hurt certain constituencies, but
    that is not what we are about. And usually if we get into the
    details, those can be solved. But the Federal housing system is
    already failing. People are being left out.
        Today the Federal Government spends more than $50 billion
    per year on low-income housing assistance programs. It also
    guarantees $2 trillion in home loans, and it provides billions
    more in assistance through the tax code. Is that money
    achieving its intended purpose?
        We can do better. We better do better. With half a million
    people homeless, and given the significant amount we spend,
    there are still years-long waiting lists for public housing.
    Studies have shown that public housing and project-based
    programs can trap families in high poverty neighborhoods, which
    has significant long-term consequences for both their health
    and their well-being.
        And programs are scattered across agencies, creating
    confusion and significant challenges for those seeking
    assistance. Federal housing bureaucracies have grown so large
    that they are now failing those they should be serving. Most
    Americans do not even know the full extent of the programs
    available or where they can go for help.
        Critics may also argue that Federal housing programs cannot
    be one size fits all, but in a 2012 report, GAO found housing
    assistance is fragmented across the 160 programs I mentioned,
    with significant areas of duplication and overlap. One size
    fits all may not be the answer but serving the need should not
    take 160 programs.
        The GAO report also found that of those 160 programs, 39
    helped with buying, selling, or financing a home. That is some
    duplication! Twenty-five provided assistance for financing
    rental housing and eight provided assistance for rental
    property owners. How many places do you have to go and ask
    questions to see if you qualify and to get answers? The report
    found that significant overlap existed in the assistance
    offered, the service delivered, and even the areas served.
        Finally, the report said opportunities existed to increase
    collaboration and potentially realize efficiencies. Mr. Garcia-
    Diaz, I look forward to hearing GAO's update today. I think the
    issue comes down to a simple question: If given the amount of
    resources the Federal Government puts into Federal housing
    assistance programs each year and setting aside interest groups
    that may profit from the status quo, would we ever design a
    system with 160 programs?
        With programs scattered across multiple Federal agencies,
    the system leads to overlap and waste and actually limits
    resources that should be going to those in need. We need to get
    the money to the people.
        I hope this is the start of a serious bipartisan review to
    find improvements to the system. That is why we are here, to
    identify solutions and gather ideas about reform and to discuss
    how to make these programs work better for those who truly need
    them.
        Thank you again to the panelists for joining us. I welcome
    your insights and look forward to them, as we work together to
    find common solutions to these challenges.
        With that I now recognize Senator Van Hollen, standing in
    for the Ranking Member, for his opening statement. Senator?

             OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CHRIS VAN HOLLEN

        Senator Van Hollen. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and
    thank you for holding this hearing. Thank you for your efforts
    both in the Senate and previously as mayor, on affordable
    housing. And I know that the Ranking Member joins me in
    agreeing with you that to the extent that we can find
    efficiencies in our current Federal housing programs we should
    do so. We want to make sure that the resources being provided
    travel just as far as they can go, in terms of achieving the
    goal of affordable housing.
        I think it is also fair to say, I think there would be
    broad agreement on this, that even if we squeezed every dollar
    of efficiency out of the current system, we are still going to
    have an affordable housing crisis in the United States of
    America. That is, of course, very acute right now during the
    pandemic, as you mentioned, and I am going to say a word about
    that in a moment.
        But as you indicated, that affordable housing crisis
    actually predates the pandemic. In fact, in the United States
    today there are over 18 million families paying more than half
    of their limited income toward housing. That leaves very little
    for other essentials like food and transportation and health
    care, much less the ability to put aside and sock away a little
    bit for getting ahead and making other important investments.
        In fact, the numbers show that there is no State, no
    metropolitan area or county in this country where a minimum
    wage worker putting in 40 hours a week can afford a modest two-
    bedroom apartment. And if you are working 40 hours a week, I
    think most of us agree you should be able to have enough to
    have a safe and affordable place in which to raise your family.
        Meanwhile, as you said, Mr. Chairman, we have over half a
    million Americans homeless on any given night, and many of
    these are working families with children, many are veterans and
    others have mental illness.
        And so the resources we provide are important.
    Unfortunately, if you look at this administration's budget--and
    these are just facts, not political rhetoric--we see deep cuts
    proposed. In fact, if you look at the most recent Trump
    administration budget they ask for $100 billion in cuts to
    housing assistance and proposed eliminating the National
    Housing Trust Fund and other programs to build and preserve
    affordable housing. It would also end funding for public
    housing repairs that are desperately needed.
        Now I am pleased to report that the Congress, on a
    bipartisan basis, has rejected those proposed cuts, but I dare
    say that even if we were to squeeze every dollar of efficiency
    out of the program those cuts would still have a huge damaging
    impact, the $100 billion proposed cuts.
        And so we have got to also address the shortage in housing
    for lowest-income families. Right now there is a shortage of
    about 7.5 million homes in the country. And that is all just
    before the pandemic hit. We now know that Americans are
    experiencing economic hardships we have not witnessed, since
    the Great Depression of the 1930s. Americans have lost their
    jobs, their health insurance, and depleted their savings. Many
    were able to make ends meet and pay some of the bills with the
    additional $600 a week in unemployment benefits through the
    Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, but
    the Senate did not extend those provisions as the House, Health
    and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act
    would have done.
        And, in fact, just last week, nearly one-quarter of renters
    had missed their September rent payments. Let me say that
    again. A quarter of all renters missed their September rent
    payments. That is the highest rate since the beginning of the
    pandemic. And according to a Census Bureau survey, 42 percent
    of blacks and 49 percent of Latino renters have little or no
    confidence that they are going to be able to pay their next
    month's rent on time.
        According to Moody's Analytics, renters already owe an
    estimated $25 billion in back rent, which could grow to $70
    billion by the end of the year.
        Meanwhile, public health experts continue to tell us that
    safe and stable housing is vital to combat COVID-19. Not only
    is it essential for people to have a place to stay and
    quarantine if they are exposed but the homeless are
    particularly vulnerable to this disease.
        Now the Centers for Disease Control has put in place a
    moratorium. It is not exactly clear how that will apply. But if
    it does not fully apply or no matter what, at the end of the
    day, if we do not provide more in terms of renter assistance,
    we are going to have 30 or 40 million American households
    facing eviction, because it will simply be pushing their
    payments down the road and they will have balloon payments due.
    And so the estimate is that if we do not do something on the
    rental assistance front that 30 to 40 million Americans will be
    at risk of eviction.
        That is why, in the Senate, many of us have proposed an
    Emergency Rental Assistance Act. That is why an emergency
    rental assistance to the tune of about $150 billion is provided
    for in the House HEROES Act. Some of those funds could also be
    used to support mortgages, where people have lost their jobs
    because of COVID-19.
        So, Mr. Chairman, we agree with you that affordable housing
    is a critical area of inquiry. In fact, it is an emergency now.
    We have gone from what was bad to even worse. And we join you
    in looking for efficiencies in the existing programs. But I
    think we should also all recognize that if we are really going
    to tackle this issue it will require not just restructuring and
    reform but additional Federal resources.
        And so we thank you for bringing us together. We hope we
    can come together as a Senate and vote on the emergency rental
    assistance provisions, which are going to be so necessary to
    prevent mass evictions in the United States.
        So thank you, and I look forward to the testimony.
        Chairman Enzi. Thank you, Senator Van Hollen. I would now
    like to introduce our panel and invite each of them to give
    about a 5-minute statement, and then we will ask some
    questions.
        Our first witness is Daniel Garcia-Diaz. He is a Managing
    Director in Financial Markets and Community Investment Team at
    the Government Accountability Office. Since joining GAO more
    than 20 years ago, he has led reviews of assistance to
    homeowners and renters, to mortgage finance programs, and to
    housing for the special needs population. Mr. Garcia-Diaz, I
    thank you for joining us today. I appreciate the GAO's work on
    this issue.
        Next I would like to welcome Dr. Edgar Olsen, who is a
    Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of
    Virginia. He is an expert in low-income housing policy and has
    published numerous papers. Dr. Olsen has been a consultant in
    the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) with
    six different administrations. He has also been a visiting
    scholar at HUD and the American Enterprise Institute. Professor
    Olsen has testified before Congress on several occasions, and I
    am pleased to welcome him.
        Our third witness is Diane Yentel. She is the President and
    Chief Executive Officer of the National Low Income Housing
    Coalition. Ms. Yentel has previously worked on affordable
    housing and community development issues at Enterprise
    Community Partners, at HUD, at Oxfam America, and at the
    Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless.
        I want to thank all three of you for joining us today to
    share your expertise. With that we will now hear your
    testimony. Mr. Garcia-Diaz, please begin.

     STATEMENT OF DANIEL GARCIA-DIAZ, MANAGING DIRECTOR, FINANCIAL
        MARKETS AND COMMUNITY INVESTMENT TEAM, U.S. GOVERNMENT
                         ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

        Mr. Garcia-Diaz. Thank you Chairman Enzi, Ranking Member
    Sanders, Senator Van Hollen, and members of the Committee.
    Thank you for the opportunity to be here today at this
    roundtable on Federal housing assistance programs.
        Over the years, GAO has issued a body of work examining
    these programs. As you know, the government's system of housing
    programs, tax expenditures, and other tools is exceedingly
    complex and fragmented. These programs and activities support a
    range of efforts such as subsidizing housing construction,
    paying for rental assistance, and offering mortgage financing,
    and enforcing fair housing and other regulations.
        The work undertaken by these agencies is critical. As you
    know, safe and decent housing in good neighborhoods is an
    important part of promoting opportunities for low-income
    families. Yet the Federal Government reached about 30 percent
    of very low income families who could qualify for rental
    assistance. Long wait lists for public housing and voucher
    assistance are a chronic problem across many communities. In
    our 2020 report, we found that affordability has declined for a
    variety of reasons, including that the supply of low-cost
    rental units has not kept up with demand, more renters
    competing for the same units, and income not keeping up with
    housing costs. As we have noted in our CARES Act work, the
    economic disruption resulting from COVID-19 will add
    considerable challenges in keeping families in stable housing.
        Our work has identified opportunities for consolidating
    agencies and program activities to reduce program costs,
    increase efficiency, and hopefully expand access to affordable
    housing, although many of these options come with tradeoffs
    that would need to be considered.
        For example, we reported that Rural Housing Service (RHS)
    and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Federal Housing
    Administration's (FHA) single family loan guarantee programs
    overlap in terms of income, location, and borrower
    qualifications. Significant percentages of RHS and FHA
    borrowers could have met criteria for the other program.
    Merging programs into a single program, however, would pose
    tradeoffs because of differences in borrower costs and
    financial risk of RHS and FHA loans.
        We have also commented on consolidating local housing
    agencies. HUD expends considerable resources of overseeing
    small local agencies which administer a fraction of public
    housing and voucher units. Further, HUD research has found that
    larger housing agencies' average cost of administering vouchers
    tend to be around 20 percent less than smaller ones.
    Consolidating smaller agencies or greater use of consortiums
    may reduce costs, improve program economy and scales, and
    provide benefits to assisted families.
        We also have noted opportunities to merge and streamline
    administrative functions. Merging wait lists, simplified
    voucher portability rules could improve access to better
    neighborhoods and potentially reduce overall administrative
    costs.
        In addition to program consolidation we have identified
    other opportunities to address fragmentation and overlap. For
    example, we have called for continued evaluation of program
    costs to identify more cost-effective approaches. For example,
    our research, as well as those of others, have found that
    vouchers are more cost effective in providing housing
    assistance than programs that build housing. Additionally, in
    2018, we found that improved data collection and reporting in
    the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program could improve program
    evaluation efforts, help identify opportunities for cost
    savings, and strengthen efforts to deter fraud.
        We have also called for greater interagency collaboration.
    Inefficiency can arise when a subsidized property has multiple
    layers of Federal assistance. We have reported that
    implementing different physical inspection, tenant income
    reporting, and financial reporting requirements for the same
    property can create regulatory burden. Interagency efforts to
    harmonize those requirements across programs may reduce
    duplicative actions and reduce costs. And some progress has
    been made in this area, but it is uncertain the extent to which
    these efforts have been sustained.
        In closing, the housing needs of lower-income families are
    significant, and the Federal Government only reaches a small
    fraction of that need. Examining how the Federal Government
    provides housing assistance can open up opportunities to serve
    additional needy families. Further, in examining how the
    government delivers assistance, attention needs to be paid in
    improving service delivery to and support of these families who
    must navigate through this complex system. Also, property
    owners and State and local partners who help deliver Federal
    assistance stand to benefit from more streamlined and
    compatible requirements across programs.
        This concludes my opening remarks and I would be happy to
    answer any questions you may have.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Garcia-Diaz follows:]

                 Prepared Statement of Mr. Daniel Garcia-Diaz

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Enzi. Thank you for your testimony. Dr. Olsen,
    your comments?

      STATEMENT OF EDGAR OLSEN, PhD., PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS AND
                 PUBLIC POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

        Mr. Olsen. I am delighted to be here today to share with
    you and the members of your Committee what I know about the
    performance of low-income housing programs, and some ideas
    about how to get better outcomes from the money spent on them.
        Low-income housing assistance is fertile ground for reforms
    that would provide better outcomes for the money spent. Most
    current recipients are served by programs whose cost is
    enormously excessive for the housing provided. Phasing out
    these programs in favor of the system's most cost-effective
    program would ultimately free up the resources to provide
    housing assistance to millions of additional people, without
    any increase in taxes.
        The second major defect of the current system is its
    failure to offer housing assistance to most of the poorest
    people. About two-thirds of families with extremely low incomes
    receive no housing assistance, while others with the same
    incomes receive large subsidies. Offering modest assistance to
    all of these families would not only eliminate this inequity
    but it would also largely end homelessness and evictions.
        The path to remedying these defects at a reasonable cost to
    taxpayers is to phase out cost-ineffective programs in favor of
    the cost-effective housing voucher program. This would
    enormously simplify the system of low-income housing
    assistance.
        In papers for American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and
    Brookings, I have suggested steps that would provide a smooth
    transition to a system that would offer housing assistance to
    all the poorest households. They deal with all parts of the
    current system: active construction programs, existing
    privately owned housing projects, public housing, and the
    housing voucher program itself.
        The desirability of the proposed reforms does not depend on
    how much is spent on low-income housing assistance. If more
    money is spent, more families will be helped, and the families
    assisted will receive larger benefits.
        Today most low-income housing assistance in the U.S. is
    delivered by subsidizing the construction, renovation, and
    operation of housing projects. The Low-Income Housing Tax
    Credit Program is the largest and fastest growing program of
    this type.
        Tax credit projects have a much greater cost than most
    people realize. They receive subsidies from many sources.
    Considerable resources are devoted to getting these subsidies
    and trying to enforce their restrictions. And the layering of
    subsidies from multiple sources enables the building of very
    expensive units. The development costs of units in tax credit
    projects is about equal to the median value of owner-occupied
    houses in the same locality.
        This complexity is totally unnecessary to achieve the
    purposes of low-income housing assistance, and it is one reason
    for the program's excessive cost. The simplest approach to
    providing housing assistance is to provide a subsidy to the
    people we want to help, that is conditional on occupying
    housing meeting certain standards. HUD's Housing Choice Voucher
    Program does that. This simple method can be used to subsidize
    homeowners as well as renters, and it can be combined easily
    with down payment assistance to induce more recipients to be
    homeowners.
        This is not only the simplest approach but also by far the
    most cost-effective. We do not need to build subsidized housing
    projects to solve a housing affordability problem. All people
    who spend a high fraction of their income on housing are
    housed. The least expensive way to reduce how much they spend
    on housing is to pay a part of their rent. A housing voucher
    program does that. Building new housing for these households
    and charging them the same rents as they would pay under the
    housing voucher program is much more expensive.
        Furthermore, it is neither necessary nor desirable to
    construct new units to house the homeless. The number of people
    who are homeless is far less than the number of vacant rental
    units. In the entire country there are only about 600,000
    homeless people on a single night, and more than 3 million
    vacant units available for rent. Even if all homeless people
    were single, they could be easily accommodated in vacant
    existing units, and that would be much less expensive than
    building new units for them. The reason they are homeless is
    they do not have the money to pay the rent for an existing
    vacant unit.
        A modest housing voucher would solve that problem. It would
    also prevent evictions for financial reasons. If a voucher
    recipient loses income, the subsidy is increased to offset the
    loss.
        I look forward to your questions about these important
    issues.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Olsen follows:]

                     Prepared Statement of Mr. Edgar Olsen

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Enzi. Thank you for that summary of your
    testimony. Ms. Yentel?

       STATEMENT OF DIANE YENTEL, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
             OFFICER, NATIONAL LOW INCOME HOUSING COALITION

        Ms. Yentel. Thank you, Chairman Enzi and Senator Van Hollen
    for the opportunity to be here today. NLIHC supports some
    efforts to realign, streamline, and coordinate Federal housing
    programs, including many highlighted by Mr. Garcia-Diaz in his
    oral testimony.
        But let us be clear. Consolidation or cutting funding is
    not the solution to the housing and homelessness crisis. What
    is most urgently needed is increased investments in solutions
    that are woefully underfunded.
        Even before the pandemic, the country was in the grips of a
    pervasive affordable housing crisis. Nearly 8 million of our
    nation's lowest-income households are severely cost burdened,
    spending more than half of their limited incomes on rent and
    leaving very little else for other basic needs. More than half
    a million people experience homelessness on any given night.
        Because Federal investments are chronically underfunded,
    just one in four eligible households receives rental
    assistance. Decades of structural racism create deep racial
    disparities in housing and homelessness. Black and brown people
    are disproportionately likely to rent their homes, to be very
    low income, to be rent-burdened, and to be homeless.
        The housing crisis is most acute for extremely low-income
    households. Nationally, there is a shortage of 7 million rental
    homes affordable and available to them. Put another way, for
    every 10 of the lowest-income renters there are fewer than four
    apartments affordable and available to them. There is no State
    with enough affordable, available rental homes for its lowest-
    income residents.
        Without affordable options, most of these renters live in
    housing they cannot afford, spending well over half of their
    limited income on rent, or doubling or tripling up in
    overcrowded housing. In worst cases, they become homeless,
    sleeping in cars, in homeless shelters, or on sidewalks.
        The fundamental problem creating the affordable housing
    crisis is a mismatch between what people earn and what rent
    costs. Since 1960, renters' incomes increased by 5 percent
    while rents rose 61 percent.
        There is also market failure and chronic underfunding of
    solutions. Without Federal subsidies, affordable homes cannot
    be built and operated at a price that the very lowest-income
    people can afford. Despite the urgent need, Federal funding for
    housing subsidies has not kept pace, and for many programs has
    precipitously declined over the last decade.
        The pandemic has exacerbated the housing crisis. To make
    rent after having lost jobs or hours at work, millions of
    families are increasingly paying rent with credit cards or
    other borrowed money, or they are foregoing other necessities
    like store-bought food, relying on food banks instead, or
    skipping important medication to cut corners and save money.
    Many renters are falling behind on rent, accruing debt that
    they will not be able to pay off.
        The Center for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC)
    eviction moratorium extends vital protections to renters at
    risk of eviction, but while this action is long overdue and
    badly needed, it is a half measure that postpones but does not
    prevent evictions for the up to 30 to 40 million people at risk
    of eviction when the moratorium ends and back rent is owed.
        To protect these households and avoid a massive wave of
    evictions, Congress and the White House must pass a relief
    package that includes essential resources and protections that
    were included in the HEROES Act that passed 4 months ago in the
    House: a nationally uniform moratorium on all evictions for
    nonpayment of rent for the duration of the pandemic; at least
    $100 billion in emergency rental assistance; and $11.5 billion
    to prevent outbreaks among people experiencing homelessness and
    to get them quickly housed.
        The stakes could not be higher. Evictions risk lives. They
    drive families deeper into poverty. They burden already
    overstretched hospital systems and they make it harder for us
    as a country to contain the virus. Ensuring that everyone is
    stably housed during the pandemic is not only a moral
    imperative, it is a public health necessity.
        And after Congress stems the tide of evictions it must go
    further and address the underlying causes of the crisis.
    Congress should fund the construction of apartments affordable
    to the lowest-income renters through the National Housing Trust
    Fund. Bridge the gap between what people earn and what rent
    costs through rental assistance like Section 8 vouchers.
    Provide emergency assistance to stabilize families for a
    financial emergency and prevent evictions, and preserve our
    country's existing public housing and other affordable housing
    stock.
        Homelessness and housing poverty is a public policy choice.
    We can choose otherwise if we fund solutions at the scale
    needed. It has never been more clear that housing is health
    care, so let's take this moment not to tinker around the edges
    of housing programs but to expand and fully fund them.
        Thank you again for the opportunity to testify and I look
    forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Yentel follows:]

                    Prepared Statement of Ms. Diane Yentel

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Enzi. Thank you. I appreciate the comments of all
    of you who have testified. A lot of good information there, and
    additional information in the materials that you submitted,
    which I will encourage other Senators and staff to take a look
    at.
        Now we will turn to questions. Let me take a moment to
    explain the process to the Committee members before we start. I
    will start with some general questions and then Senator Van
    Hollen will follow that, and then other members can have an
    opportunity to question too. We have a process for those who
    are here or online to move to the front of the line and other
    people as they join us.
        For the witnesses, as I mentioned in my opening remarks,
    the purpose of a roundtable is to gather information, so if a
    question is asked and you would like to comment on it, even if
    it was not directed at you, if you would hold your hand up or
    something, the staff here will help me to monitor the thing so
    we can tell who wishes to speak.
        I would also ask anybody participating via video to keep
    themselves on mute until they are speaking. That helps to
    eliminate some interference. We had a problem with that just
    before we opened up.
        So with that I will go ahead and move to questions. The
    first one would be to all three. To frame the discussion and
    put the 2012 GAO report on housing duplication and overlap into
    context and help us solicit ideas from the panel I will start
    with a hypothetical question. If each of you were designing a
    Federal housing assistance program from scratch, would it look
    like the system we have today? If yes, why. If no, what would
    an effective and efficient system actually look like?
        Mr. Garcia-Diaz?
        Mr. Garcia-Diaz. Yes, Mr. Chairman. So from this
    hypothetical I would certainly hope that we have learned plenty
    over the past 80 or 90 years of providing housing assistance
    and that if we were to be designing a new system that it would
    incorporate a lot of those lessons.
        Our work, at least, points to the few areas to consider in
    a new system of housing. One is that housing subsidies, and
    especially housing subsidies targeted to extremely low and low-
    income households is very expensive. And the empirical
    evidence, and certainly the work we have done, certainly points
    to tenant-based assistance and vouchers as being a very cost-
    effective approach to deliver housing. And so it is by no means
    a perfect solution. It has its own challenges, but it also has
    many advantages from a policy standpoint as well.
        Housing production has been part of the Federal toolkit for
    much of that time. In fact, for a longer period of time. But I
    would hope that we take away a few elements that were lessons
    learned, let's say, from these programs and how they have
    operated in the past. One certainly is to address the cost
    issue and certainly limiting and understanding development
    costs. But the other part--and we see this, for instance, in
    public housing--is planning for future needs and designing
    features, program design features that allow for the funding of
    maintenance and modernization. Historically, the Federal
    Government has struggled to fund reserves, establish mechanisms
    to fund ongoing maintenance and modernization in aging
    property.
        And a related point to that is building, in these
    production programs, a preservation strategy from the get-go.
    The minute the ribbon is cut and the property is opened it is
    starting to deteriorate, and the contracts on the property are
    going to expire at some point, and the use agreement will go
    with it.
        And so having the tools already and the criteria to make
    decisions later on, and the structure to make those decisions
    later on for preservation and the decision to preserve those
    properties are key. And we are seeing today where even after
    all we have learned about preserving properties we have USDA
    and Rural Housing Service about to experience a wave of loans
    maturing and rental systems contracts expiring. And so I would
    hope that it would take some of that into account in the design
    of the program.
        And finally, and very quickly, I would say location
    matters. And so to the extent that programs take into account
    where people are living, concentration of poverty, and linking
    families to good schools and social services I think is key
    moving forward.
        Chairman Enzi. Dr. Olsen, did you want to comment on that?
        Mr. Olsen. Yes. Thank you. So my comment is really very
    simple. The current system is highly inefficient and
    inequitable. Subsidized housing projects are very expensive for
    the housing that they provide. The majority of the poorest
    people receive no housing assistance, and other people with the
    same incomes receive large subsidies.
        So if it were left to my own devices there would be only
    one low-income housing program. It would be a simplified
    version of the current Housing Choice Voucher program that was
    used during the Housing Assistance Supply Experiment. It would
    provide the same assistance on the same terms to renters and
    homeowners who are in the same economic circumstances. Renters
    and homeowners in the same economic circumstances would get the
    same subsidy, under the same terms.
        I personally would offer subsidies less generous than the
    current housing voucher program, but that is not fundamental to
    me. What is fundamental is to offer assistance to all of the
    eligible households. No exceptions.
        Chairman Enzi. Thank you. Ms. Yentel?
        Ms. Yentel. Yes. Thank you. So I am a strong supporter of
    the Section 8 voucher program. It is a proven solution to
    ending homelessness and housing poverty, and I really welcome
    the strong, it appears bipartisan support for the program and
    for, I believe for expanding the program.
        But suggesting that that program be the single housing
    program of the Federal Government, with respect, is a vast
    oversimplification of our country's housing system, of the
    needs throughout the country, and what is truly needed to
    respond to them.
        I do agree that the system that we have today is
    overcomplicated and could be improved. And one of the main
    principles that we believe all housing--really all Federal
    spending should follow is that scarce Federal resources should
    be targeted towards those with the greatest needs. And when it
    comes to housing it is very clear that the greatest needs exist
    among the lowest-income people, extremely low-income people and
    people experiencing homelessness.
        So the more we can realign Federal housing programs to meet
    the needs of those extremely low-income renters, the better the
    Federal dollars will be used. And I think a good example of
    that, within the existing system, a good example of where there
    is waste and poor alignment is the mortgage interest deduction.
    You know, before the 2017 tax bill we spent about $200 billion
    as a country to help Americans, to subsidize Americans to buy
    or rent their homes, and the vast majority of that, three-
    quarters of that, goes--went to subsidize higher-income people
    to be homeowners.
        And the mortgage interest deduction has been proven time
    and again to be a very regressive tax policy and not at all to
    actually subsidize or incentivize home ownership. What it does
    is incentivize current homeowners to take on bigger mortgages
    and buy bigger homes. And the tax bill did reduce the funding
    for the mortgage interest deduction down to about $30 billion,
    but 80 percent of that goes to the top 20 percent of earners in
    our country. So again, highly regressive and poorly aligned use
    of scarce Federal resources. We would propose that the mortgage
    interest deduction certainly be reformed or even eliminated,
    and that the funds that are utilized there today be redirected
    to housing programs that assist the lowest-income renters or
    people experiencing homelessness.
        Chairman Enzi. Thank you, and that expires my time. Senator
    Van Hollen.
        He is on the floor speaking so we will go to Senator Kaine.
        Senator Kaine. Well, Mr. Chair, thank you for doing this.
    For 17 years before I was in politics I was a fair housing
    attorney in Richmond. I worked a lot on housing issues,
    representing people that had been discriminated against, and
    then have worked in housing at the local, State, and Federal
    level, so I am really interested in this hearing.
        And I sort of have one question that is, I guess, primarily
    for Professor Olsen and then one question for Ms. Yentel. So to
    Professor Olsen, and a shout-out to UVA, your thought about
    simplification in the Housing Choice Voucher program. I am a
    strong supporter of that program.
        What fair housing lawyers find that is often a challenge
    with the Section 8 programs or housing voucher programs is that
    landlords of rental properties refuse to accept it. They are
    not allowed to refuse to rent to someone because of the color
    of their skin or gender or religion, but you are allowed to
    reject someone because of the kind of income that they put on
    the table. And so someone who wants to, frankly, discriminate
    on the grounds of race, knowing that many of these programs
    disproportionately are for minority families, say, ``Well, I
    would like to rent to you but we don't accept vouchers'' or
    ``We don't accept Section 8.''
        And even if there is not a racial motive there, if you have
    a big expansion of a housing voucher program but landlords
    retain the ability to turn down people based on their source of
    income, if it is a voucher, if it is a social security
    disability check, then people who are in that situation have
    dramatically fewer housing options.
        So my question for you is, I am assuming your
    simplification proposal--if we took all of the housing programs
    and put it into housing vouchers--you would support a concept
    that I initially introduced with Senator Orrin Hatch, which
    would be to change the Federal Fair Housing Act to make any
    discrimination based on the type of income a violation of the
    Federal Fair Housing Act, so that people with vouchers could be
    treated equally to those who brought a paycheck or, you know,
    other forms of income that could be used for their housing. Am
    I correct in making that assumption?
        Mr. Olsen. I do not have a strong view about that. I did a
    little analysis of source-of-income law. So some States and
    localities have source-of-income laws----
        Senator Kaine. Yes.
        Mr. Olsen. --which you are talking about, and I guess you
    are proposing to make it a national law.
        Senator Kaine. Yes.
        Mr. Olsen. I looked at how the voucher utilization rate
    depended on source-of-income laws, and it did not have a big
    effect. And one thing to realize is the current voucher
    program, is operated throughout the country and most places do
    not have source-of-income laws. Half of the recipients are
    black. So the housing voucher program, even without additional
    source-of-income laws, certainly serves blacks heavily.
        Senator Kaine. And just in the discussions phase----
        Mr. Olsen. The only study I have read on source-of-income
    laws suggests they have a modest effect. So I would just say do
    not hope for too much on that.
        Senator Kaine. Right. I mean, and I think your point is
    right, that the American population is a certain percentage
    African American, probably somewhere between 12 and 20 percent.
    I do not know the precise number. But if 50 percent of those
    receiving housing voucher programs are African American then a
    landlord who might want to discriminate on the basis of race
    can say, ``Well, I am not going to accept vouchers,'' and that
    is allowed under current law in many jurisdictions, even though
    it has a disproportionate racial effect. And so I would hope
    that we might eliminate that.
        For Ms. Yentel, so here is a question I want to ask you
    about, to dig deeper into a point you made about Professor
    Olsen's point. If you and I reached a funding level for housing
    that we agreed at, that you agreed was sufficient to meet the
    national need, and then we converted every housing program,
    including mortgage interest deduction, into a housing voucher,
    so there was just a single program but adequately funded, if
    you accept my assumption, what would be the problem or
    challenge with a Federal housing policy that put that adequate
    funding into a single program of a Housing Choice voucher?
        Ms. Yentel. Well, there is no silver bullet solution to the
    housing crisis, right, and in some markets where there is a
    sufficient supply of apartments, and the main challenge is that
    people living in them cannot afford them, rental assistance is
    essential and very helpful to making people pay the rent and
    stay housed.
        There are, as you suggest, some challenges with the voucher
    program. It needs additional improvements. Source-of-income
    discrimination is a very real problem, and while ultimately
    voucher dollars get used, there is a lot of churning that
    happens where in some communities like in Los Angeles as many
    as 78 percent of renters with vouchers get turned away by
    landlords when trying to rent that apartment, due to source-of-
    income discrimination. That voucher then gets turned back to
    the Public Housing Agencies (PHA) and given to another renter,
    who can use it, but the original renter is out of luck.
        So we do need source-of-income protections. We need changes
    to how the value and the worth of vouchers are set, by using
    small area Fair Market Rents (FMR) rather than existing fair
    market rents.
        But in other communities there are simply not enough
    apartments for everybody that lives in that community, and
    there we have to produce more affordable homes, and we have to
    produce them so that they are affordable to the lowest-income
    people, through programs like the National Housing Trust Fund
    or through deeply-targeted low-income housing tax credits. This
    combination of supply side solutions and demand side solutions
    is a better approach to the housing crisis than oversimplifying
    with just one solution.
        Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Chairman Enzi. Thank you. From your question, though, I
    have another question. What if we were to change all the
    programs over to a voucher system? That would differ from what
    we have been doing, which is we provide developers with the
    money to build houses provided they allocate a certain
    percentage to low income. And then we pay off those buildings,
    and then we do not wind up with anything.
        I love the comments that we had about the need for
    maintenance and preservation. I think those do have to start
    early.
        But if we did change over to housing vouchers as a project-
    based assistance, why do you favor a voucher-based system? How
    do you answer critics who claim this puts the users of the
    vouchers at the mercy of unscrupulous landlords, which is
    similar to the problem that you just raised? Does it concern
    any of you that after providing these dollars, the Federal
    Government does not actually own any physical assets? Does
    anybody want to comment on that?
        Mr. Olsen. Yes, I would like to comment on that.
        Chairman Enzi. Dr. Olsen.
        Mr. Olsen. First of all, I do not have any reason to
    believe that landlords are particularly unscrupulous, but
    whether they are scrupulous or not, I think that they cannot
    take advantage of voucher tenants. The people who take
    advantage of voucher tenants are the people who run subsidized
    housing projects, because if you are a tenant in a subsidized
    housing project and you leave, then you lose your subsidy.
        So the people who run subsidized housing projects have a
    captive audience, whereas if you have a voucher, and the total
    amount being paid in rent for that voucher is very high
    relative to how good the unit is, you can take the voucher, go
    to another unit that is better, and you will continue to pay
    the same rent. So you are not a captive audience.
        And on the issue of does it bother me that the government
    does not end up with physical assets, not a bit. I do not want
    the government to be owning housing projects any more than I
    want the government to be running farms or groceries in order
    to provide food assistance to low-income households. We have a
    program that has had government ownership of housing projects.
    It is called the Public Housing Program, and its performance
    has been terrible, and there is a lot of evidence on that.
        Chairman Enzi. Thank you. Anyone else want to comment on
    that?
        Ms. Yentel. I would, yes.
        Chairman Enzi. Ms. Yentel.
        Ms. Yentel. To the point of public housing, public housing
    has been drastically underfunded for decades. So to the extent
    that there has been any failure, it has been a failure on the
    part of Congress to live up to its commitment to make public
    housing decent, safe, and sanitary homes.
        And again, the Section 8 voucher program is a very
    successful, important program, and the point that Dr. Olsen
    raises about it being a mobile voucher is one of its strengths,
    for the reasons he suggested and also because it allows
    families to move to neighborhoods maybe that have better
    performing schools or more access to transportation or jobs,
    and not to lose their housing assistance when they do. So that
    is the strength of the voucher program.
        I just want to add to what I have already shared about the
    need for construction, and construction of homes affordable to
    lowest-income people is that the private market also does not
    meet the housing needs of certain populations, for example,
    very large families or people with disabilities who need
    accessible homes. And that is another place where programs like
    the National Housing Trust Fund, the Low-Income Housing Tax
    Credit, or public housing provide those kind of units that are
    needed by Americans, but not generally available in the private
    market.
        Chairman Enzi. Senator Kaine.
        Senator Kaine. Mr. Chair?
        Chairman Enzi. Mr. Kaine next and then Senator Scott.
        Senator Kaine. Mr. Chair, I just want to share a story. I
    completely embrace the need for simplification. I think this is
    a smart hearing to have. I also resonate with what Ms. Yentel
    said. We could do dramatic simplification. I think doing one
    program alone would be too simple.
        I would really like housing vouchers if we put a
    requirement that all landlords must accept all sources of
    income. Often a landlord will accept paycheck on a job that
    could be gone next week and not accept a Section 8 voucher,
    which is not going to be gone next week. So if we are going to
    have voucher programs I think we should have protection against
    source-of-income discrimination.
        But I do believe, and Ms. Yentel just mentioned this, the
    Low-Income Tax Credit program has been really valuable in
    producing housing for particular groups of people for whom
    there was not housing. Here is an example in Virginia. When I
    was lieutenant governor I was chair of the State's Housing
    Commission, and we, based on a number of analyses, became aware
    there was insufficient rental housing for people with
    disabilities. The design standards of the wider doors and lower
    cabinets--people were not building those. They were not
    building them.
        They were not discriminating against somebody trying to
    rent and saying, ``We will not rent to you because you are in a
    wheelchair.'' But if the door was not wide enough and the
    counters were not low, folks could not live there.
        So we approached our Housing Development Authority and said
    competition for these low-income tax credits is very high.
    Developers want to get them, because it helps them finance
    their projects. We will give extra points in such competition
    for any developer that proposes to have X percentage of their
    units designed to standards that would accommodate folks with
    disabilities.
        And we got a lot of grief from that from the development
    community, but the Housing Authority did embrace this, now 10
    or 15 years ago. And immediately all the developers knew that
    if they were going to win the competition they would have to
    produce accessible units, and they started to do it.
        And they learned something. Here is what they learned.
    Folks with disabilities who rented a unit that they liked were
    some of their most loyal tenants. If they found a unit that
    would work for them, they would not stay for a year and go
    somewhere else. They would stay year after year after year.
    Folks who had no disability who rented those units would have
    disabled friends or children who could visit or stay with them.
    Or when they got ill or they got elderly, suddenly that unit
    was sufficient for that chapter of their life, even if they
    would not have needed some of those modifications before.
        And many of the developers came up years later and said,
    ``This was actually really, really smart. It was the right
    thing to do, and we adjusted our practices. And what we learned
    was this is a population we were not serving and now we are
    serving them, and we are doing well and doing good at the same
    time.''
        So I sort of resonate with Ms. Yentel on the point that
    going to one program would probably be too streamlined. I do
    think we have to put choices in the hands of individuals. The
    voucher program does that, if we can make some modifications
    and protections. But we also have to have rigorous studies and
    then try to incentivize the production of housing for
    particular populations that may be difficult to house.
        And, you know, I think there is probably some bipartisan
    support for, you know, both halves of what I just said. So this
    is helpful to hear these witnesses.
        Chairman Enzi. Senator Van Hollen?
        Senator Van Hollen. Thank you.
        Mr. Olsen. Senator Enzi, can I inject a remark here?
        Chairman Enzi. Yes. Please do. I am sorry. Dr. Olsen?
        Mr. Olsen. This is on the issue of which type of program
    serves large families better, and the answer is, among all the
    current programs, by far the Housing Choice Voucher Program
    serves larger families than any of the other programs. In fact,
    a lot of the people in the Housing Choice Voucher Program live
    in single-family units, which are especially good for large
    families, and that is not a characteristic of the other
    programs.
        Chairman Enzi. Thank you. Anyone else from the panel wish
    to comment on that?
        [No response.]
        Chairman Enzi. Senator Van Hollen.
        Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to
    thank the witnesses for their testimony. I apologize. I had to
    go up to the Senator floor on a motion that we have been
    working on.
        But like Senator Kaine I think that there are a number of
    good ideas that we should be able to explore as a Committee on
    a bipartisan basis. And with respect to the Housing Choice
    voucher, I am pleased to have teamed up with Senator Young on a
    bipartisan bill where we were successful in expanding the
    number of Housing Choice vouchers and also securing additional
    funding for those.
        Unfortunately, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, we
    have also seen proposed deep cuts to many of the other voucher
    programs, which the testimony has been clear are among the most
    efficient ways of delivering affordable housing.
        Given the situation we are facing right now, which the
    Chairman mentioned in his opening remarks as well as I did,
    with respect to the current COVID crisis and housing, Ms.
    Yentel, Bloomberg recently reported that institutional
    landlords have filed more than 900 eviction cases across eight
    metropolitan areas, from September 2 to September 8, even in
    the face of the CDC order. Can you comment a little bit on how
    much protection the CDC order will provide with respect to
    evictions? That is the first part of the question.
        And then the second part of the question is, as I mentioned
    in my opening statement, even if we are able to protect people
    from evictions in the short term, if we do not provide rental
    assistance that obviously just moves a huge problem down the
    road, and we believe up to 20 million Americans will be facing
    eviction when they are not able to make their balloon payments
    at the end of the period.
        So can you comment on both those parts, first the extent to
    which the CDC order provides eviction protection, and number
    two, the urgency of providing rental assistance, which, by the
    way, in a Banking Committee hearing the other day witnesses
    invited by both parties, Republicans and Democrats, agreed was
    essential.
        Ms. Yentel. It is essential, yes. Thank you for the
    questions, Senator.
        The previous Federal eviction moratorium under the CARES
    Act was limited. It protected about 30 percent of renters and
    it created some confusion, because renters had a difficult time
    of knowing whether their particular property was covered under
    the moratorium because it only covered certain federally backed
    or federally subsidized properties. And so during the CARES
    Act, despite many of our best efforts, there were some illegal
    evictions that went forward.
        The CDC eviction moratorium is much broader. It covers all
    eligible renters, in all properties across the country. But it,
    too, is creating a lot of confusion, because unlike the CARES
    Act, where the protection was automatic for renters who lived
    in covered properties, under the current CDC eviction
    moratorium renters need to take an action to receive the
    protection. So if they meet certain eligibility requirements
    they need to sign a declarative statement and give it to their
    landlord in order to receive that protection.
        What we are finding is that many renters do not know about
    the moratorium and they do not know about the actions that they
    need to take. So we are doing everything we can, and I am
    encouraging all policymakers at all levels to do everything you
    can, to make sure that your constituents and that all renters
    know about this protection and know what action they need to
    take in order to receive it.
        But another problem with the CDC moratorium is that judges
    are interpreting it differently. The moratorium itself is quite
    clear. It is pretty plain-spoken, and it is meant to be
    interpreted very broadly. I mean, the purpose of the CDC
    eviction moratorium, or the reasoning behind it, is that they
    found that increased evictions will lead to increased COVID-19.
    And so it is meant to be very broad. But some judges are
    interpreting it more narrowly, and for that we may need more
    action from the CDC to be clear on how it should be
    interpreted.
        And then the third problem, as you mentioned, is that there
    is increasing evidence that large corporate landlords are
    taking advantage of this moment of confusion and this moment
    when renters do not know what their rights are, and trying to
    rush through as many evictions through the courts as they can
    before renters become aware of their protections and take
    action to receive them, which is just reprehensible, and
    another reason why we need to make sure that renters have all
    the information that they need.
        But ultimately any eviction moratorium is a half measure.
    On its own it is not enough. Eventually those eviction
    moratoriums expire, and when they do they create a financial
    cliff for renters to fall off of, when back rent is owed and
    they are no more able to pay it then than they are now, or they
    were at the beginning of the pandemic. And during this
    moratorium rent is still due, and on December 31st, all of the
    rent will be due, plus the late fees and the penalties that
    landlords tag onto it.
        So it is essential that Congress pair a national eviction
    moratorium with emergency rental assistance, at least $100
    billion as you, as Senator Brown, and just about every Democrat
    in the Senate has supported and has already passed in the
    House. And as you say, there is growing bipartisan support for
    this. Now we need Congress and the White House to come together
    and actually act on it.
        And I will say, too, that the emergency rental assistance
    is essential not only to avoid saddling low-income renters with
    more debt than they can ever pay off, but small landlords are
    struggling and they are increasingly struggling as renters
    increasingly cannot pay the rent. They rely on rental income to
    pay their bills, to keep the lights on, to keep maintaining and
    operating their properties. And the last thing we want to do is
    end this crisis having lost some of our country's essential
    rental housing stock. And for those two reasons it is essential
    that Congress and the White House come to an agreement, pass a
    bill that includes at least $100 billion in emergency rental
    assistance.
        Chairman Enzi. Do either of our other two panelists want to
    comment on that?
        Senator Van Hollen. --a lot of those landlords have their
    own bills to pay too, and we need to work on both parts of
    that.
        Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you for holding the hearing.
        Chairman Enzi. Thank you. Do either of the other two
    panelists want to comment on that?
        Not appearing so I want to thank the witnesses for
    participating today. This concludes our roundtable. As
    information for all Senators, questions for the record are due
    by 12 p.m. tomorrow. Emailed copies of the questions are
    acceptable, due to our current conditions. Under our rules we
    do ask the witnesses to respond to the questions in 7 days.
    There is a lot of good information here. As staff gets that to
    the Senators who were not here, as well as those of us who were
    here, I am sure there will be additional questions. There seems
    to be more agreement on possibilities than I have had in other
    roundtables. So under the rules we do ask the witnesses to
    respond to questions in 7 days.
        And finally, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the
    record written statements from the Tax Foundation and the NRP
    Group. Without objection, so ordered.
        [The information follows:]

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        Chairman Enzi. With no further business before the
    Committee, the roundtable is adjourned.

        [Whereupon, at 3:46 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

                     ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS

        [The following submitted questions were not asked at the
    hearing but were answered by the witnesses subsequent to the
    hearing:]

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