[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
A STRONG FOUNDATION: HOW HOUSING
IS THE KEY TO BUILDING BACK
A BETTER AMERICA
=======================================================================
HYBRID HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 21, 2021
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services
Serial No. 117-55
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
A STRONG FOUNDATION: HOW HOUSING IS THE
KEY TO BUILDING BACK A BETTER AMERICA
A STRONG FOUNDATION: HOW HOUSING
IS THE KEY TO BUILDING BACK
A BETTER AMERICA
=======================================================================
HYBRID HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 21, 2021
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services
Serial No. 117-55
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
46-198 PDF WASHINGTON : 2022
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES
MAXINE WATERS, California, Chairwoman
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York PATRICK McHENRY, North Carolina,
NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ, New York Ranking Member
BRAD SHERMAN, California FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York BILL POSEY, Florida
DAVID SCOTT, Georgia BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri
AL GREEN, Texas BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan
EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri ANN WAGNER, Missouri
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado ANDY BARR, Kentucky
JIM A. HIMES, Connecticut ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas
BILL FOSTER, Illinois FRENCH HILL, Arkansas
JOYCE BEATTY, Ohio TOM EMMER, Minnesota
JUAN VARGAS, California LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
JOSH GOTTHEIMER, New Jersey BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas ALEXANDER X. MOONEY, West Virginia
AL LAWSON, Florida WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio
MICHAEL SAN NICOLAS, Guam TED BUDD, North Carolina
CINDY AXNE, Iowa DAVID KUSTOFF, Tennessee
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois TREY HOLLINGSWORTH, Indiana
AYANNA PRESSLEY, Massachusetts ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
RITCHIE TORRES, New York JOHN ROSE, Tennessee
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts BRYAN STEIL, Wisconsin
ALMA ADAMS, North Carolina LANCE GOODEN, Texas
RASHIDA TLAIB, Michigan WILLIAM TIMMONS, South Carolina
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania VAN TAYLOR, Texas
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, New York PETE SESSIONS, Texas
JESUS ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
SYLVIA GARCIA, Texas
NIKEMA WILLIAMS, Georgia
JAKE AUCHINCLOSS, Massachusetts
Charla Ouertatani, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on:
October 21, 2021............................................. 1
Appendix:
October 21, 2021............................................. 87
WITNESSES
Thursday, October 21, 2021
Chetty, Raj, William A. Ackman Professor of Public Economics,
Harvard University............................................. 54
Crawford, Symone, first-generation homeowner, and Director of
STASH and Homeownership Operations, and incoming Executive
Director, Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance............ 10
del Rio, Carlos, MD, FIDSA, Distinguished Professor of Medicine,
Epidemiology and Global Health, Emory University School of
Medicine....................................................... 55
Dickerson, Matthew, Director, Grover M. Hermann Center for the
Federal Budget, The Heritage Foundation........................ 60
Edmonds, Michael, resident, Tucson House, City of Tucson
Department of Housing and Community Development, and Secretary,
Tucson House Residents Council................................. 7
Galindo, Fernanda, cost-burdened renter, District of Columbia.... 9
Harrison, John, formerly experienced homelessness, and Speaker/
Advocate, National Coalition for the Homeless, and Street
Outreach Navigator, Prince George's County Department of Social
Services....................................................... 6
Lee, Jan, New York City rental property owner, on behalf of the
Small Property Owners of New York (SPONY)...................... 12
Rice, Lisa, President and CEO, National Fair Housing Alliance.... 57
Shahyd, Khalil, Managing Director, Equity, Environment and
Justice Center, National Resources Defense Council............. 59
APPENDIX
Prepared statements:
Chetty, Raj.................................................. 88
Crawford, Symone............................................. 100
del Rio, Carlos.............................................. 104
Dickerson, Matthew........................................... 110
Edmonds, Michael............................................. 116
Galindo, Fernanda............................................ 120
Harrison, John............................................... 122
Lee, Jan..................................................... 123
Rice, Lisa................................................... 126
Shahyd, Khalil............................................... 147
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Waters, Hon. Maxine:
Statements for the record from:
Catholic Charities USA....................................... 161
Community Solutions.......................................... 165
LeadingAge................................................... 169
National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community
Development................................................ 173
National Homelessness Law Center............................. 180
UnidosUS..................................................... 183
Letters of support for the Build Back Better Act from:
AARP......................................................... 188
American Institute of Architects............................. 190
The Arc of the United States................................. 193
Campaign for Housing and Community Development Funding....... 196
Children's Defense Fund...................................... 198
Children's Health Watch...................................... 200
Community of Hope............................................ 204
Corporation for Supportive Housing........................... 207
Enterprise Community Partners................................ 209
Hon. Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles..................... 212
Habitat for Humanity......................................... 214
Healthcare Anchor Network.................................... 225
HoUSed Campaign.............................................. 227
Housing Assistance Council................................... 257
Justice in Aging............................................. 259
LeadingAge................................................... 261
Local Initiatives Support Corporation........................ 264
Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) and Los
Angeles Continuum of Care (LA CoC)......................... 266
Mayors & CEOs for U.S. Housing Investment.................... 269
Mortgage Bankers Association................................. 273
NAHRO, PHADA, MtW, and LHAC.................................. 276
National Alliance to End Homelessness........................ 278
National Center for Healthy Housing.......................... 280
National Coalition for Housing Justice....................... 282
National Council of State Housing Agencies................... 286
National Housing Law Project................................. 288
National League of Cities.................................... 290
National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund........................ 292
National Network to End Domestic Violence.................... 293
National Rural Housing Coalition............................. 295
National Women's Law Center.................................. 297
NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice.................... 302
NHRC et al................................................... 306
Opportunity Starts at Home................................... 310
Philanthropy Member Organizations............................ 313
Prosperity Now............................................... 315
Public Housing Authorities Directors Association............. 319
RESULTS...................................................... 321
ROC Association.............................................. 326
RTTC et al................................................... 339
San Diego Housing Commission................................. 342
Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future................ 344
United Native American Housing Association................... 346
Various undersigned organizations............................ 349
A STRONG FOUNDATION: HOW HOUSING
IS THE KEY TO BUILDING BACK
A BETTER AMERICA
----------
Thursday, October 21, 2021
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Financial Services,
Washington, D.C.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in
room 2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Maxine Waters
[chairwoman of the committee] presiding.
Members present: Representatives Waters, Velazquez,
Sherman, Scott, Green, Cleaver, Perlmutter, Beatty, Vargas,
Gottheimer, Gonzalez of Texas, Lawson, Axne, Casten, Pressley,
Torres, Lynch, Adams, Dean, Ocasio-Cortez, Garcia of Illinois,
Garcia of Texas, Williams of Georgia; McHenry, Lucas, Posey,
Luetkemeyer, Huizenga, Wagner, Barr, Williams of Texas, Hill,
Emmer, Zeldin, Loudermilk, Mooney, Davidson, Budd,
Hollingsworth, Gonzalez of Ohio, Rose, Steil, Gooden, Timmons,
Taylor, and Sessions.
Chairwoman Waters. The Financial Services Committee will
come to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a
recess of the committee at any time.
As a reminder, I ask all Members participating remotely to
keep themselves muted when they are not being recognized by the
Chair. The staff has been instructed not to mute Members,
except when a Member is not being recognized by the Chair and
there is inadvertent background noise. If you are participating
remotely today, please keep your camera on. If you choose to
attend a different remote proceeding, please turn your camera
off.
Before we begin, I will call up the two resolutions noticed
for today's hearing reauthorizing the committee's Task Forces
on Artificial Intelligence and Financial Technology and ask
unanimous consent that the resolutions be adopted.
Without objection, it is so ordered.
I am so very pleased to continue the work of this
committee's two task forces. The Task Force on Financial
Technology, led by Mr. Lynch, and the Task Force on Artificial
Intelligence, led by Mr. Foster, have done exemplary work thus
far this Congress in assessing the impact of new technologies,
products, and services in our financial and housing markets.
Recent FinTech Task Force hearings have focused on consumer
data, sharing between fintechs and banks, central bank digital
currencies (CBDCs), and the rise of new fintech products and
services. Recent AI Task Force hearings have focused on
algorithmic bias, digital identity, and ethical frameworks of
AI. I believe I speak for all of our committee members in
saying that we look forward to what other emerging areas these
two task forces will cover in their next round of hearings.
And I now recognize the ranking member of the committee,
Mr. McHenry, for any remarks he may have about the
reauthorization of our task forces.
Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. On the Republican
side, these task forces are led by Ranking Members Gonzalez and
Davidson, and by Ranking Members Hill and Emmer before that.
The opportunity with these two task forces is to have some
bipartisan consensus on emerging technologies. My hope is that
we can actually get to bipartisan legislating in these areas
now and in the future. I think it is really important for us to
figure out the ways that we can work together so that we can
embrace innovation, so that we can ensure that we are a step
ahead of our global competition, and focus on ways that we can
incorporate innovation in such a way that we actually bring the
cost structure down for average consumers and average Americans
and increase opportunities. I think there are huge
opportunities here for consumer protection and economic
opportunity, and ways to root out unintended consequences for
bad regulations here in Washington.
So, I am encouraged that they have been reauthorized. My
hope is that we can actually get to the point of driving
consensus around a basket of legislative ideas that are
bipartisan in nature. And with that, I yield back.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. Today's hearing is
entitled, ``A Strong Foundation: How Housing is the Key to
Building Back a Better America.''
I now recognize myself for 4 minutes to give an opening
statement.
Right now, choices are being made about what investments
will be cut back or cut out of the Build Back Better Act. Last
month, this committee passed historic legislation to invest
$327 billion in long-overdue housing investments. These funds
would create or rehabilitate more than 3 million affordable
homes, provide up to 750,000 Housing Choice vouchers to house
up to 1.7 million people, and help close the racial wealth gap
through a $10-billion investment in down payment assistance to
first-time, first-generation homebuyers. The housing
investments provided in the Build Back Better Act should be
robust and reflect the fact that housing is infrastructure.
Absent access to safe, affordable, and accessible housing, far
too many families cannot make ends meet in a way that enables
them or our economy and our nation to thrive.
As our two panels of witnesses will discuss today, there is
no way to build back better without investing in housing. Our
first panel consists of experts who have lived with the
experience and who have struggled to afford, find, or secure
housing. These witnesses will talk about their experiences with
homelessness, public housing, and achieving the dream of
homeownership.
Our second panel of policy experts will discuss how robust
investments in housing will promote positive health outcomes,
mitigate climate change, strengthen the middle class, address
longstanding racial inequities, and give children the
foundation they need to perform well in school.
Every day, we are paying the cost for decades of
disinvestment in housing. We pay for it through increased
healthcare costs when people face life-threatening health
hazards in their homes, when they are forced to live in unsafe
and unhealthy conditions on the streets, or when they defer
medical attention to pay their rent or mortgage. We pay for it
through diminished life outcomes and economic mobility, when
parents must forego investments in their childrens' education,
or when students' studies are disrupted by constant moves or
because they do not have a safe place to do their homework. We
pay for it through trillions in lost economic activity due to
worsening segregation and ongoing discrimination that locks
millions out of equal housing opportunity.
Simply put, we cannot build back better without investing
in our nation's crumbling housing infrastructure. Housing is
not a miscellaneous afterthought, just something that is nice
to have, or something that can wait until later. Housing is
foundational, and America has waited long enough. We spent the
last 4 years watching the previous Administration prioritize
the wealthiest among us and demonize the least fortunate among
us. We are here today with an opportunity to put everyday
Americans first by putting housing first. We have to be bold in
order to be successful. Failure is not an option.
Before I yield back, let me ask unanimous consent to insert
into the record a collection of letters signed by over 1,000
groups and diverse stakeholders, including child, education,
and health advocacy groups.
Without objection, it is so ordered.
I now recognize the ranking member of the committee, the
gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. McHenry, for 4 minutes for
an opening statement.
Mr. McHenry. Madam Chairwoman, today marks the second
housing hearing in less than a week. Since Democrats took
control of the House, our committee has held 31 hearings on
housing, 13 of which were Full Committee hearings. Look, we all
know that housing is an important issue. I will remind the
Chair that it was Republicans who raised the alarm about the
Biden Administration's mismanagement and incompetence in
delivering emergency rental assistance. Republicans gave the
legislative solution, and then Democrats attempted to follow,
but Democrats rejected our efforts to help struggling renters
every step of the way. Instead, they have been busy working on
President Biden's partisan Build Back Better Agenda, so let's
talk about how that is going.
This summer, Chairwoman Waters released a statement
announcing she had secured a commitment from President Biden to
include her housing provision in the Build Back Better Act.
This was followed up by a package of bills expanding Federal
housing programs to the tune of $600 billion. Then, the
committee met to produce the actual legislative package for
President Biden's agenda. The amount spent on housing was $325
billion, so where did the $300 billion go? Why did some ideas
get left on the cutting-room floor? I do not know. Actually, it
was not said publicly. Republicans have not been included in
any of these private meetings that Democrats are having amongst
themselves on this, nor have we had hearings about that cutting
of $300 billion. So, with no explanation as to why the
Majority's housing proposal was cut in half, Democrats reported
the bill out of committee on a partisan vote.
Now, after Chairwoman Waters and Senator Sherrod Brown held
a press conference yesterday demanding more money for housing,
today, there is a report that the Administration has cut it to
$100 billion overnight. I do not know if that is a result of
the press conference. I do not know if it is a result of this
hearing. I do not see other committees having hearings like
this about Democrat provisions being cut by Democrats. So,
let's see if I have this straight: A Democrat-controlled White
House is cutting Democrat provisions from a Democrat bill
written by Democrats to try and wrangle enough Democrat votes
to pass it. You cannot make this stuff up.
Let's just be honest about where we are today. You are
worried about getting your priorities axed. I cannot imagine
how frustrating that is. Wouldn't it be helpful for us to hear
from the people actually running this show? Instead, we are
having good people here telling us compelling stories, and not
to be disrespectful to any of the witnesses, your stories are
important for us to hear, and the struggles you face are real
and deserve answers, but we should invite the people who are
actually making this decision here, not my Democrat colleagues
on the committee.
By the way, at gavel, Chairwoman Waters was the only
Democrat here in the room. That is how much of a priority this
seems to be. Now, we have a few Democrats on the screen. But
why don't we invite the people making the decision? Why not
invite Senator Manchin to tell us what is going to be in this
bill? Why not invite Senate Budget Committee Chair Sanders to
tell us what is going to be in this bill? We know it is being
written on the fly. We know you are not interested in
Republican votes. We know that your provisions are being cut
left and right and you are angry about it. But why are you
inviting Republicans to this family food fight you are having
amongst yourselves, and why are we not focused on the
priorities of the American people rather than shoveling out
more government spending?
Chairwoman Waters said earlier this month, ``This is our
once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in our housing
programs. If we do not expand our housing programs in this
budget reconciliation bill, we never will.'' I am not going to
share my opinion about that, but I want to make sure that it is
in the record today. And with that, I yield back.
Chairwoman Waters. I now recognize the gentleman from
Missouri, Mr. Cleaver, for 1 minute.
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. We are having
this hearing today at a time when housing has historically
never been more expensive. The median sale price of a new
residential home in the United States is now just under
$400,000.
And we are having this hearing at a time when we have never
built fewer homes in this country. In the last decade, we saw
fewer housing starts than any decade on record, and the share
of smaller or entry-level starter homes, which used to account
for about 40 percent of new homes built, now accounts for close
to 7 percent of new homes built. When housing is built in this
country, it is becoming increasingly unaffordable to those who
are lucky enough to even be housed. So today, access to
affordable housing is central to every other indicator of well-
being for Americans. There is no such thing as building back
better without robust investment in housing and human-level
capacity.
I hope our witnesses will speak to why the solutions this
committee has put forward are so critical. Thank you, Madam
Chairwoman, for the work you are doing on housing.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. I now recognize the gentleman
from Arkansas, Mr. Hill, for 1 minute.
Mr. Hill. I thank the chairwoman, and I have to ask my
colleagues, why are we here? Five weeks ago, my friends on the
other side of the aisle passed out of this committee $300
billion of spending on housing on a partisan-only basis. And
now, that same $300 billion is on the chopping block, my
friends, not by Republicans, but by other Democrats. The
testimony we are going to hear today belongs in the Democratic
Caucus meeting, not in this room today. If the Majority wants
to hold press conferences and send letters to the White House,
please, that is absolutely your right. But while our committee
is holding yet again another hearing, as the ranking member
said, on housing as infrastructure, we are turning a blind eye
to so many other important issues under our jurisdiction.
Why have we not heard from the Biden Administration and the
Treasury Department? Why did they cancel the hearing yesterday
which was to help us understand why the current IMF managing
director continues her service, or to understand Treasury's
views about sanctions? Instead of using the committee today as
a prop, we should be doing our businesses of oversight.
I yield back.
Chairwoman Waters. I would now like to welcome our first
panel of witnesses today: Mr. John Harrison, a program
coordinator with Nick's Place, who has formerly experienced
homelessness; Mr. Michael Edmonds, a resident of Tucson House
in the Tucson Public Housing Authority; Ms. Fernanda Maria
Galindo, a cost-burdened renter from the District of Columbia;
Ms. Symone Crawford, a first-generation homeowner, and the
director of STASH and Homeownership Operations, and also the
incoming executive director with the Massachusetts Affordable
Housing Alliance; and Mr. Jan Lee, a New York City rental
property owner, who is testifying on behalf of the Small
Property Owners of New York.
You will each have 5 minutes to summarize your testimony.
You should be able to see a timer on your screen on the table
in front of you that will indicate how much time you have left
in your testimony.
And without objection, your written statements will be made
a part of the record.
Mr. Harrison, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to
present your testimony.
STATEMENT OF JOHN HARRISON, FORMERLY EXPERIENCED HOMELESSNESS,
AND SPEAKER/ADVOCATE, NATIONAL COALITION FOR THE HOMELESS, AND
STREET OUTREACH NAVIGATOR, PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF
SOCIAL SERVICES
Mr. Harrison. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thanks
for the opportunity to speak today.
My name is John Harrison. I began working as a young man in
the early 1980s. I had not gone to college. I thought I was
ready to take on the world right out of high school, I suppose.
At that time, though, houses cost about $70,000, and the
interest rate was about 15 percent, so I put off the decision
to try and save up a down payment to buy a house because most
of my income and the house payments would have gone to interest
then. Ten years down the road, my circumstances had not
improved, and some of my skill sets were eroding, and not
having gone to college was starting to catch up to me. It was
difficult to save. Providing for my family took most of my
income, and my family eventually broke apart and my marriage
ended in divorce.
I moved to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where housing
costs were lower, but decent work was more difficult to find.
The first episode of homelessness that I experienced was
actually by choice. I lived in an abandoned warehouse while I
was working at a job in order to not spend so much of my income
on rent, and in about 6 years, I was able to buy a home. I
bought a for-sale-by-owner property, but I was kind of naive
about that process, and a number of things happened in
succession.
I worked at a company that was sold, and its new owners
came in and made some changes. One of those changes was to
eliminate my position there, and so I got laid off. While I was
looking for my next job, my house burned down, and I did not
receive any insurance settlement, partly because I had not
really done my homework on all of the paperwork when I signed
the mortgage papers. And I would have been homeless right then,
but I had some kind neighbors who let me stay in a shed behind
their house. Eventually, their landlord said I had to go.
I made a personal decision that I needed to go to college
if I really wanted to improve my situation long term, and so I
enrolled in a community college, but I had not stabilized my
housing. I would sleep in the woods on campus, and sometimes I
would sleep in my car, but that effort turned out to be
unsuccessful, and I also began to get discouraged because my
family life had not worked out, my career had not really worked
out, my education was not successful, and I eventually became
literally homeless, living on the streets. And that experience
began to take a toll on my health and also on my sense of self,
and the longer I was homeless, the less likely I thought I
would be able to escape or overcome my homelessness.
But I did have the support of a number of great people, and
one of the organizations that was helpful to me was the
National Coalition for the Homeless, in helping me restore a
sense of purpose at that time. And I was able to return to
college. I achieved an associate's degree, and that helped me
employment-wise. I did work as a program coordinator for Nick's
Place, but now I have moved on, and I work for the Prince
George's County Department of Social Services as a street
outreach navigator. In my work for them, I talk to people
experiencing homelessness, and try to build a rapport with
them, and make an effort to connect them to resources that
might be available. But, again, as my personal circumstances
are improving, the cost of housing is again rising so quickly
that at least homeownership is still certainly out of reach for
me.
A couple of things I would like to say quickly before I
wind up is that in our continuum of care, we use a coordinated
entry process. We use rapid re-housing, transitional re-
housing, and we also have permanent supportive housing. While
many people are in need of that, none of those have openings
right now. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Harrison can be found on
page 122 of the appendix]
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you, Mr. Harrison. Mr. Edmonds,
you are now recognized for 5 minutes to present your testimony.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL EDMONDS, RESIDENT, TUCSON HOUSE, CITY OF
TUCSON DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, AND
SECRETARY, TUCSON HOUSE RESIDENTS COUNCIL
Mr. Edmonds. Thank you very much. My name is Michael
Edmonds. I am a resident of public housing in Tucson, Arizona,
and I currently serve as the secretary of the Tucson House
Residents Council, where I live. Tucson House is a 17-story
public housing building which is home to over 400 households,
most of whom are older or disabled adults. I am begging on my
behalf and for those who are in similar situations as myself
and my neighbors that you provide all of the funding that is
necessary towards housing in the Build Back Better Act.
Growing up, I became conditioned to expect housing to be
very unstable. I was a child of a teenage mother. I lived in a
household which was abusive and never financially stable. Many
times, my family was forced to survive in shelters that were
deteriorating. I specifically remember a trailer and a shack on
an alley a few feet away from railroad tracks. My second
stepfather was in the Air Force, and we were assigned to West
Germany, where I lived in school dormitories. After returning
to the United States, all I could afford to rent was a
converted storage shed in Arizona that had a shower and a
toilet with no cooling and no heating. I saved enough money for
an old Ford Galaxy 600, and I lived in that.
After couch surfing amongst bouts of homelessness for over
a decade, I was offered the privilege to live here in Tucson
House in 2019. After moving into Tucson House, I immediately
began to investigate my options to get a job, return to
college, or begin a business, and to get involved in my new
community. I became actively involved in the THRIVE in the 05
Initiative in my neighborhood. It is a community-driven
collaboration that involves crime reduction, neighborhood
improvements, and workforce and economic development, including
a Choice Neighborhoods Planning and Action Grant from HUD
focused on Tucson House. I was appointed secretary of the
Tucson House Residents Council. I am a member of the THRIVE in
the 05 Steering Committee. I volunteer as a street ambassador
for the City's Transportation Department, and I was appointed
by Tucson's mayor and council to their Commission on Equitable
Housing and Development, of which now I am Vice Chair.
When the COVID-19 pandemic began, my role in the Tucson
House Residents Council changed, because the older and disabled
residents needed daily assistance and attention, including
food, personal care items, and other requests. My neighbors
were suddenly isolated, scared, and extremely vulnerable to the
deadly disease. I put my own healthcare and job search on hold
to answer the call from my neighbors for assistance. When I
take time for myself, my neighbors do not know whom they can
turn to and rely on for assistance. The stable housing that
Tucson House provides has been life-changing for many residents
during the pandemic, especially those who were formerly
homeless like me.
However, the physical needs of our 60-year-old building
have created additional stress and uncertainty for residents
during this time. With the elevators routinely breaking,
residents who cannot take the stairs can be forced to wait for
long periods for an elevator, which creates conflicts and
fighting. I believe I have experienced the longest wait time
for an elevator at 45 minutes. Tucson House lacks building-wide
internet, without which many residents were suddenly cut off
from contact with their neighbors, service providers, and
friends and family. Entire systems, like water or cooling,
occasionally fail and require emergency response and repairs.
Public housing, like my building, is in dire need of
attention and support. Repairs have not been completed, and the
lack of maintenance has caused the cost of repairs to become
increasingly more expensive. Without full funding for the needs
of Tucson House, over 400 people would need to be permanently
relocated to housing that can accommodate them. This should
include support services, internet access, modern amenities,
enough large elevators to move hundreds of people, and hallways
wide enough for motorized wheelchairs and scooters to be able
to pass by each other, et cetera. However, funding to support
the development of such new public housing or rehabilitation of
existing buildings to integrate modern, environmentally-
friendly design does not meet the need. Existing programs like
Choice Neighborhoods are not enough and also add barriers to
eligibility for implementation funding that Tucson House may
never meet.
Housing is a primal necessity. The citizens of this country
will never be able to grow, thrive, and prosper until we
provide stable and safe shelter from which they can feel
strength and begin to feel hopeful. Housing allows for
increased physical and behavioral health. Tucson is
experiencing a housing crisis, with the cost of rent rapidly
increasing recently. We must preserve, maintain, and increase
our public housing as one ongoing solution to our housing
shortage. I urge you to fully fund the housing component of the
Build Back Better Act so that myself my neighbors and I can
live in safe, high-quality housing that meets our needs.
Starting with housing, from which all other objectives could
follow, is the proper and logical way to successfully support
the citizens of the United States of America.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Edmonds can be found on page
116 of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much, Mr. Edmonds.
Ms. Galindo, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to
present your testimony.
STATEMENT OF FERNANDA GALINDO, COST-BURDENED RENTER, DISTRICT
OF COLUMBIA
Ms. Galindo. Thank you. My name is Fernanda Galindo. I am
32-years-old. I have a 5-year-old son with learning
disabilities. We live in Washington, D.C. We have lived here
for 6 years in a studio apartment. Through those years, I have
always struggled to afford to pay rent. I have worked as a
nanny, an assistant teacher, a maid, and a line cook. I have
worked 3 jobs at the same time just to make ends meet, over 70
hours a week to afford to pay rent and care for my son, yet I
still faced the risk of eviction on several occasions.
With time, I was able to start making more money with only
one job, but I still struggled many months to afford rent. On
occasion, I had to choose between paying rent on time or buying
food. When the pandemic hit, I was lucky enough to have
employers who continued to pay me even though I could not come
to work. When the lockdown was lifted, I was not able to return
to work because my son needed care, and there was no one else
to watch him. I was lucky to find another job where I could
bring my son. However, I was always worried about money. If any
unexpected expense occurred, I would be unable to maintain
housing for me and my son. I could not and still cannot even
entertain the idea of saving money to buy a house one day.
After this school year was over, the families who employed
me no longer needed care for their kids. I searched for another
job and placed my son in summer camp. It was closed after a few
weeks because of several cases of COVID, so I could no longer
go to work. I could not find care for my son, and I had no idea
how to pay for rent anymore. I found out about a program called
STAY DC, which is run by the D.C. Government, to help families
who owe rent or could not afford rent anymore. I reached out,
and the next morning we submitted my application. I was told to
wait 6 weeks to hear back, and I hope that you never experience
the amount of stress I felt while waiting for a response. I was
granted money to pay for 3 months of rent in advance. When I
read the email, I cried because I could breathe again.
Some people claim that such help is a handout that creates
dependence on government services. This is not true. The
support I have received is a critical bridge to self-
sufficiency. It gives me peace of mind and provides me interim
financial stability. I mentioned at the beginning of my
testimony that we live in a studio apartment. I have tried to
find a bigger place. I do not care about luxurious. I just
think that a kid should have his own bedroom. There are limited
options for us with year-long wait lists. The need for
affordable housing in this area is an urgent matter.
My son was also accepted in one of the best schools in D.C.
As exciting as that is, I worry that I am not going to be able
to make this sustainable for us. He can only attend if he is a
D.C. resident, so if we cannot find affordable housing where my
son can have his own room, I may have to give up the good
school to meet my housing needs. This may cause us to relocate
and lose the opportunity that my son has to receive the quality
education that will open doors for him in the future, and
potentially end the cycle of never-ending financial hardship.
But there is also another option, which is why I am here
today. Congress needs to include robust funding for housing and
rental assistance in the Build Back Better Act.
Throughout my life, I have worked very hard to build a
dignified life for my son. I have played by the rules, yet the
struggle that I have experienced, alongside millions of other
moms, is often overwhelming. If Congress does not ensure that
people have access to safe, reliable, affordable housing, it
will undermine my and others' ability to hold down a job, pay
rent and bills, and build a better life for our families. It
will, in effect, undermine our nation's recovery.
Thank you again for inviting me to speak with you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Galindo can be found on page
120 of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. Ms. Crawford, you are now
recognized for 5 minutes to present your testimony.
STATEMENT OF SYMONE CRAWFORD, FIRST-GENERATION HOMEOWNER,
DIRECTOR OF STASH AND HOMEOWNERSHIP OPERATIONS, AND INCOMING
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MASSACHUSETTS AFFORDABLE HOUSING ALLIANCE
Ms. Crawford. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member
McHenry, and members of the House Financial Services Committee.
My name is Symone Crawford. I am here today as the incoming
executive director of the Massachusetts Affordable Housing
Alliance (MAHA) based in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and as a
first-time, first-generation homeowner. We are a Statewide
organization singularly focused on breaking down barriers for
first-time and first-generation homebuyers and closing the
racial homeownership and wealth gaps. We have graduated 40,000
Massachusetts residents from our homeownership education
programs and have negotiated a mortgage program that has made
it possible for over 23,000 low- to moderate-income, first-time
homebuyers to purchase their first home.
That was me in 2004. As an immigrant from the Island of
Jamaica who migrated here in 1998, I was a renter in Boston
experiencing an unstable housing situation in a high-cost
market. An extended family member was kind enough to offer us a
small temporary space to live, but it was not a long-term
solution for our family of five. My husband and I realized that
we needed to buy a home and stabilize the living environment
for our three growing daughters.
I took a first-time homebuyer class at MAHA in 2004. They
assisted as we found an affordable mortgage that MAHA had
negotiated with an area bank, thanks to the Community
Reinvestment Act (CRA). We bought a three-family home in
Mattapan where we still live today. We garden in the backyard
and benefit every day from the fixed cost of owning our home.
Now that our daughters are grown, we are happy to report
that our oldest daughter bought her first home, less than a
mile from where we live, and the two younger ones are each on
their path to owning a home as well.
We are experiencing a crisis in the United States where
buying a first home is out of reach for many of our working
families, particularly first-generation homebuyers, those
without the bank of mom and dad. Investments in homeownership
from our Federal Government will stabilize individuals and
communities and benefit our economy. We desperately need funds
for first-generation homebuyers in order to address racial and
economic inequities that existed before COVID-19 struck and
then worsened over the course of the pandemic.
Communities of color that were hit the hardest by COVID-19
have been deliberately and systematically excluded from
homeownership opportunities for generations. We can use housing
funds in Build Back Better at this moment of racial reckoning
to begin to repair the harm that has been done.
Homebuyers like Akilah, who is now a first-generation
homeowner in Taunton thanks in part to MAHA's STASH Program,
and the innovative first-time homebuyer product, ONE Mortgage,
from the Massachusetts Housing Partnership and participating
lenders. Akilah completed a 7-year journey to homeownership in
July 2020 after being forced, due to high rents, into a living
condition where her young son could not stay with her full-time
because the landlord had pets that triggered his allergy and
asthma.
And Dafany, another first-generation homeowner that we
worked with. She enrolled in the MAHA STASH Program in 2019 and
worked closely with me as she began her journey towards
homeownership. After many twists and turns, not to mention
being outbid 5 times by homebuyers with more resources, Dafany
was able to close on a single-family home in the Boston
neighborhood of Mattapan last summer thanks to the assistance
and encouragement she received during our First-Generation
Homebuyer Program, and the ONE Mortgage. As she states, ``STASH
kept me on track and motivated me to complete my dream of
homeownership.''
The Urban Institute estimates that a national first-
generation down payment program of $25,000 would cover 5
million households that are disproportionately Black, but also
include millions of White, Asian, and Hispanic households. This
is a necessary part of Build Back Better, and there is no time
like today to significantly invest in our nation's first-
generation homebuyers. Homeownership is generational. Children
of homeowners tend to be homeowners. Children of renters are
more likely to stay renters throughout their lifetime. We can
and we need to break this pattern.
We thank Chairwoman Waters, my own Congresswoman, Ayanna
Pressley, and all those who are fighting hard to include
housing and first-generation homebuyers in this legislation.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Crawford can be found on
page 100 of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. Mr. Lee, you are now
recognized for 5 minutes to present your testimony.
STATEMENT OF JAN LEE, NEW YORK CITY RENTAL PROPERTY OWNER,
TESTIFYING ON BEHALF OF THE SMALL PROPERTY OWNERS OF NEW YORK
(SPONY)
Mr. Lee. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member
McHenry, and members of the committee. My name is Jan Lee, and
I am a third-generation property owner from New York's
Chinatown. I am also a board member of SPONY, the Small
Property Owners of New York, an all-volunteer advocacy
organization representing a unique, but important, sector of
the real estate industry.
Just before the turn of the 20th Century, my grandfather
came to New York City. He was a young man, who, upon his first
visit to America, developed such a love for this country that
he would do everything he could to partake in the American
Dream of homeownership, this despite an avalanche of laws that
barred many Chinese from both coming to the country and from
settling here permanently. My grandfather, Lee Si Fun, would
start a family and put down roots here. He was here to stay.
At around the time that Rodgers and Hart would write a song
that would become a part of the American song book, entitled,
``We'll Take Manhattan,'' in 1925, the song that has the famous
phrase, ``And what street compares to Mott Street in July.'' My
grandfather by then would have worked for some time as a
bookkeeper, and, as fortune would have it, he would be putting
a down payment on two tenement buildings on that very famous
street in the heart of what is known as Chinatown.
And after 96 years of owning these small rental properties,
I look back at my grandfather's life since that song was
written, and how he shoveled the snow and swept the halls and
struggled as the only Chinese family in the building at the
time. The building's income after paying maintenance, taxes,
and mortgages has never been enough for any member of my family
to just sit back and collect rent. In fact, there is nothing
lord-like about being landlords for us. We find this phrase
laughable when it comes to us and many Americans who own small
rental properties. We are hardly lords. We are just small
property owners.
The ownership of property has meant so much to us that we
kept holding on. Through the Depression, World War II, 9/11,
hurricanes, blackouts, and recessions, we kept hoping for an
eventual breaking point where we could finally turn a profit,
but that day never seems to come. Our savings are spent on the
building's taxes and expenses year after year after year. As I
sit before you, the third generation to manage our family
properties, which are old buildings built when Ulysses S. Grant
was President, I am here to tell you that it has only gotten
more difficult since my father and my grandfather's time.
Policies that are created to supposedly help housing
providers have actually kept us from being able to renew our
century-old buildings and left us with no choice but to leave
some apartments vacant. What has been created are regulatory
statutes that are so onerous that only the largest corporate
owners who have the funds can comply, leaving the rest of us
small owners in a perpetual tailspin as we try to manage taxes,
and insurance, and maintenance, and that was before COVID-19.
Family funds and emergency savings have been tapped out long
ago because of this pandemic, and loans are okay, but they need
to be paid back, and often those loans are piggybacked on top
of other loans, compounding the burden of recovery. Mortgage
deferments are mortgage forgiveness, and it would be unwise to
defer payments for too long. Interest never stops.
In New York City, the penalties for late tax payments are a
staggering 18 percent, and since the global pandemic started,
not one tax deadline has been rolled back. We are reminded that
lien sales are on the horizon again this December, and yet we
hope upon hope that our government will find solutions that
will keep us in our homes and in our neighborhoods. As minority
owners, we serve as the gateway for many immigrant families
like ours, and we are proud to contribute our part in taxes,
but we need to be able to make a profit at the end of the day.
Stable housing relies on stable income. Providing robust
and stable housing that is fully compliant with ever-changing
building codes, and health codes, and every other regulatory
statute that seems to crop up like weeds, can only happen when
our income is also robust and stable. We cannot provide the
best housing for our tenants if we are expected to do so while
we are hobbled, and blinded, and muted, and starving. We are
humans in the care of humans, but we are not magicians. We need
to be made stable and made whole, and time is running out for
us.
To sum everything up, the message I want to leave with you
today is that small property owners are not the bad guys out to
take advantage of others, as some of you may have heard. We are
hardworking small business owners who have our own bills to
pay, and who struggle in tough economic times just like
everyone else. Small property owners provide an important
service in every city and every town in America. We take pride
in providing it. Our voice deserves to be included in these
conversations and we stand ready to help with the solutions.
Thank you again for this opportunity to tell my story. It
is an honor to testify in front of this committee today, and I
look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lee can be found on page 123
of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. I now recognize
myself for 5 minutes for questions.
Mr. Harrison, thank you so much for being here today to
share your story with us. Your voice is such an important part
of this discussion. You talked about how one mishap cost you
everything--your home, your possessions, your stability. Before
losing your home, did you ever, ever imagine you would someday
experience homelessness?
Mr. Harrison. Thank you for the question. No, I could not
imagine becoming homeless, and beyond that, I really was not
immediately able to recognize the desperate level of my
circumstances even after it happened. I could not really
process how so much had changed so drastically, and that in
itself was difficult to adjust to. Thank you.
Chairwoman Waters. While you are no longer experiencing
homelessness, are there any ways in which the housing
affordability crisis continues to affect your housing options?
Mr. Harrison. In escaping homelessness, I first shared a
dwelling with nine other people, and then I was able to move
from there and share with four other people, so there were five
of us. And after that, I was able to share with two other
people, and now I have a good situation where I share with one
person, but we each have our own private living space. But I
still have not been able to have, ``my own place,'' because
even with an okay job, renting my own place would take way more
than half of my income, and it would also kind of crush my last
hopes of saving to get my own place one day. Thank you.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. Let me just ask
another question. In your testimony, you also talked about how
you now work to connect people experiencing homelessness with
housing resources. What does it mean for your clients when they
receive a housing voucher? Why are vouchers such a critical
tool in addressing the affordable housing crisis?
Mr. Harrison. A voucher is financial support from a public
housing authority that enables a person with a small, but
insufficient income to have the costs of their own place
subsidized. As an example, in the continuum of care where I
work, I have a client whose income is $694, and they received a
voucher, and I am helping them find a place that would cost
about $1,300 a month. But the other thing I would like to
quickly mention is that it is difficult, because housing is
rising so quickly, for the amount of the vouchers, which are
actually different in every ZIP Code, to hopefully have a good
ratio to the cost of housing. They have slipped in just this
year to making it difficult to turn a voucher, which is a great
thing, into actual housing because the amount of support is
just barely able to afford a place of which there are not
enough in the first place.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
Ms. Crawford, I would like to ask you, in recent years, the
share of renters in the U.S. has increased, with the overall
national homeownership rate projected to decrease by 2040. One
of the most restrictive barriers that keeps people from
attaining homeownership is the down payment and other upfront
costs. This is especially true for people of color, whose
families have historically been excluded from homeownership
opportunities due to redlining and ongoing housing and lending
discrimination, and who, therefore, do not have family wealth
to rely on for help with those upfront costs. There are first-
time homebuyer programs all across the country, but Boston is
the only City that we are aware of with a first-time and first-
generation program. Why did your organization choose this
approach?
Ms. Crawford. Thank you for the question. We have been
doing so many things over the decades trying to close the
racial and homeownership and wealth gap. And after the stark
reality that came out last year about the inequities for people
of color, targeting first-generation homebuyers or potential
homebuyers was one of the best ways we see to actually deal
with those who have been systematically redlined out of the
process of owning their own home. But it is also Fair Housing
Act-safe, so that all who need help with housing, and
homeownership, in particular, who are first-generation buyers
are included. So, it is an inclusive policy. Thank you for the
question.
Chairwoman Waters. And thank you very much. The gentleman
from North Carolina, Mr. McHenry, who is the ranking member of
the committee, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. McHenry. In 2020, in the midst of a health-induced
shutdown of our economy, Congress, on a bipartisan basis,
passed legislation, not once, not twice, but three times, in
order to support our economy and keep households stable as best
we could in the midst of the COVID-induced shutdowns. It was
bipartisan. Let me repeat that: It was bipartisan. As a result
of those efforts, we stabilized the economy.
But in January of this year, with unified Democratic
control of the House, the Senate, and the White House, they
decided to go it alone. They had a $2-trillion bill that they
passed on a partisan basis in the name of COVID, but we said at
the time that it was going to raise the price of things. It was
going to raise the price of things for average Americans and
create inflation, and inflation pressures were going to be bad
for American families.
On Monday of this week, the San Francisco Federal Reserve
released their findings on the impact of that bill at the
beginning of this year. Now, this is not from a right-wing
group. This is from the left-leaning San Francisco Fed. The
report restates what economists told us at the beginning of
this year. As of March, the economy had, ``at least partially
recovered from the pandemic,'' and was in the midst of, ``a
strong rebound.'' The report goes on to say, ``Our analysis
suggests that the American Rescue Plan is projected to cause a
transitory increase in the vacancy-to-unemployment ratio, which
translates into a core inflation rate that is about .3
percentage points higher per year through 2022.''
Let me just translate what that means. Economists are
predicting higher inflation through 2022 because of this
Democrat bill, Democrat spending. So, Democrats have already
impacted core inflation. Now, they want to throw more fuel on
the fire. That is what this whole thing is about. That is the
reason why we have two panels today because the Democrat Chair
is trying to talk to her Democrat colleagues try to get them to
pass her legislation. That is what it is about. You are going
to hear other defenses today, that inflation is transitory,
that it is based on supply chain issues, but the fact of the
matter is that the San Francisco Fed pins higher prices of
things on Democrat policies.
So, we see core inflation going up. What does that mean?
The things that families buy are more expensive, and they are
more expensive than any wage gains we are seeing in the
economy, so people are going to see higher prices. At the same
time, we see 10 million jobs that are open right now, 10
million jobs that are unfilled. We hear from the National
Federation of Independent Business, which represents small
businesses, that 50 percent of small businesses still have job
openings to fill.
Yet at the time, the whole debate here in Washington is,
how do we spend more money because the economy is in peril? The
economy is not in the peril that my Democrat colleagues are
saying. It is, in fact, their policies that are driving up the
cost of everything families buy, including the housing concerns
that we have here from this panel. So, you can pin this back on
bad policies and high spending out of Washington right now.
That $2-trillion spending spree back at the beginning of the
year is going to look small compared to what the Democrats are
debating amongst themselves today.
So, what happens as a result of these bad policies? We are
going to see the economy not grow as strongly as it otherwise
should. We are going to see families left worse off than had
they not spent this additional money and put us further into
debt, and that erosion is going to be real. Just try to go to
the grocery store now and compare your prices from 6 months ago
or a year ago. Look on the shelves and see the availability of
things on the shelf. Why? Because we have jobs that are
unfilled, which is limiting the production of the things that
we buy, and the things that we are trying to buy are more
costly as a result of the Democrats' spending policies in
Washington. So spending more money, a $3-trillion bill, or a
$2-trillion bill, or whatever they are debating right now, we
read in the press, is not going to make things better. The data
shows that, in fact, it is going to make things worse.
The outrageous part of this whole hearing is that it is not
in keeping with the needs of the American people. More money
out of Washington is not going to fix the problem and the
challenges that we hear from the panelists today. And, in fact,
it is the very people that they say they are trying to help,
whom they are hurting in raising the price of everything you
buy, and at the same time, not enabling you to make more money.
Let's get back to basic principles here. What we see from
my Democrat friends over the long run is they are going back to
their traditional liberal policies that make things worse for
the average family. And as I have said time and time again, my
Democrat colleagues recognize this. They have learned nothing
from history, and yet they have forgotten nothing. I yield
back.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
The gentlewoman from New York, Ms. Velazquez, who is also
the Chair of the House Committee on Small Business, is now
recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Velazquez. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Ranking
Member McHenry, for holding this important hearing.
I guess that this is the time, this is the moment where we
need to increase the Federal minimum wage that hasn't been
increased for decades now, and you will have workers who are
concerned about the impacts of COVID-19 coming back to work.
One of the segments in our economy where we see the highest
numbers in unemployment is among women. Maybe this is the time
to fund childcare so that they could join the labor workforce.
Mr. Edmonds, for years I have led the charge for additional
resources to preserve public housing. This committee's plans of
the Build Back Better Act dedicates $80 billion to HUD's Public
Housing Capital Fund, which is enough to eliminate the capital
repair backlog for all public housing nationwide. Can you speak
to how this money could improve the conditions in your
development and upgrade your standard of living?
Mr. Edmonds. The first thing that comes to my mind is pest
control. We have pest problems.
The second would be, as I said before, the elevators. We
have over 400 people in here with scooters and wheelchairs. We
have two elevators that, let us say, reasonably would hold four
people each. We have one loading dock elevator, which has been
out of commission for over a year.
We have been looking at the renovation of the building,
looking at some different plans, putting elevators at the end
of the building. If you would like more information about
Tucson House, you can do a search, and there is an article on
it in Wikipedia, as well as on thriveinthe05.com. That is t-h-
r-i-v-e-i-n-t-h-e-0-5.com.
Outside of that, well, security would be great. We could
also use office space renovation, because it is difficult, we
are working out of the basement. We are just trying to make do,
just the Residents Council as well as administration.
Ms. Velazquez. Thank you.
Mr. Edmonds. I apologize. Go ahead.
Ms. Velazquez. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Edmonds.
Mr. Edmonds, again, my home City of New York has the
largest public housing authority in the country. Federal
disinvestment in public housing has forced New York City
Housing Authority (NYCHA) residents to suffer from a consistent
lack of hot water, insufficient heat during the winter months,
rodent infestation, and a widespread and recurring lead and
mold problem.
These conditions have caused many residents to develop
respiratory and other health problems. Have residents of the
Tucson Public Housing Authority developed health conditions
because of their unit situation?
Mr. Edmonds. Yes. I will speak on their behalf. I wish they
would be given the opportunity to speak for themselves. But,
yes, I hear it from them. And as mentioned before, the cooling
system has gone down. It is old. It is in need of repair.
I was scrambling to try to get fans and those portable
cooling units that you could put in a room, like a bedroom or
something, just to try to keep people cool. I was worried.
Ms. Velazquez. So, you obviously think that the additional
money to improve the living conditions of public housing
residents will also help improve their health outcomes?
Mr. Edmonds. Absolutely. It is logical.
Ms. Velazquez. Yes. Mr. Edmonds, public housing is an
important asset to New York City, Tucson, and countless other
communities around the country. Without an investment in public
housing, this asset will be lost forever.
Can you explain why preserving public housing is important
for our communities, and as a resident of public housing, how
has public housing supported you and your community, especially
in areas like New York and Boston, where we are facing an
affordability crisis?
Mr. Edmonds. I don't have enough time to tell you
everything I would love to right now. But when you give someone
safety, security, a place to start from, they can start from
zero, and you can build from there. Without it, there is
nothing to build from. You are just trying to survive hour by
hour.
Ms. Velazquez. Thank you. Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentlewoman from
Missouri, Mrs. Wagner, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Wagner. I want to thank the witnesses for taking time
out of their schedules to appear before this committee and for
sharing their very moving and personal stories with us. But
sadly, today's hearing is purely political, an egregious misuse
of time and resources by the Majority. After dozens of hearings
and multiple markups on housing policy, the Democrats on this
committee still cannot sell their own agenda to the American
people or to their own colleagues, as we have seen in recent
days and weeks.
Since taking office, President Biden's actions have led to
rampant inflation that is on track to hit the highest rate in
40 years. We are in the middle of a growing supply chain
crisis. Our gas prices at the pump are now 42 percent more than
last year and heading higher. And on top of that, there is an
unprecedented labor shortage, hurting millions of American
small businesses, even though we have over 10 million job
openings across the country.
While the Majority debates whether to spend an additional
$3 trillion or $4 trillion or $5 trillion in taxpayer money,
instead of solving our growing economic problems, the hard-
working Missourians in my district are paying the price at the
grocery store, the gas pump, and on everyday essentials. The
more the President spends, the faster Missourians' family
budgets are pushed to the breaking point.
Our safety net should be designed to provide temporary
assistance and invest in helping individuals prosper on their
own. This type of cradle-to-grave social spending cannot and
does not address the underlying challenges that families face.
While Americans work to provide for their families, and
save for retirement and their childrens' education, this
Administration's and Democrats in the House's proposal would
force them to report their private, personal banking
transaction data to the government. The Majority has said that
this surveillance scheme would only target the wealthy, but any
account threshold will still target the middle class, small
businesses, and the farmers of America.
With cyberattacks on the Federal Government occurring more
and more frequently, and the IRS' history of politically
targeting Americans, why should Americans trust the IRS to
safely store their personal banking information? The best way
that we can help American families is with good-paying jobs,
and the jobs are out there. And the businesses are offering
competitive wages, well above the Democrats' mandates, but the
incentive to work will not come back unless we change course
now.
In my congressional district, Balducci's, a beloved
restaurant in our community, permanently closed this week after
4 decades because of the labor shortage. This business had been
seeking more employees for months. They needed more managers,
cooks, and servers. And while they would receive applicants,
the applicants would never show up for an interview. This is
the same sad story again and again and again from other
businesses in the area, and I can only imagine all of the
Members in this room have similar tragic examples.
What President Biden and the Democrats in the House are
proposing will not strengthen our economy. It will not get
Americans back to work to provide for their families, and it
will not help our small businesses like Balducci's. Americans
cannot afford another massive spending bill while their
families are falling behind financially, as trillions in
wasteful government spending are forcing them to spend hundreds
of dollars extra per month on everyday essentials.
I cannot and I will not support this massively-partisan
spending bill while hard-working families are facing the
economic consequences of this Administration.
I thank you all for being here today, and I yield back.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentlewoman from
Massachusetts, Ms. Pressley, who is also the Vice Chair of our
Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions,
is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters, for your
vigilant and steadfast leadership. I appreciate that you have
held--I think the number was 31--hearings in the Full Committee
on housing. That is because it is fundamental. Housing is
infrastructure.
I also want to thank our witnesses. Certainly, I am biased
here. So, a special thank you and my gratitude to my
constituent and partner in housing justice, Ms. Symone
Crawford. We are excited about your new leadership role. I
appreciate you being here to share your experience as a first-
generation homeowner and, again, thank you for your work on
behalf of prospective homebuyers throughout Massachusetts.
Ms. Crawford, you immigrated to Boston from Jamaica in 1998
and found yourself in an unstable housing situation in a high-
cost market. Thousands of people in Massachusetts certainly can
relate to your experiences. You are now in a position to help
many of them to purchase their homes, just like you did. Can
you unpack for us a little bit how exactly down payment
assistance has helped you and other first-generation homebuyers
purchase a home?
Ms. Crawford. Thank you so much, and I appreciate the kind
words.
High home prices and high rent make it very hard to save
for a substantial down payment. If you have a small down
payment, you are at a disadvantage competing against other
buyers. And a down payment assistance grant gives you immediate
equity in the house and helps you build wealth. So, you are
starting with equity as you think about the down payment
assistance.
Thank you.
Ms. Pressley. And just building on that a little bit more,
Ms. Crawford, what are some of the ways that being a homeowner
has benefited you and your family?
Ms. Crawford. Thank you for the question.
Can I invite you over to see my garden? It is called, ``the
oasis in the city.'' It is life-changing. My daughters have a
safe place to play. We have family cookouts and barbecue in our
backyard. We make repairs, and we don't depend on a landlord.
We have beautiful, bold colors on our living room walls. The
list goes on and on.
And of course, we have built equity over the last 17 years,
equity that will benefit my family for the next generation to
come.
Ms. Pressley. Building wealth and building community. I
look forward to having the opportunity to visit with you.
The Massachusetts Seventh Congressional District is one of
the most unequal in the country, and certainly the most unequal
in the Massachusetts delegation, and that has everything to do
with the disparity in homeownership, more specifically, Black
homeownership. In Massachusetts, only 35 percent of people of
color own their homes, compared to 69 percent of White
families.
The Massachusetts STASH program is the first of its kind.
It helps eligible first-generation homebuyers buy a home. STASH
has made real strides in closing the racial homeownership gap
by helping 23,000 low- to moderate-income first-time homebuyers
purchase their first home. Ninety-seven percent of STASH
participants are people of color.
This is the kind of targeted, race-conscious housing policy
that we need to scale up. Nationwide, Black homeownership is
the lowest it has been since 1968 when the Fair Housing Act was
passed.
I know folks are perhaps fatigued with our enumerating this
sobering stat. We are just as tired of living it. Today's
housing market is extremely competitive, and the cost of homes
is skyrocketing.
Ms. Crawford, yes or no, do you believe that without down
payment assistance, the racial homeownership gap will go away
on its own?
Ms. Crawford. No.
Ms. Pressley. I agree. From Massachusetts to West Virginia
and Arizona, Black homeownership lags far behind White
homeownership. This has locked generations of Black Americans
in economic disadvantage. Every elected official should stand
ready to fix this.
If we are truly in the midst of a reckoning on racial
injustice, the only receipts that matter are budgets and
policies, and it is possible to enact policies that advance
equity. That is exactly what the Build Back Better Act can do
if we ensure that it includes the funding for down payment
assistance that Chairwoman Waters and I have been fighting so
hard for.
Thank you.
Ms. Crawford. Thank you.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentleman from
Florida, Mr. Posey, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Posey. Thank you for holding this hearing on housing,
Chairwoman Waters.
Mr. Lee, I am a REALTOR by profession, and like all
REALTORS, I am very sensitive to the many benefits of people
being able to purchase a home if they desire to do so.
Now, currently, hundreds of thousands of people are being
invited to enter our country illegally at our Southern border.
Of course, they will have to be housed somewhere. The word is
that they are being flown all over the country to find homes.
Do you believe that helps anyone, except the people here
illegally, of course, afford the American Dream of
homeownership?
Mr. Lee. I can't speak specifically about immigration into
the United States, Representative, but I can certainly talk
about the fact that the regulatory laws here in New York City
have made it so difficult for us to even renovate homes that we
are actually facing what I would call an artificial shortage.
If we look at the rent-regulated homes in New York City, and
the passing of the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act
(HSTPA) in New York State in 2019, we have such onerous laws
that restrict us from reasonable compensation to make major
renovations when someone moves out of a rent-regulated unit.
Mr. Posey. Excuse me, but--
Mr. Lee. And that is really what is keeping our housing
shortage that way.
Mr. Posey. --I have limited time here. So, do you think
this increased demand is going to affect the housing market in
New York or anywhere else?
Mr. Lee. Our demand in New York City is ever increasing
based on a number of different factors, but we can release a
number of apartments onto the rent rolls immediately if we are
able to work with our small property owners, allow them the
time that they need, but also the reasonable compensation to
make reasonable repairs to upgrade our units so that they are
fully compliant. And what we have today in New York City are
laws that are so onerous that only the really big, big
corporate providers can do that, and those apartments
eventually become so expensive that they are not within reach
of many people.
Mr. Posey. Yes. Again, I hope all of us can agree that
housing assistance from the Federal Government should deliver
high-quality, safe, and sanitary housing at affordable prices.
No doubt about that. And small property owners are regulated
differently than public housing projects on quality. Can you
tell us how the small property owners fit into meeting our
housing objectives in terms of quality and price?
Mr. Lee. I am glad you brought up that question. It is such
a great question.
The way that New York City controls its own housing is very
different than how it regulates us in the private industry, the
small property owners. There is a double standard that really
needs to change.
In public housing, you have to have a criminal background
check done on you. You are also means-tested. You also have to
check in every year with regard to your income; if you make too
much money, you cannot live in public housing.
That is not the case in New York City's rent-regulated
units. You can own two or three homes. You can have expensive
cars. You can accumulate wealth, and your rent is subsidized by
the private owner. And that also is very unfair to all
Americans.
We need to be able to test people as they gain tremendous
wealth and have them pay reasonable rent so that small property
owners like us can actually maintain our centuries-old
buildings. That is a reasonable ask. I think it needs to
happen, and it will free up many, many apartments if we were
able to do that.
Mr. Posey. One of our challenges today is trying to reduce
the cost of building and providing quality housing. How do
small property owners add innovation to reducing housing costs
and increasing supply?
Mr. Lee. I'm sorry. Could you repeat that question?
Mr. Posey. Yes, one of the challenges we have is trying to
reduce the cost of building and providing quality housing. I
wondered if you had any idea how small property owners add or
could add innovation to reducing housing costs and increasing
supply?
Mr. Lee. Absolutely. One of the things that is wrong with
New York City is that we have something called rent
stabilization and rent control. We are looking toward a system
based on vouchers called tenant stabilization, whereby the
voucher will follow the tenant, and that adds mobility to
people. It doesn't lock them into apartments that are not
suited to them. It gives them the ability to move closer to
their loved ones in other parts of the City.
As long as the tenant is stable, the apartment rents can
rise commensurate to the market. And that is really what we
need to survive in this market. Otherwise, small property
owners are going to be a thing of the past, and no one wants
that. We are very important to the economy of New York City.
And it was mentioned earlier about minority owners. I
cannot stress to you enough the importance of minority owners
in New York, and in all the cities of America. We add the
character and the soul to many cities across this great
country.
Mr. Posey. Thanks. I see my time has expired.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentleman from Colorado,
Mr. Perlmutter, who is also the Chair of our Subcommittee on
Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions, is now
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thanks for
having this housing hearing.
Obviously, we have had a lot of them, but that is because
we know that housing is infrastructure, that by building
housing for seniors, the disabled community, and low- to
moderate-income people, we are providing something that our
vulnerable populations need and can use, but it also, to some
of Mr. Posey's question, releases and relieves some of the
pressure on the other housing markets that we face.
And so, I just think it is lots of jobs, and it is
something that is long overdue. So, I thank you for holding
this hearing.
Let me ask a couple of questions. According to the Center
on Budget and Policy Priorities, the average wait time to get
housing assistance is nearly 2\1/2\ years. And for many
families and individuals, it is even longer, or they can't even
get on the waitlist.
And I want to share a story about a constituent of mine
that was covered by a local paper recently. In 2015, Jane, a
45-year-old Arvada resident--I live in Arvada--applied for a
Section 8 voucher after a severe illness and then a brain
injury prevented her from working. Jane was able to get food
stamps but didn't reach the top of the Section 8 housing
assistance until 2018.
When the Housing Authority finally had a voucher for her,
they had trouble contacting her because she had been forced to
move in with a family member, and they didn't have a current
address. By the time she got in touch with them, they had given
the voucher to someone else. Jane finally received her Section
8 voucher in January 2020, about 5 years after she first
reached out for help.
Colorado, like most of the country, is facing a housing
affordability crisis. And unfortunately, stories like Jane's
are not outliers.
So, Mr. Harrison, in Jane's story, she had a family member
she could go to for temporary housing. What happens to people
without a support network when they need housing assistance but
have to wait for years to get that assistance?
Mr. Harrison. Thank you, Congressman.
The cumulative effects of living without stable housing
take a pretty serious toll, and over the space of a couple of
years, it is possible that a person's health would decline,
their mental health would decline. It is a challenge to stay in
touch and to be able to bring the voucher to fruition. It is a
long wait time, and then usually a voucher may only be viable
for 60 days before it is at risk of being given away.
Mr. Perlmutter. And during that time, the individual is
also out of the workforce, may be in a healthcare facility. So,
the faster we can provide a voucher and get them into safe and
sanitary public housing, as Mr. Posey said, we are in good
shape.
Let me follow up. Five years is a long time to wait for
housing assistance, and for many others, they have to wait
longer. For a lot of folks, trying to get benefits turns into a
full-time job itself.
And this is to anybody on the panel. Can you comment on
your experience in searching for resources and trying to find
assistance, and has this limited other opportunities for you?
Mr. Edmonds. This is Mike Edmonds. May I speak?
Mr. Perlmutter. Sure.
Mr. Edmonds. There should be some information about my
experience in my biography that I submitted, as well as my
written testimony.
Jumping through hoops--I will tell you about this one
experience. There are various agencies that said, ``Hey, Mike,
we can get you into a place.'' Great. Minutes before, I mean
literally minutes before, they said, ``And we need $150 for the
deposit.''
This happened multiple times. It happened before I got into
Tucson House as well. I wasn't able to obtain the money for the
deposit, but they let me in, and they said, we will give you 2
or 3 months.
There are surprises at the end, just unexpected surprises.
Mr. Perlmutter. When you were having to search for housing,
did it stop you from other things that you could do that would
be more profitable and productive?
Mr. Edmonds. Absolutely. To summarize, I was couch surfing,
living in places on the outskirts of Tucson, Arizona, not near
any public transportation. There was drama in every household,
violence. I had to call the police myself. And so, trying to
find a job and another place to stay was rough.
Mr. Perlmutter. Okay. Thank you for your testimony.
And Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentleman from Missouri,
Mr. Luetkemeyer, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
I thank the witnesses for being here today. I appreciate
your personal stories and congratulate you on the successes of
overcoming some of your hardships.
It's disappointing to be here again for the umpteenth time
with regards to having another housing hearing today. I
understand it is an important issue, but there are a lot of
other important issues out there that this committee needs to
be working on.
Again today, I had somebody approach me with regards to the
problems with Current Expected Credit Losses (CECL). We need to
be going out and talking about the overreach by the Financial
Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Where are we? No hearings.
And what about Bitcoin? The other day, we had a great
hearing with SEC Chairman Gensler, and he talked about the
digital currencies, and what we need to do is have him come in,
and Fed Chairman Powell come in, and talk about where we are at
with that with regards to China and their digital currency and
all of the things going on around that issue. Crickets. Still
not there.
We have businesses being choke-pointed off again, still
being choke-pointed off by these new boards being taken over by
the woke group who are cutting off financial services to all of
our folks, and where are we on this? Crickets. While businesses
suffer.
And now we have the latest problem, which is this $600
going through people's accounts. At that level, they become
something that the IRS wants to be able to snoop around in.
Let me give you some numbers really quickly on that. The
amount of money you are talking about taking in if they do this
$600 transaction with number of accounts that go through there,
is $460 billion they think they can raise over 10 years. The
shortfall on taxes over 10 years is $7 trillion. That is 6.5
percent of that amount.
This isn't about finding tax dollars, ladies and gentlemen.
This is about a socialist takeover of our government and the
government snooping on your daily activities in your accounts,
whether you are a small business person or an individual. This
has to stop. This is nonsense. Do we have a hearing on that?
No.
By the way, the average person, if you really want to go
this way, has $61,000, according to Senator Crapo, that goes
through their account on an annual basis. So, the average
person has $61,000, and we are trying to find people with less
than $400,000. We are going to talk about taxing them and
trying to find money from them. This is nonsense.
In the meantime, what we have done is to have hearings on
having bank accounts at the Fed, a national credit bureau, Post
Office lending, which I guarantee you if those issues are
brought up in the form of a bill in this committee, would not
pass. They would not pass. There is not enough support on that
side of the aisle to even get that done. So, here we are today
for the umpteenth time talking again about housing.
I am also the ranking member on the House Small Business
Committee, and yesterday, we had a hearing, and we had a
gentleman from the National Association of Home Builders
testify. His comment was that so far this year, lumber prices
have increased $36,000 per house, for an average home. His next
comment was that for every $1,000 of increased cost, 150,000
people no longer had access to a home. They couldn't afford a
home mortgage.
You multiply 36,000 times 150,000, you get 5.4 million
homes that can't be bought because of inflation. And where does
inflation come from? Guess what, we have been talking about it
this morning. The Biden inflation bills of the past continue to
roil our economy and continue to feed the fires of inflation,
and it is unbelievable that we continue to go down this road.
My question is for Mr. Lee. You are a small business guy.
Have you looked at the tax plan that the President is
proposing, the Democrats are proposing with regards to--I don't
know whether you are an S corp or a C corp, but have you looked
at the tax plan to see how it is going to affect you?
Mr. Lee. To be honest, I have not. I am trying to get by
month to month here, Representative. We are living in very,
very trying times, as are many homeowners in New York.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. I appreciate that comment, because your
Representative should be watching out for you and making sure
that you don't get taxed out of business. But here is just a
little bit of a deal for you. Are you an S corp or a C corp?
Mr. Lee. We are an LLC.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. LLC, okay. Okay, did you understand that
you are probably going to lose your 20 percent deduction
upfront? Are you okay with that?
Mr. Lee. Oh, no, I am certainly not okay with that.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. No, you are not. That is great. What about
increasing taxes? Because you are an LLC, your individual rate
is actually going to get bumped up a little bit. Are you okay
with that?
Mr. Lee. No. Absolutely not.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Absolutely not. What is that going to mean
in increased costs to you and to the people who rent from you
in your building?
Mr. Lee. We are in a situation, Representative, that my
rents are locked. We are heavily regulated here in New York
City with rent stabilization and rent control.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Okay. So, if your rents are locked, what
does that mean for you then?
Mr. Lee. We are on the verge of--
Mr. Luetkemeyer. You have to eat those costs, right?
Mr. Lee. Absolutely.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Absolutely. That is all I need.
Thank you very much. I yield back.
Mr. Lee. Thank you.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentleman from
California, Mr. Vargas, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Vargas. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. I
appreciate the opportunity to speak, and I really want to thank
all of the witnesses who are here today.
Listening to my good friends on the other side of the
aisle, my Republican friends, it sounds like they don't care
about housing at all. It really is fascinating to me that they
ask, why are we talking about housing? It seems that they might
not be talking to their constituents.
Housing is a huge issue. Not only for my constituents, but
I am confident for their constituents, too. I can't believe
that they don't want to talk about housing. It is so important.
Housing is infrastructure.
And Madam Chairwoman, that is why I think it is so
important that we talk about it and we get something done. Now,
I guess they think, too, that it is so easy to buy a home. Just
have mom and dad give you the down payment. We are all
millionaires, I guess, huh? Just let mom and dad do it. I think
they think that way.
Well, the real world is not like that. It doesn't work that
way. I really am impressed, in a negative way, by how they have
been approaching this.
Talking about inflation, yes, we do have inflation, but you
forget we are coming out of a pandemic. You want to talk about
facts, these are the facts. Trump gave us the worst jobs record
since Herbert Hoover, literally the worst jobs record in modern
history. He is the one who was responsible for that, if you
want to put blame on someone. You want to blame Biden, why
don't you blame Trump?
And of course, yes, because we are coming out of this
pandemic, we are going to have inflation because people are
buying like crazy. I am from California, and I can tell you
that our ports are backed up because so many people are buying
now. There is all of this pent-up demand, and now people are
buying. So, yes, we are going to have a problem with inflation.
Now, the kind gentleman just spoke about lumber and how
lumber has added so much to the cost of housing. I guess he
hasn't been to Home Depot recently. I have, and I bought
lumber.
And it is interesting that a 2x4x8 used to cost about $3.15
for an 8-foot piece in California. That is a 2x4x8 feet long.
It went up to $8.95, $8.95 under Trump. Now, it is back down to
about $3.45. So, it is still up a little bit, $3.15 to $3.45,
but it is no longer at $8.95. The inflation is transitory. It
is coming down, and I think that is important.
But housing isn't coming down, and I think there are a
whole bunch of things--I agree with some of the things that Mr.
Lee has said. In fact, Mr. Lee, I think that we have made it
overly hard in some of our cities for small business owners.
Now, I am tempted to ask you--they they tried to drag you
into immigrant bashing there, and you didn't take the bait. I
was going to ask you, why didn't you take the bait on immigrant
bashing, but I won't ask you that. But I do agree with you that
there are a lot of issues there that make it very, very hard
for small business owners when it comes to renting, and I
appreciate that. I really do.
But again, I find it amazing that housing, one of the
biggest issues in our country, that the Republicans say there
is nothing here. Don't worry about housing. Mom and dad will
take care of it. We are all rich. That is not the case at all.
The government has to be involved.
I have to say there is a place for everything in our
country. You have people, unfortunately, who are on the street,
and you say it is a disgrace. If you go to Europe, you can't
find a homeless person, because they take care of their people,
everybody. We don't. We should.
The government should be more involved with people who have
a hard time trying to pay their rent, to make sure they are not
homeless. It is a national disgrace. And for those of us who
are Christians, to find people on the street like this is a
scandal. What would Jesus say to see all these people living on
the street and all of the good Christians passing by and saying
there is no problem with housing? It really is shocking to me.
I heard all of the personal stories today, and I appreciate
each and every one of you. I know that some of you have made
it. You have your home. You have a beautiful oasis, I guess, in
Massachusetts. I congratulate you for that.
But all of the people who are struggling, I tell you, the
government should be with you. We should be with you. Madam
Chairwoman, you should be with them, and you are with them. You
are pushing for this.
The last thing I want to say is, everybody talks about how
$3.5 trillion is so much money, and it is. But it is only about
1.2 percent of the gross domestic product if you take a look at
our economy. That is what a number of economists have said,
including Paul Krugman.
The Congressional Budget Office says that during that time,
2022 to 2031, our economy will produce $288 trillion against
1.2 percent. What is it of our budget, of a Federal budget?
About 4 percent, that is all it is. We ought to pass this
thing.
Thank you again, Madam Chairwoman. I appreciate it.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentleman from
Michigan, Mr. Huizenga, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Huizenga. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
And I do want to address my friend, my brother in our
faith, who was just speaking, who has a background--I believe
he almost went into the ministry. Here is what Christians need
to do: Get involved. Don't turn it over to the government.
Don't just expect the government to do it. We, as people of
faith, need to step into that breach. And here is the problem:
We are expecting the government to do everything for everybody.
This is a big government socialist spending spree.
I am going to move on to some of the points I want to make,
but I have to tell you, keep telling yourself, keep lying to
yourself and your radical base that this inflation is just
transitory.
My family has a long history in construction, dating back
to the 1930s with my grandfather, and our family is still
involved in construction. So, I know exactly what has been
happening with lumber. I know exactly what has been happening
with concrete. I know exactly what has been happening in the
labor market.
Talk about a crisis. We have a crisis of the labor market,
which is causing inflation under this Administration. And this
is an important, important issue. As I said, for 3 generations,
my family has done nothing but housing. In fact, when I
graduated, I went into real estate full time as a REALTOR, a
self-employed REALTOR.
And as important as these issues are, having 13 Full
Committee hearings on housing issues without working with the
other side to do anything actually productive is not the goal
of this committee. I happen to be the ranking member of our
Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets
Subcommittee, and I think that happens to be an important issue
that we ought to start tackling.
There are other subcommittees that have not had nearly the
attention, that are just as important. And instead, my friends
on the other side have just clearly been focused on passing a
massive spending bill on their own side. And as the gentleman
from Arkansas noted, this hearing would be better as a Democrat
caucus meeting rather than utilizing a Full Committee hearing.
Everybody knows the real goal of today's hearing is to
publicly convince your fellow Democrats what should be included
in the final reconciliation package, and I am not going to play
along with that. Instead, I am going to use my remaining time
to highlight clearly what all of this spending actually means.
If President Biden's plans all get enacted, this country
will go from $17 trillion in publicly held debt before the
pandemic to over $40 trillion in publicly held debt 10 years
from now. Under Democrat control of the House, there has been
$6 trillion in deficits over the last 2 years from the
pandemic, plus $12 trillion in baseline deficits from our other
government programs, plus as much as another $6 trillion in new
deficits from all of these different Democrat bills.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, over the next
30 years, we face a baseline deficit of $112 trillion--
``trillion,'' with a, ``t''--$112 trillion. That is just the
baseline.
That assumes the expiration of the stimulus spending,
expiration of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, no more wars, no
economic downturns, no terrorist attacks, no natural disasters,
and no new spending programs. Plus, the Fed must maintain the
easy money policies and artificially low interest rates it has
been facing and has been promoting over the last number of
years. That is not going to happen.
At the end of this 30-year period, the debt is projected to
be over 200 percent of our gross domestic product (GDP). Yes, I
said that correctly, 200 percent. And again, this is all in a
low-interest-rate scenario, which again, isn't going to be
happening.
So for every 1-percent increase in interest rates, that
will mean an additional $1 trillion in cost per year, for a 1-
percent hike. And since it has been artificially held low, we
know that it is going to rise naturally.
In 2016, a particular Senator criticized the indifference
of Congress to, ``the price our children and grandchildren will
pay to redeem our debt when it comes due.'' Something has
clearly changed. Now that a Senator is President of the United
States--amid cratering poll numbers, I might add--Democrats in
Congress are attempting to ignore the debt crisis altogether
and kick their reckless spending spree into overdrive in an
attempt to not build back better, but to buy back voters.
With that, my time has expired.
Chairwoman Waters. The gentleman from New York, Mr. Torres,
is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Torres. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
The Republicans have said that the American Rescue Plan has
led to permanent inflation, and the ranking member cited as
proof a report from the San Francisco Fed. I actually want to
read an excerpt from that report.
``Our analysis suggests that the ARP is projected to cause
a transitory increase in the vacancy-to-unemployment ratio,
which translates into a core inflation rate that is 0.3
percentage points higher per year through 2022.''
So, it is disingenuous to cite the report to support your
argument but then neglect to mention the transitory nature of
the inflation as identified by the same report.
I find it striking that the Republicans on the committee
have spent more time speaking about process and partisanship
rather than actual policies that will address the affordability
crisis and the people who would benefit from those policies.
Several Republicans have said that this hearing is a waste of
time. The ranking member said that we should focus on the
priorities of the American people, as if to suggest housing is
not among those priorities.
So I am going to ask each of the panelists, and I will
start with Ms. Crawford, as an American, is housing a priority
for you?
Ms. Crawford. Yes, definitely.
Mr. Torres. Mr. Edmonds, is housing a priority for you, as
an American?
Mr. Edmonds. Housing is key to America, not shelter,
housing.
Mr. Torres. Ms. Galindo, is housing a priority for you?
Ms. Galindo. Yes, it is.
Mr. Torres. Mr. Harrison, is housing a priority for you?
Mr. Harrison. Yes, sir. Yes, it is. Thank you.
Mr. Torres. Mr. Lee, is housing a priority for you?
Mr. Lee. Housing is my family's business. Yes, it is.
Mr. Torres. Okay. So, clearly, housing is a priority of the
American people. It turns out the talk of political insiders is
insulated from the priorities of the American people, as
demonstrated by the witnesses of the committee.
Republicans often claim to support equality of opportunity
rather than equality of outcome, but I ask myself, what exactly
does it mean to have equal opportunity in America? It is one
thing to preach it as an abstraction, but it is something else
to make it a reality for every American.
And I would submit to you that an essential element of
equal opportunity is access to safe, decent, affordable
housing. If you are homeless, can it be said that you have
equal opportunity in America? If you are so rent-burdened that
you cannot afford the bare necessities of life such as food,
can it be said that you have equal opportunity in America? If
you are a child who has been poisoned by lead in your own home,
who is brain-damaged for the rest of your life, can it be said
that you have equal opportunity in America?
We, as Members of Congress, are privileged members of
society, and we experience the centrality of housing in our own
lives. And yet, inexplicably, there are Members of Congress who
would deny to our fellow Americans the housing and stability
that those same Members would take for granted in their own
lives.
I have a question for you, Mr. Edmonds. You are a resident
in public housing. In New York City, our public housing stock
houses a population of about half-a-million people, which is
larger than most large cities in America.
And most of those people would be homeless without public
housing. Public housing is a safeguard against catastrophic
homelessness. If you did not have access to public housing,
what would happen to you?
Mr. Edmonds. If I had not been able to get into Tucson
House, I would have been on the street with everybody else, and
who knows what would have happened to me? I don't even know
what would have happened to me.
Mr. Torres. And is the same true of your neighbors?
Mr. Edmonds. Yes. Absolutely.
Mr. Torres. And do you feel that if you were homeless, you
would be more or less productive as a citizen?
Mr. Edmonds. There is no way I could be more productive.
Mr. Torres. And Ms. Galindo, I think you reminded us that
housing is not only about where you live, but it is about the
opportunities you can access, the quality of the schools that
you can attend. Right? Housing is a factor in securing the best
possible education for your child. Is that correct?
Ms. Galindo. Yes, sir.
Mr. Torres. Do you want to speak more about that?
Ms. Galindo. Yes. The opportunity of him receiving a great
education, that he could be raised with those who have access
to better education would not be given if I have to give up on
the little space that we have here.
Mr. Torres. In your case, the denial of affordable housing
would mean the denial of a quality education for your child,
which is not a story unique to you, but it is true of Americans
across our country, right? Where you live determines your
access to opportunity. And so, for me, there is no issue more
important for this committee to address than housing because it
is foundational to everything else.
I am ending with that.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentleman from Kentucky,
Mr. Barr, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Barr. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
And thank you to our witnesses for being here today.
Unfortunately, I am not quite sure why you are here. From what
I can tell, this is less of a hearing of substance than it is a
lobbying exercise in the middle of an internal battle between
my Democrat colleagues.
Should the blowout housing spending be included in
President Biden's big government tax-and-spend socialism bill,
or will it be left on the cutting-room floor after the
negotiations come to a conclusion? I think it is the latter,
and I think we all know it.
I think it is clear by the fact that Senator Manchin and
Senator Sinema have made it clear that they are not interested
in this, that this is an exercise in internal Democrat
squabbling, and there is an effort to reduce the size and scope
of this socialism package. And as a result of that, some of
these housing priorities that the chairwoman is pushing are not
going to make it into the final bill, if there is a final bill.
So, why are we having a hearing? Why are we wasting
Members' time discussing this charade, monopolizing the time of
our witnesses who would undoubtedly be able to participate in
something more productive?
My colleague who just spoke talks about housing being a
priority. Of course, it is a priority. It is a priority for
every American. Look, that is why we work. That is why people
go get jobs. They get jobs so that they can pay rent, and they
can pay mortgages.
There are 10.5 million unfilled jobs right now. Nobody is
denying housing to Americans. You have to work. You have to
work for it. You have to get a job. You have to get an
education and pay for rent, pay for housing.
This committee has already voted on its portion of the
reconciliation bill. We had a spirited debate. Every Republican
on this panel voted, ``No.'' So why are we revisiting the
issue? It is because the Majority can't get their act together
and communicate amongst themselves.
The size of the package will need to shrink significantly
to have any real chance of passing. This committee reported
$325 billion in its ill-conceived housing spending. If the
broader package, which included extreme liberal wish-list items
from across the spectrum, needs to shrink from $3.5 trillion to
something substantially less, do we actually think there is
room for $325 billion for taxpayer-funded housing, as opposed
to housing that is actually financed through the efforts of
individuals? I don't think so.
I ask unanimous consent to insert into the record an
October 20th Politico article entitled, ``Democrats Weigh
Slashing $200 Billion in Housing Aid from the Spending Bill.''
Chairwoman Waters. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. Barr. So, the housing funding will not be in the
ultimate bill. What will be in the bill? Let's review some of
the things that are in this bill.
My colleagues supposedly want to go after wealthy tax
evaders and, ``close the tax gap.'' Their solution is to turn
banks into IRS agents. The Administration and Congressional
Democrats are proposing to spy on the bank accounts of most
American citizens.
I take issue with this proposal for many reasons. First, it
is a blatant invasion of privacy and would provide data to the
IRS that it doesn't need and can't secure.
Second, it places an undue burden on our financial
institutions, especially small community banks and credit
unions, which will be buried with implementation costs and
ongoing compliance burdens.
Finally, the proposal is based on the notion that every
American is a tax cheat. That is so offensive. The
Administration and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle
suggest that raising the threshold from $600 to $10,000 will
somehow ensure that only the wealthy are captured.
Let us remember that weekly inflows and outflows of just
$200 for a year would get an account past the $10,000
threshold. This is not about millionaires and billionaires.
This is about spying on you, the American people, anybody who
has a job. As much as proponents of this proposal want to say
it is about targeting rich tax cheats, it is clear that all
Americans are vulnerable to this surveillance-state proposal.
My colleagues also want to repeal the cap on the State and
Local Tax (SALT) deduction. This is a big win for blue States
like New York, New Jersey, and California, but it is not going
to do anything for working-class Americans. Earlier this month,
the Tax Foundation released a study which found that a repeal
of the SALT cap would disproportionately benefit the top 1
percent of earners, increasing their after-tax income by almost
3 percent.
So, which is it? Are we targeting the super-rich so that
they pay their fair share, or are we bailing out blue State
billionaires? The answer seems clear.
Our witnesses here today don't care about the SALT cap
because they are not wealthy. I suggest we have a growing
economy that allows people to have higher wages and upward
mobility so that they can afford to pay their own rent for
themselves and their own families. That is what we need.
[Gavel sounding.]
Mr. Barr. What else is in this bill? My colleagues are
proposing to reverse the pro-growth corporate tax policy of the
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and enact a massive taxing of American
businesses.
Chairwoman Waters. Mr. Barr, your time has expired. I'm
sorry. Most people can't hear the gavel, and I want them to
hear about the National Flood Insurance Program that affects
your district also.
Mr. Barr. I yield back.
Chairwoman Waters. The gentlelady from North Carolina, Ms.
Adams, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Adams. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam
Chairwoman, and thank you for holding this hearing today.
And thank you to the witnesses for your testimony. I want
to just begin by saying, housing is infrastructure.
But let me just ask Ms. Crawford, the lack of affordable
housing units in my district has produced a real problem and
has contributed to driving the price of housing higher and
higher. The fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in
Charlotte-Mecklenburg is almost $1,100. And at the same time,
the availability of low-cost rental units has decreased. Fifty-
one percent of all rentals in Charlotte were low cost in 2010.
By 2018, the rate slipped to 25 percent.
So, Ms. Crawford, can you tell this committee about why the
lack of affordable housing units harms our communities?
Ms. Crawford. Thank you for the question.
The first thing that came to mind is gentrification. People
who have generational roots in the community have been forced
to find affordable housing away from family and friends and
support. Small business owners lose the labor force and
customers they depend on to stay in business, causing a
negative impact on our most-vulnerable populations.
I just think that with a lack of housing, we have more
inflation as it relates to the housing crisis.
Thank you.
Ms. Adams. Thank you.
Ms. Crawford, can you tell me about why the investments
proposed by this committee are so critical to solving the
affordable housing crisis?
Ms. Crawford. Sure, great question.
For decades, the Federal Government has been absent in
affordable housing and, more so, affordable homeownership. We
need the Federal Government as a partner to invest in this
affordable housing crisis from public housing to homeownership
in order to have a positive impact that is needed to end this
gap that we are having and this crisis that we are having
today.
Ms. Adams. Thank you.
Ms. Galindo, before we start, you mentioned that you had to
work all types of jobs to make ends meet. I want you to know I
understand that. My mother was a domestic worker. She cleaned
other folks' houses so I could get a good education. So, I do
know the blood, the sweat, and the tears that you put into
keeping a roof over your son's head, and I respect that.
Working hard is not enough if you don't make enough.
So, Ms. Galindo, can you tell us about your experience
trying to balance your son's education while finding affordable
housing?
Ms. Galindo. Thank you, Congresswoman.
It is an ongoing struggle. I haven't been able to balance
it, really. I have to pick good education over quality housing
just so he can receive a better education and receive services
for his special needs because he has learning disabilities.
So, I have to pick housing, even when it is not big enough
for us, and he can't even have enough space to study. So, it is
an ongoing battle for me.
Ms. Adams. Okay. Thank you so much for sharing.
And Madam Chairwoman, I am going to yield back.
Mr. Auchincloss. [presiding]. The gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Williams, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Williams of Texas. Thank you very much.
There are a few things I just want to bring up quickly.
America, this great country, was never built on guarantees; it
was built on opportunities. And for those of you who don't
know, America is broke. We have no money.
And we have a misleading term we keep using around here,
``affordable.'' There is nothing affordable right now that is
anywhere under the Biden Administration. It is not affordable.
And a $15 minimum wage is not a career.
With that being said, throughout this pandemic, it seems
elected officials have been laser-focused on helping renters
get through this pandemic while forgetting about the negative
consequences that all of this government interference would
have on landlords, the people who took risks and hoped they
would get rewarded.
While there might have been some justification to allow
greater flexibilities at the very onset of the pandemic, it is
ridiculous how long these emergency measures have lasted. In
many jurisdictions across the country, the landlords are still
unable to evict tenants or collect rent checks because of
government mandates. All the while, let us not forget, these
people are still having to pay their bank with no income.
And just think about this: If the landlords don't get paid,
they don't receive income, and they don't pay their bank debt.
Then, the bank forecloses. And where is there for people to
live?
This is so ridiculous that it bears repeating. Landlords
are still being forced to provide accommodations to people
without getting paid. No cash flow. No income. But pay your
bills, the banks say, and the liberals. And without any legal
avenues to evict horrible tenants.
We have seen some horrible stories coming out about renters
who are taking advantage of this terrible public policy
decision. So rather than demonize the landlords, who have also
faced amazing amounts of uncertainty because of this pandemic,
I wanted to give you, Mr. Lee, and all of the other landlords
across this country, my sincere appreciation for all you have
done for the communities where you hold properties, I might
remind everybody, while still paying the debt that you owe to
your lenders.
So with the rest of my time, I want to give Mr. Lee the
opportunity to talk about any stories he has seen over the past
year of landlords who have been taken advantage of or hurt as a
result of terrible public policy by the Democratic Party, from
elected officials, whether it be the inability to collect rents
or the inability to evict horrible tenants.
But before you get started, I do want to say that landlords
have bills, too. And without their cash flow, they can't pay
their bills. So, why we attack landlords is beyond me.
So, Mr. Lee, would you tell us a few stories of what you
have experienced being a landlord?
Mr. Lee. I so appreciate this opportunity. Thank you,
Representative.
I recently talked to Dr. Kennisha Gilbert, who was the
victim of violence. She is a small property owner, an immigrant
herself. She is a doctor, an OB/GYN, and she cares for us New
Yorkers. She is an essential worker.
She had a tenant who ran an illegal puppy mill, which
caused such damage to her apartment that she feared for the
safety of her son. There was urine and feces dripping down the
walls of her apartment, which is below this apartment.
She called every elected official that she could. She tried
every avenue available to her. Because of the eviction
moratorium, because the courts are closed, and even when they
are open, they are limited, she had no other avenues but to go
to social media and to try to get the media on her side.
And so, with the help of only 1 out of our 50-something
council members, she was able to make contact with the ASPCA,
and with the NYPD, who already had been to her house several
times, and they told her, this is a housing issue, this isn't
an NYPD issue, and she was left exasperated and tired, still
going to work, still caring for us New Yorkers.
Finally, the ASPCA took the dogs away. The police did come
and arrest the tenant, only to find out that he was released
within hours. Dr. Gilbert came home from work and the tenant
was waiting for her on her doorstep. She and her husband were
beaten on their property, with their two children watching from
the window.
The system has failed her. This is a story that is repeated
with our owners over and over again. We must recognize that the
eviction moratorium has hurt people. It has hurt some of our
vulnerable property owners who are Americans and families just
like everyone else.
I talked with Dr. Gilbert. She is going public because she
feels that there are many people like her who are suffering
from tenants who are taking advantage of this eviction
moratorium. We can't keep kicking the can down the road without
allowing some of our vouchers to finally come through--
Mr. Auchincloss. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Williams of Texas. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lee.
Welcome to the Biden Administration.
Thank you.
Mr. Auchincloss. The Chair now recognizes himself for 5
minutes.
The ranking member and the vice ranking member and many of
their colleagues in the Republican Party have described this
hearing as a means for the Democrats to resolve disarray and to
resolve internecine squabbles. It is certainly true that the
Democratic Party is engaged in a vigorous debate right now
about how best to ensure affordable housing, how to lower the
cost of prescription drugs, how to tackle climate change. This
is governance. This is what governance should look like.
Meanwhile, our colleagues on the GOP are debating whether
QAnon is mostly true or entirely true. They are debating
whether the 2020 election was a free and fair election. They
are debating whether or not to support the U.S. Capitol Police
following the insurrection. They are debating whether vaccines
implant chips in people's arms.
So, we welcome our Republican colleagues into the fray of
governance and vigorous debate, but it seems they are
distracted right now by their own partisan debate.
And one of those key issues that we want to engage on is
housing. Ms. Crawford, first of all, as a Representative from
Massachusetts, I want to say how thrilled I am that you are
running the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance. Your
story and your work is really an inspiration, and I thank you
for your support, not just of those in Boston, but also my
constituents in places like Taunton, Attleboro, and Fall River.
You know from your own work how complicated housing policy
can be because it involves not just Federal but, of course,
State and local policy as well. And in Massachusetts, we are
really an exemplar of that. We recently passed the Housing
Choice Act at the State level, and there is increasing
mobilization to liberalize zoning laws at the local level.
Can you talk about what the cooperation needs to be in
Massachusetts between the three levels of government to ensure
not just that we have more support for people looking for
housing units, but that we are also creating more of a supply
of housing?
Ms. Crawford. Thank you. I appreciate the question,
Congressman. And while I can't speak in total confidence on the
topic, I can say that the three different bodies of government
can come together and figure out a way to increase supply so
that the demand is lowered, so that inflation can go down.
Then, on the buyer side, increase assistance for those who have
been systematically excluded from homeownership, then combined,
we would be able to see the racial homeownership gap really be
reduced and going in the direction we want to after working
decades in different ways to make this happen.
We just need to come together as one unit, knowing that the
entire State needs the additional assistance from State,
Federal, city, and local government to make this crisis go
away.
I hope I was able to answer your question, and I thank you
for asking it.
Mr. Auchincloss. Are there ways that you think that Federal
programs can induce localities to expand the use of multifamily
zoning? I was on the city council in my hometown for 5 years
prior to coming to Congress, and I saw that, really over the
last 5 years, there has been an acceleration of demand for
transit-oriented, multifamily development. but our zoning laws
can oftentimes make it challenging to develop it.
Are there areas that HUD can press on that would encourage
cities and towns that are applying for Federal funding to
commensurately liberalize their zoning laws?
Ms. Crawford. One of the ways, I think, is to--whatever
zoning laws we have that prohibit multifamily housing in
certain neighborhoods while not prohibiting it in others should
be lifted. And also, we need to stop exclusionary zoning across
the State. We need to utilize those measures that especially,
the City of Boston is using by building multifamily homes near
the transit system so that we can get to and from work and have
a choice to actually live where we want to live. Affirmatively
Furthering Fair Housing is a way to get this done, and I thank
you for asking the question.
Mr. Auchincloss. I yield my time back to the Chair, and the
gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Hill, is now recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Hill. I thank our Chair pro tem for being in the chair
on this hearing. And I thank our witnesses for bringing their
personal testimony about the importance of housing in their
lives to the committee to help us do a better job here.
While I share the views of the ranking member and my
colleagues that as the 32nd hearing on housing, we are doing a
superb job in hearings about housing, but what we are
struggling with are the right policies to help people in the
maximum way. And that is why I believe that yet again, this
hearing is not as constructive as it might be, and the reason
for that is clear, which is that the Majority party is, as my
friend from Massachusetts identified, having a vigorous debate
within their own party on how best to serve people with
housing. And therefore, this is not, I think, the most
constructive use of our time.
Mr. Edmonds, again, let me thank you for being here, and
your testimony was very compelling. I really appreciated your
story, not only your life story but a real window, a detailed
window on Tucson and the housing challenges there. And I was
particularly drawn to the condition of public housing, and your
testimony highlights that, from the elevator to other physical
infrastructure issues. Is there anything beyond the testimony
you want to add about the physical infrastructure of the public
housing units with which you are personally familiar?
Mr. Edmonds. Not that I can think of. It needs care. It
needs regular maintenance. It just seems to me that the regular
maintenance has not happened on schedule as it should have, and
that could have been part of the problem that led it to where
it is now.
Mr. Hill. Yes, I think it is a key point, and recently, in
Little Rock, I visited a very successful Rental Assistance
Demonstration (RAD) program by HUD whereby an old 1940 public
housing set of units was completely renovated into very nice,
modern, convenient apartments, complete with access to
broadband and new wiring, new fixtures, energy-efficient
lighting and the like, and that is through the RAD Program,
something that Republicans have supported in HUD's budget.
And I would argue to my friends on the other side of the
aisle that in the committee's original print of this $300-
billion exercise, RAD was completely available for billions of
dollars of public housing assistance. But in the bill actually
marked up in this committee, and voted on in this committee, it
was stripped completely out.
So RAD, I think, has done a good job in providing much more
modern, safe, clean, and environmentally-appropriate housing
for our families who are in public housing, and so I just
remind my friends on the other side of the aisle that RAD was
taken off the table in your bill as marked up.
Mr. Edmonds, have you seen tenants and those families in
public housing who benefitted from afterschool care or
educational tutoring or health clinics or GED preparation or
things of that nature, or even drug and alcohol abuse
programming? Have you seen those kinds of services being
helpful to public housing tenant families?
Mr. Edmonds. Everything you mentioned, we are trying to
obtain. We have some things beginning with assistance from the
Arizona State University School of Social Work and some other
local agencies. But there is funding for housing, and funding
for structures, and funding for personnel, and that has been
the problem. There has been mostly not enough manpower
available just to assist in those areas.
Mr. Hill. Thank you for that, because my colleagues and I
have certainly advocated for those kinds of wraparound services
connected with housing, and particularly housing vouchers. And
again, the Majority has blocked our efforts to do that on the
housing voucher program time and time again. And in public
housing, I believe that the nonprofit sector could partner
there very effectively. I had hoped that HUD, under the
previous Administration, would take action on these kinds of
centers and provide nonprofit access to public housing, where
they could do that in an affordable way and not burden the
public housing agency with it personally.
There is more work to do here. I thank you for your
engagement, and I thank the rest of the panel. And I yield
back.
Mr. Auchincloss. The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Scott, who
is also the Chair of the House Agriculture Committee, is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Scott. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
take just a moment to discuss the rental housing market and the
challenges that it presents for a large share of our American
people. Homeowner versus renter statistics reflect a very
serious decline in homeownership, with 36 percent of American
households renting their homes today, and that, ladies and
gentlemen, is more than 44 million of our American families.
Ms. Crawford, we know that housing affordability in the
rental market is a major determinant to a family achieving
economic stability. So tell us, what impact can Federal support
programs, like down payment assistance, have for renters
looking to purchase their first home?
Ms. Crawford. Thank you so much for the question. I would
just say the impact has given those who would not have the
option from family and friends to the Bank of Mom and Dad to be
actually given a leg up, not a handout but a leg up, and able
to enter the housing market, especially the homeownership
market.
Down payment assistance (DPA) is a barrier that has
prevented people, especially low- to moderate-income people,
from actually obtaining homeownership, because their rent is so
high and they are not able to save for that down payment and
closing cost assistance.
Mr. Scott. You mentioned the word, ``barrier.'' Explain
what those barriers are that would have this negative impact on
so many of our homeowners?
Ms. Crawford. Thank you. In addition to that saving for the
down payment and closing costs, we also have the high student
debt, we have the credit issues, and we have the housing
crisis, where there is not enough stock available for potential
homeowners to actually get into the homeownership market. Those
are just some of the barriers that we are seeing right now.
Mr. Scott. I just want to thank you for that response. This
is a very important issue. And what you are saying, and your
testimony is exactly why we must ensure that down payment
assistance remains a key component of our Build Back Better Act
that our President is pushing.
Thank you for your comments, and thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
yield back.
Mr. Auchincloss. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman
from Minnesota, Mr. Emmer, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Emmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our
panel of witnesses today. Unfortunately, if your government
worked, you would not have to be here, so I am sorry that you
all have to come before the committee to plead your cause
because the Majority in Congress cannot craft legislation that
actually serves the American people.
On that note, I would like to point out that we have had
over 30 housing hearings in the committee since the Democrats
took control, and this is our 9th housing hearing this year.
And as we talk and talk and talk and talk, while we talk about
housing, Americans continue to suffer. To date, about $7.7
billion of the $46.5 billion Congress has allocated for
emergency rental assistance has actually been distributed. That
is pitiful, and it is wrong.
Republicans have offered a solution, the Renter Protection
Act, that would cut the bureaucratic red tape and get rental
assistance to the families who need it most. But Democrats are
focused, unfortunately, on passing a massive partisan spending
bill with little to no government oversight.
As you know, the first rental assistance program passed in
December of 2020, and that program gave the Treasury inspector
general the authority to conduct oversight of the distribution
of funds, and recoup funds that are used fraudulently. For
every dollar allocated to the inspectors general to oversee
government spending, inspectors general returned approximately
$16 in savings. These are savings that can actually be returned
to Americans.
Interestingly, the second emergency rental assistance
program, passed in March by Democrats, is not overseen by the
inspector general. I offered an amendment to fix this last
month during the markup, which was rejected by Democrats.
So as Democrats focus on passing a $3.5 trillion, big
government, socialist spending bill, just know that this bill
has little to no oversight mechanism and will lead to
significant waste, fraud, and abuse.
This Democratic failure to legislate extends far beyond
housing. Careless spending sprees, not even designed to target
those most in need, are driving inflation in this country like
we have not seen in 30 years. We see rising prices at the
grocery store, rising prices at the pump. Again, levels of
inflation that we have not seen in decades. And it is entirely
because Democrats are spending our constituents' money faster
than ever before. Democrats simply have never learned that you
cannot spend your way to prosperity. When we spend taxpayer
dollars, we must do so thoughtfully, not frivolously. We must
craft programs that work, not programs that leave Americans
suffering and unable to pay rent.
I cannot emphasize this enough. We must be responsible
stewards of taxpayer dollars. I am disappointed by my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle who have prioritized
massive government spending that simply left Americans to
endure government incompetence and rapidly-increasing
inflation.
I yield back the remainder of my time.
Mr. Auchincloss. The gentlewoman from Pennsylvania, Ms.
Dean, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Dean. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank all of our
witnesses today for telling us your lived experience and for
educating us around the issues of housing.
Mr. Harrison, thank you for sharing your experiences with
us today. I also want to thank you for the work that you are
doing now, as an outreach coordinator for Prince George's
County. You are using your experiences to lift others. In your
testimony, you described two instances of working to earn a
degree, once when you did not have stable housing, and once
when you did. Could you please describe, with some more
details, how important it was to have housing in order to
pursue and succeed in getting an education, and how else did
stable housing help you or others around you?
Mr. Harrison. Thank you for the question. When I first
attempted to improve my education, I not only did not have a
place to stay, but I did not have a place to study. Of course,
I could use the school's library then but really, the
distraction was remaining focused on getting through whatever
day it was, and I really didn't have the ability to focus on my
studies because my personal situation was unstable.
When I was housed, I not only was able to pass, I was able
to excel in my studies, and I have earned an associate degree
with a high GPA, and I have gone on to obtain professional
certifications in my field that have helped me, and my
experience, as someone experiencing homelessness, has helped me
in the work I do now. Thank you.
Ms. Dean. No, thank you. Thank you for that detail. And, of
course, no place to stay, few places to study, but as you say,
the ability to focus on your studies without the distraction
of, where will I sleep tonight? So, I thank you for those
details, and congratulations on claiming your education and the
work you are doing.
Ms. Crawford, to build on that experience, as a first-
generation homeowner could you describe specific barriers you
faced as you began working towards your goal of owning a home?
Ms. Crawford. Thank you. One of the biggest barriers that I
remember facing was the fact that I could not find an
affordable home to live in at that time. The economic market,
the housing market in 2004 almost mirrors what it is today,
just that inflation has pushed the price up so much more than
2004.
So, to find an affordable home that could house my family
and also allow me to pay my mortgage, I had to think about
different ways to be innovative about it. I had to purchase a
multifamily home so that I could get the additional rent to be
able to help me to afford that high-cost mortgage.
I also needed to know how to deal with my student loans and
make sure that I paid them down in order to be able to afford
the home that I am living in now.
The barriers are there, and I am hoping that we can take a
look at how we can use down payment and closing cost assistance
to rectify those barriers. I did not have that down payment and
closing cost assistance at that time, but thanks to the ONE
Mortgage program that we had in Massachusetts, I was able to
afford a home with that mortgage.
Ms. Dean. I thank you for that. And to take the lens and
broaden it to the work that you are doing now, among those whom
you help serve at the Massachusetts Affordable Housing
Alliance, what other obstacles are they facing? As you point
out, you had to be creative and recognize, with the cost of
housing so high, to buy a multifamily home so that you could
receive some income to go toward that mortgage. What other
obstacles are you seeing for those whom you serve?
Ms. Crawford. The option for me, especially around
purchasing a multifamily home, is almost nonexistent now. The
housing market is depleted, so there is very little option in
that, and the cost, when you see one, is so expensive. And
again, we are talking about the down payment and closing costs,
and the Build Back Better Act would really help those who need
it the most, to get into housing. We have to take a look at
student loans that are stopping our young people from actually
leaving college and going out of their parents' homes into
homes of their own that they can purchase. Low income is also a
barrier. You are working three and four jobs and you still
cannot afford a home. There are so many I could list, and I
thank you so much for your question.
Ms. Dean. Thank you for your experience and your eloquence,
and I yield back.
Mr. Auchincloss. The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr.
Timmons, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Lee, I appreciate you taking the time to be with us
today. How many rental properties do you own?
Mr. Lee. Two tenement buildings in the heart of Chinatown.
Mr. Timmons. How many tenants do you have?
Mr. Lee. It is 14 in each building.
Mr. Timmons. And what percent of your tenants took
advantage of the eviction moratorium and withheld rent for the
last 18 months?
Mr. Lee. We were very fortunate in that our tenants are
paid up, but that has to do with the fact that some of our
rents in our buildings are one-tenth the market rate for
equivalent-sized apartments in Manhattan. So they were able to
afford it because the rents were so low, because they are 100-
percent rent-regulated.
Mr. Timmons. I am glad that you did not have any
challenges. I know you are here on behalf of the Small Property
Owners of New York. Could you give me percentages for the
larger association?
Mr. Lee. I cannot give you exact percentages, but we talk
often about tenants who have just given up on the system, and I
will tell you why. The Emergency Rental Assistance Program was
so poorly rolled out that both tenants and landlords were
waiting for a long time before the technical issues were ironed
out. There was also no transparency on whether or not a tenant
had applied and whether a landlord had the right information.
And so, there was this opaque atmosphere where both tenant and
landlord really did not see the application process go through,
and many, many, many people are still without the assistance
now. It is just very problematic, and in 2021, we really should
not have this level of technological failure.
Mr. Timmons. Sure. And I think we can all agree that we
needed to do something quickly at the beginning of COVID, and
it was not perfect but I think it was overwhelmingly good and
in the right direction. But we have run out of excuses, 18
months later. What do you think the biggest changes, other than
just technological, are making it easier for people to apply
and receive assistance, making sure that landlords have the
ability to facilitate it, if the tenants are unwilling? What
other things do you think would fix this problem?
Mr. Lee. I think that there were many millions of dollars
given to nonprofits to help assist tenants. I know that was
successful to varying degrees. The training required prior to
the rollout of this rental assistance program would have helped
a lot, because the feedback that we got was that even the
nonprofits have difficulty in navigating it. We heard stories
of people having to spend 4 to 6 hours sometimes in front of
computers, only to find that when they finally sent their
paperwork, all of the information would be lost.
So, I think that it starts to erode faith in the process,
and we all want to have faith in the process. At the end of the
day, both tenant and landlord have the same goal. We all need
to be made whole so that we could provide safe and stable
housing, as thousands and thousands of us in New York City have
done, throughout the pandemic. There are more great stories of
people taking care of each other than there are of the bad
stories that you hear in the media. We want to continue more of
that, but we need the tools to do it well.
Mr. Timmons. I think one of those tools is stability and
not moving the goalposts. Obviously, a number of people were
very concerned with the extension of the eviction moratorium by
the Biden Administration and really just the lawlessness
surrounding the Supreme Court saying that they couldn't do it,
and they did it, and then they got it returned.
Again, we're 18 months in, and we have the policy available
to figure this out. We should have already had it figured out
by now. I do not think anybody thought it was appropriate to
evict anyone at the height of COVID, during the shutdown,
during the lockdown. But again, there are vaccines for anyone
who wants one, and it is time to get back to work, and we need
to make all of the landlords--all of the rental assistance is
great, but we have to make sure it gets to the right spot and
that we make everybody whole.
I just really hope that this committee will find some
bipartisan support to make sure that we do not leave anyone
stranded, or anyone in a worse-off position. This country has
come a long way in the last 18 months, and I think we can craft
the policy that is needed to move past this pandemic and to get
everybody back to work. So, I appreciate you taking the time,
and with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Auchincloss. Thank you. The gentleman from California,
Mr. Sherman, who is also the Chair of our Subcommittee on
Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets, is
now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I am so glad we
are having this hearing on such a critical subject. Housing is
infrastructure. The rents are too high. We cannot repeal the
law of supply and demand. We can occasionally have a building
built, and a politician can go cut the ribbon, and we can meet
a few dozen families who will live at affordable rates. But
ultimately, we need millions of new apartment buildings in the
cities and suburbs of this country.
And one of the greatest problems is you really cannot build
apartments in so many places because zoning prevents it. We
have, in so much of this country, a requirement that you cannot
have more than six families live on any acre. Then you can say,
well, we are not excluding people on the basis of economics or
race; we just include everybody who can afford one-sixth of an
acre. Given the cost of land in cities and suburbs in this
country, that really does mean you are excluding people on the
basis of economics and on the basis of race.
That is why I am glad Section 40103 of the Build Back
Better Act will provide at least the economic incentives to
sweep away these exclusionary and restrictive zonings. I want
to commend to my colleagues on this committee what we are doing
in Los Angeles. It is one small step, it is not a replacement
for anything else, and that is allowing alternative dwelling
units (ADUs) to be built basically in everybody's backyard.
Given the economics, a lot of people in L.A. are doing this,
and it should provide tens of thousands of additional units for
rent.
The gentleman from Minnesota was decrying that the money is
not getting out for rental assistance. We had a whole hearing
on that, of course, but more importantly, the chairwoman has
introduced the Expediting Assistance to Renters and Landlords
Act. I have co-sponsored it, and so far we do not have a
Republican co-sponsor, and I hope the gentleman from Minnesota
is the first. It is not enough to decry the darkness. It is
time to join with us in lighting a candle.
Ms. Crawford, the rising cost of housing is putting
homeownership out of the reach for so many. Many individuals,
especially younger people, are thinking they are just going to
rent indefinitely. Section 40201 of the bill that this
committee marked up represents our piece of the Build Back
Better package, which would provide first-time, first-
generation homebuyers with down payment and closing cost
assistance. Could you speak to the ways this would help
overcome the barriers for first-time home purchase and how
becoming a homeowner allows a family to start to build well?
Ms. Crawford. Thank you so much for the question,
Congressman. I would rather share with you the story I talked
about earlier. We have Dafany and we have Akilah. They are both
first-generation owners today because of our STASH program.
They had so many different barriers as they thought about
becoming homeowners, and had it not been for the assistance of
getting some down payment and closing costs assistance, minimum
though it was, it enabled them to afford their homes, along
with affordable mortgages that we have here in this State.
We also have several others who are waiting to be able to
afford a home, who are waiting for deeper down payment and
closing costs assistance, which the Build Back Better Act would
be able to provide these individuals. And there are millions
more, such as Dafany and Akilah, out there, waiting.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you. Ms. Galindo, Section 8 is the major
program to help renters, also known as the Housing Choice
Vouchers. In my City of Los Angeles, we went 13 years before we
even allowed people to get on the waiting list. We recently
allowed a small number, about 20,000, get on the waiting list,
when 180,000 people wanted to get on the waiting list. We have
dramatically underfunded this program, and so there are very
few slots.
In your testimony, you described the real, human problems
you suffered having to wait 6 weeks for rental assistance.
Could you use that experience to opine what it would be like to
be living in Los Angeles and having to wait 13 years to even
get on the list to get a Section 8 voucher?
Ms. Galindo. Thank you. I do not think that we would be
able to make it work. I would have to keep staying in underpaid
jobs that do not give me an opportunity to at some point jump
up to the middle class. If I had not had assistance, I would
not be able to take another job that would help me get out of
the poverty line. So, I cannot even imagine.
Mr. Auchincloss. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you.
Mr. Auchincloss. The gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Rose, is
now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Rose. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters and Ranking Member
McHenry. Let me just say this feels a little bit like,
``Groundhog Day,'' a movie that I actually enjoy watching. But
as I sit through another committee hearing on housing, the
second one in less than a week, I cannot help but be reminded
of that movie.
We have been talking about the same legislative proposals
for months now, and because they are likely to be taken out of
the Democrats' massive socialist spending package, we are
discussing them again today. Since Democrats plan to pass their
reconciliation package exclusively on party lines, I think this
time would be better used by Democrats to talk to their
colleagues.
We are dealing with the fallout now from President Biden's
failed American Rescue Plan. Under the previous Administration,
Treasury issued binding Emergency Rental Assistance
(ERA)Program rules and FAQ guidance to accompany those funds,
on January 19th. The Biden Administration then opted to rescind
that guidance and publish new ERA rules in February. It then
revised rules again in March, then added new rules in May, and
then revised and added new rules again in June.
Mr. Lee, how has this constant revision of rules and added
red tape stopped rental property owners like you from getting
much-needed rent from tenants?
Mr. Lee. Thank you for the question. We had a hard time
even before COVID, and with the unusual situation in New York,
with residential rents being regulated for over 1 million
apartments, it puts tremendous pressure on our commercial
tenants, and we all know that commercial restaurants and coffee
shops and bodegas and small businesses are having ever-
increasing costs that they have to endure.
And so, as we talk about how much a cup of coffee has gone
up, and how much a steak has gone up, or a hamburger, those are
all because of things that are not just about inflation but
also because we don't have enough operating money, and it puts
so much pressure on the only unregulated, free market rent in
many thousands and thousands of small buildings in New York.
So, it puts tremendous pressure on our small mom-and-pops as
much as it puts pressure on the mom-and-pop tenement buildings
and small buildings that house them.
Mr. Rose. Can you expand on what flexibility you think
Congress could provide to help reach small landlords who are
facing hardships like you described?
Mr. Lee. I think that there is much to be said for the
efficiency of using technology, getting the money where it
needs to go quickly, and very importantly, having the proper
amount of staffing in the agencies that are left to administer
this. We warned early on in the pandemic that whatever you do,
make sure that your agencies have the training and the staffing
required, because all of us are going to be applying at the
same time, and indeed, we found many websites crashing. We
found that there were long periods of time to get answers, and
when we did, we found that some of the information was just
redundant between tenant and landlord.
So if we could have a system by which the landlords and the
tenants could see their applications happening in real time,
that would help greatly. It would cut down on the time waiting,
and every single day that we don't pay our real estate taxes,
an 18-percent penalty is hoisted upon us, and it is just
impossible to get on top of, so every day counts.
Mr. Rose. In the remaining time I have, I want to shift and
talk about the housing voucher program. The housing proposal
passed on a party line basis through this committee included
$75 billion in housing voucher funding. Oftentimes, voucher
holders experience issues finding private landlords willing to
enter the program and accept vouchers.
Mr. Lee, could you expand on how current red tape
discourages private landlords like yourself from participating
in the Housing Choice Voucher Program?
Mr. Lee. I think it comes back to an administrative issue.
I think that there is not enough clarity on the application
process, but also, in our experience speaking with many other
small property owners, we feel that tenant stabilization is
key. If we can stabilize tenants, no matter where they are, and
have vouchers follow them to the next address, it then allows
us, as small property owners, to renovate up to code, up to
compliance, in an ever-changing world when compliance is
becoming more and more difficult. We have apartments that have
been with the same tenant for 50 years, and when that tenant
leaves, we just do not have the funds to fully renovate them if
we know that we are going to be locked into a rent that is the
same as the previous tenant's. It's just not tenable, while our
taxes are increasing, our insurance is increasing, our oil
prices are increasing, and we are finding everything on the
other side of the balance sheet way out of sync with our
income.
Mr. Rose. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lee. I see that my time
has expired. I appreciate your answers, and I yield back.
Mr. Auchincloss. The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Lawson, is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lawson. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
thank you to the ranking member, as well.
I was intrigued by the introduction of a statement by the
staff, which I will read, and it says, ``Evidence-based
research has demonstrated that having a safe, decent, and
affordable home is foundational to improving societal and life
outcomes for families and individuals. When families and
individuals are able to secure stable and affordable housing,
they are better able to find and keep employment, children are
better able to thrive and do well in school, seniors are better
able to age in place, and people with disabilities are better
able to maintain their health and live independently. Having
affordable housing also allows families to achieve greater
economic mobility, build wealth, and enter the middle class.''
With that, my question goes to Mr. Edmonds. As a public
housing resident, how have the programs supported you in your
community? How has public housing provided you with a platform
to achieve housing stability and pursue opportunities?
Mr. Edmonds. Yes, it has been interesting. When I first got
in here, I said, I am going to keep my mouth shut and I am just
going to get on my feet and go look for a job, or go back to
school. And then, I started attending meetings about THRIVE in
the 05, for the area, for Tucson House, and I started getting
invited to more meetings and more meetings, and I was appointed
to the Residents Council.
I have been given opportunities I never even imagined, by
just being here. And again, taking aside, maybe I should be
looking for a job, maybe I should go back to school, but there
are so many people in here who need me, they need somebody,
that I have had to completely just ignore my needs, for the
most part.
Mr. Lawson. That is amazing. So during the time that you
spent in public housing, have you ever decided that with the
opportunity that you have, it could have afforded you to look
then into obtaining residential housing on your own?
Mr. Edmonds. Yes. The way things are in this area, I have
always said if I ever get a job and I am able to pay, let's
say, market rate, market rent, or however you want to phrase
it, I am more than happy to leave, to let somebody else come in
here who needs my space. That is fine. I would love to stay in
this community, because of the THRIVE in the 05 Program,
economic development. I can see possibilities and
opportunities, and I would love the opportunity to purchase a
home in this area.
Mr. Lawson. Okay. One other thing I want to say to my
colleagues, when they said that we have forgotten about the
landlords is, I have worked with Congressman Taylor out of
Texas to make sure that during this pandemic, we bring to the
forefront the problems that the landlords are having in order
to be able to pay their mortgages and keep things going, where
we can have affordable housing. And, at the same time, it
becomes very critical.
And so my question to Mr. Lee, if he is still there, Mr.
Lee, we were always worried about the situation for landlords,
even when you actually are providing affordable housing for
individuals, how would this affect, with what has happened with
this pandemic, your concerns about retirement and how you would
be relying on the property that you own to fulfill that
obligation as you go down this path?
Mr. Lee. That is such an excellent question. Thank you.
Many, many of our small property owners are aging, and they
rely on the income from their small buildings for their
retirements. But that is all in jeopardy. We are finding that
people like myself, many owners who are seniors are starting to
see the investment, the legacy that they have had in the
American Dream eroding right before their eyes, and that was a
snowball effect that started even before COVID. With COVID, we
are finding it more and more difficult, because more and more
people are rent-burdened, including commercial tenants.
And so, the savings that we had were gone a year ago,
family savings, loans, they are piling up, and it's just very,
very difficult, and it is a shame to see our life savings, our
life's work erode before us.
Mr. Lawson. I see my time has run out, so I yield back.
Mr. Auchincloss. The gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Steil,
is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Steil. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to our
witnesses for being here.
It cannot be lost on me, as I look around the room, to my
right and to my left, Mr. Chairman, that you and I are the only
Members here. I know there are a few people online joining us
as well, but in person, the committee hearing room with dozens
and dozens of members, it is you and I. Look around this place.
We have had 31 hearings on this topic this year. We have had
two hearings in less than a week. This whole debate is on the
left side of the aisle. And how many have showed up to have it
in person? The Democrats want to spend $3.5 trillion in social
spending, putting our country further into debt. The debate is
on the left as to how they are going to possibly accomplish
this. They cannot figure it out. Might I suggest showing up and
talking to your colleagues? More importantly, show up and talk
to the American people. They do not want this massive socialist
spending plan to go through in the first place. Maybe that is
why you cannot agree.
This is theater. This is political showmanship. We have had
31 hearings on this topic, so many that it appears nobody is
showing up, Mr. Chairman. It is you and I in this room. We have
a handful of people online. We can look up at the screen. We do
have a few of your Democratic colleagues chiming in online with
us, but why are we here? Why are we struggling? We are
struggling because nobody is coming and having the conversation
in person, and we have had 31 hearings on this, to spend $3.5
trillion in social spending that the Democrats cannot reach an
agreement on. We have a period of time when we have 10 million
job openings but a complete disconnect in our labor force, to
make sure that we are getting workers back to work.
Prices are rising. Gas prices are up significantly, hitting
people in the pocketbooks. Grocery prices are up. Back-to-
school shopping, and soon Christmas shopping will be hitting
Americans in the pocketbooks. Americans are finding store
shelves empty, and where are our priorities? I feel like we are
back in the 1970s and the Carter Administration, when you look
at the labor participation rate. Heck, you even have Iran
flexing its muscles once again. And by all accounts, we are
heading back to the malaise of the Carter years.
So it makes sense that we are once again here to discuss
public housing, and a lot of ideas that are on the table are
right out of the 1970s. We have discussed, in countless
hearings, and we know what is driving the housing crunch in so
many of our cities: Regulations. Instead of addressing the
serious supply-side constraints, we are talking again about
ineffective, big government programs that we have seen play out
decade after decade.
Mr. Lee, can you just walk us through your thoughts about
the impact to spend $80 billion on public housing in a period
of time when housing prices are going up, rather than focusing
on the supply-side issue and the fact that housing has been
underbuilt due to big-city regulations for decades?
Mr. Lee. There is a lot of talk in New York about rezoning
New York so that more buildings could be built, so that we
could have more affordable housing in New York. But as small
property owners we kind of look around and say, well, we
provide housing. We have available, vacant apartments. What
stands in the way is regulation after regulation, and the
hurdles that have been just hoisted upon us, that keep us from
actually recouping a reasonable amount of money when we make
major investments to improve our buildings, to bring them up to
the standards to be competitive with free market apartments.
And that is where we find the dichotomy here. We have
apartments. We want to get them online. We want new people to
come in. We want a rotation of people so that new immigrants
could come into New York City. But we are locked in, and the
only alternative is to go through these long, lengthy zoning
processes and break ground and build big buildings, only to
have the remaining affordable apartments that they promised be
out of reach for most Americans.
And so, we really have to look at to what extent, what
could be done quickly, how do we get people off the couch and
working again?
Mr. Steil. I think you are spot on. I go back and look at a
2018 study, looking at some of those regulations, adding as
much as $93,000 to the cost of a home where the average sale
price of a single-family home is just under $400,000. We are
talking 25 or so percent of the cost of housing units being
regulations. Is that what you are seeing, in your experience?
Mr. Lee. At every turn, we are seeing an increase in our
operating costs, and unfortunately for a million apartments in
New York City that are under the Rent Guidelines Board, those
increases are just not reflected. They are also not reflected
when it comes time to pay our taxes. We have not had any
rollbacks. There are no tax deadline rollbacks.
Mr. Steil. Understood. I am cognizant of my time. I
appreciate you being here today, and I appreciate our witnesses
being here today, and with that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield
back.
Mr. Auchincloss. The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr.
Lynch, who is also the Chair of our Task Force on Financial
Technology, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do want to note that
all of the Republican seats are empty as well. I think it might
have something to do with the pandemic, so I am not troubled at
all. What I am troubled about is the disinvestment. As someone
who grew up in public housing--me, my five sisters, my mom and
dad--we would have been homeless but for the fact that we found
housing in the Old Colony Housing Project in South Boston,
which, at the time, was one of the poorest census tracts in the
country for predominantly White families. And it was a blessing
for us. Like I say, we would have been homeless, but for the
fact that we were on a list for public housing. We eventually
were successful, and it actually causes me to view public
housing not as a program but for 15 years it was my home, and
we were blessed to have that.
We are at an inflection point in this country, I believe,
where that tipping point has been reached again, where many,
many, many families, with the escalation in housing prices,
have been forced to the point where they either desperately
need public housing and are on the list for public housing, and
in many cases they are indeed homeless, living in their cars,
or living on the streets.
That did not happen by accident. It happened by
disinvestment, over many years, where we actually built a
housing stock in this country, but because of disinvestment on
maintenance and the usual maintenance and care of those units,
we lose about 10,000 units of public housing in this country
every single year. That just squanders the sum costs that we
have put in to create that housing in the first place. And
living in and around the City of Boston, we see that every
single day, with the astronomical housing prices, people being
priced out of the market, and precious few public housing
projects available for those people who are on the verge of
homelessness.
Mr. Edmonds, you have a good perspective on this, in terms
of the investment and what that means to families who are
struggling, and you have been a voice for those families as
well. What do you think are the most important things that
Congress could do right now to address this problem, from your
perspective?
Mr. Edmonds. Looking at it from my perspective, from Tucson
House, we need manpower, number one. I cannot do everything.
We, meaning the Residents Council, we cannot do everything. We
have seven people on the council, and three of us are
physically capable, sometimes two. There have been times where
it is just me who was available and showed up and had to take
care of everything that came to us. So, I would start with
manpower.
Right now, I am supposed to be in the basement emptying out
a truck from the Community Food Bank. I had to try to find some
volunteers to take my place, and I hope they are down there. I
expect they are, but I just hope they are down there. That food
has to be unloaded. It has to be separated. It has to be
distributed, taken to some of the residents. I need manpower. I
need help.
Mr. Lynch. Yes. In our situation, we have been blessed with
some of the affordable housing developers who have actually
plussed up the maintenance staff with union electricians, union
plumbers, and others, during the pandemic, and guaranteed them
that they would not be laid off. But I would bet that is not
the usual circumstances of people living in public housing.
Mr. Chairman, my time has just about expired. I want to
thank you for holding this hearing, and I hope that we can
continue to maintain the position that housing in general, but
especially affordable housing, is indeed infrastructure, and
maintain that as a priority in the upcoming spending bills.
I yield back. Thank you.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentlewoman
from New York, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, is now recognized for 5
minutes.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you so much, Madam Chairwoman. We
have seen a lot of commentary from my colleagues across the
aisle, claiming that the Build Back Better Act, reconciliation,
infrastructure, social infrastructure, et cetera, is some big
socialist conspiracy, and I just want to address that very
quickly, because the idea of a current package where we are
debating means testing, modest investments, and minimized
climate action as socialist is an insult to both socialists,
specifically, and the general public's intelligence, generally.
But moving on, I think that when we talk about the issue of
housing, and particularly public housing, we need to make sure
that we are centering on the folks who are impacted most by
this issue, and to the commentary that these hearings are a
waste of time and that they are unnecessary, when we have
individuals who have experienced homelessness testifying right
before this committee, is just, frankly, unprofessional, and it
is wrong.
For folks who are curious as to why we have had several
housing hearings, this is a housing committee. It is the
Financial Services Committee, also previously known as the
Banking and Housing Committee, so this is our job, and we are
here to do our job.
Most of all, I want to thank our witnesses for coming in.
We often talk about dollar figures, X billion here, X billion
there, but without really understanding the human impact of
what these dollar amounts add up to, it is very difficult for
people to wrap their minds around what these proposals can do.
Without housing, economic mobility, and security, opportunity,
access to healthcare, a safe living environment, all of these
other things are out of reach. You cannot get a job, or it is
very difficult to get a job when you are unhoused.
Mr. Harrison, I want to thank you for your testimony and
for really bringing to light everything that a lot of Members
may not know about the experience of having been unhoused. In
your experience today, what would have helped you improve your
living situation then that you find is actually still missing
for the people that you assist today?
Mr. Harrison. Thank you for the question. I think along
with the opportunity to apply for and hopefully receive a
housing voucher, a lot of my clients need additional support,
and the process is pretty complicated. I have been able to help
my clients, for instance, understand how the value of a voucher
is different in each ZIP Code in the continuum of care that I
am working in, but I think that a lot of people who are
experiencing homelessness have really lost their social support
network and the services that help support people's efforts to
address the issues that have contributed to or become greater
while they are experiencing homelessness would be very helpful.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you. My last question for you is,
the experience of homelessness really stays with us, as a
society, and on individuals who have experienced it, long after
they find housing. How would you describe what some of the
lifelong impacts of having experienced homelessness have been,
and how do you see this among other people that you know or
have encountered about the effects of homelessness after even a
person finds housing?
Mr. Harrison. Thank you, again. Some of the long-term
impacts of that period in my life were that my social mobility
was downward, and I was in poverty, and it takes a long time to
offset the impact, and I am only just now really emerging from
that state of poverty, and so a lot of things are still out of
reach for me. Thank you.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. I wish you the best in your future
endeavors. Thank you.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentleman from
Illinois, Mr. Garcia, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Garcia of Illinois. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for
having this continuing timely conversation and this hearing. I
am going to direct my comments and question to Ms. Crawford.
What we saw during this pandemic was a bigger gap between
the haves and the have nots. Plenty of people in my working-
class immigrant community lost their jobs. Many had to take on
new debts. Businesses closed, but housing prices are through
the roof. In 2019, right before the pandemic, Latino homeowners
had a net worth 40 percent higher than Latino renters. That
number is alarming, and it has only increased. Can you talk
about the impact of rising house prices for first-time Latino
and Black homebuyers and what we can do to help them?
Ms. Crawford. In short, we need that $25,000 DPA. People
like Donna Wilson, who is looking for a home, cannot find a
home that she can enter into because the home prices are so
high that they have been outbid by speculators or people who
actually have cash to buy their homes. So, we need that to
actually help people to break down that barrier. Blacks and
Latinos are experiencing the same thing. We have people in our
class, 3,000 people who have graduated this year, and we cannot
find homes for them, so we need that DPA Program to help us to
get them there.
Mr. Garcia of Illinois. And ``DPA'' means, ``Down Payment
Assistance,'' correct?
Ms. Crawford. Down Payment Assistance Program, yes.
Mr. Garcia of Illinois. Thank you. Ms. Fernanda Galindo,
the eviction moratorium in Illinois expired earlier this month,
so rental assistance is more important for my constituents than
ever, but to be effective, it has to reach the tenant quickly
and easily. We must ensure that landlords do not discriminate
against tenants who need it. Can you talk about how rental
assistance helped you during the pandemic, and how rental
assistance and housing vouchers must be a part of our housing
plan moving forward?
Ms. Galindo. Thank you, and especially for my Latino
community. I live in a large community of Latinos, and one of
the things is that it helped me out to be able to, like I
mentioned before, jump to a better job, which is going to help
me being pulled out of this cycle of hardship financially. This
could potentially give me a higher income, so I can focus my
attention and my opportunities on something that is actually
going to give me more incentives to do more with my life and I
do not have to depend on the government assistance so much. But
it is not as accessible because there are too many people
needing assistance, and you need a lot of time to apply for
this, and people need to go to work and to pay rent. So, it is
a never-ending cycle that we can never get out because to apply
for these programs, you need to skip work for one day, and we
do not make enough to do that.
Mr. Garcia of Illinois. Thank you for sharing that. Turning
to Mr. Edmonds, my City, Chicago, used to have plenty of public
housing, but after decades of disinvestment, it fell into
disrepair. Many of our units were demolished. Without a strong
supply of safe, well-maintained public housing, we got to where
we are today: Much of our housing is either crumbling and
unsafe or unaffordable. Could you talk about why public
housing, in particular, must be a part of the solution to the
affordable housing problem?
Mr. Edmonds. If you do not have housing, you have people on
the streets. You cannot have people on the streets. You cannot
have the disabled, the elderly, those who have behavioral
health issues--you cannot just turn them loose. You have to
help them. They need help. I am still reading now about the
environmentally-friendly public housing. That is quite
possible. We need to look at that nationwide.
Mr. Garcia of Illinois. Very well. Thank you for that, and,
Madam Chairwoman, I yield back the remainder of my time.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentlewoman
from Georgia, Ms. Williams, who is also the Vice Chair of our
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, is now recognized
for 5 minutes.
Ms. Williams of Georgia. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. For
years, our constituents have not been given the leg up that
they deserve because Washington has not made necessary
investments in housing and other basic infrastructure. My
Democratic colleagues, along with our chairwoman and I, are
here to change that, with or without the support of my
Republican colleagues. People need housing. They need broadband
access, childcare, and other basic necessities for life to help
our economy grow. With the Build Back Better agenda, we can
invest in our people and our recovery, and we can build a more
inclusive economy that will benefit our constituents, our
children, and our future.
We hear a lot about what Build Back Better investments cost
financially, but today is an important opportunity to replace
the dollar signs with faces and really see how much it will
cost for people to not make these investments. I look forward
to focusing my questions on the human impact of the Build Back
Better Agenda.
Let's start with the cost of housing. According to the
National Low Income Housing Coalition, a Georgian would have to
work 2.7 full-time jobs--that is 107 hours a week at minimum
wage--to afford a two-bedroom rental home. We need the Build
Back Better agenda because housing is simply unaffordable for
far too many of my constituents.
Ms. Galindo, you have mentioned some of the things that you
give up in the short term to afford housing. Can you tell us a
little more about the long-run impact that the cost burden of
rent will have on your family, and what are some of the things
you might have to give up long term without more affordable
housing?
Ms. Galindo. Thank you. Space is basically one. With the
quality of housing that I have, we do not have enough space
here for playing or even studying for my son. The amount of
hours that I have to work has reduced time for my son that he
needs to be around people who love him. And the security of not
finding quality care for him could be also a potential danger
in the long run. And also, my physical health. If I cannot
afford rent, that is a basic need so that I do not lose custody
of my son. I cannot even afford healthcare, so I cannot get
medical attention, and my body is destroyed from working 70
hours a week for years on end just to afford housing.
Ms. Williams of Georgia. Thank you. And housing
affordability is critical, including when it comes to
homeownership. In my district, there are several first-time
homebuyer programs that are providing a gateway to
homeownership.
Ms. Crawford, how can first-time homebuyer programs disrupt
poverty and provide a generational pathway to wealth and
prosperity for its participants?
Ms. Crawford. I think it will have a positive impact. Over
the decades, we have seen the homeownership rate and gaps
widening, and at this time, in this moment, I think the answer
to that question is to make sure that we have the necessary
things in place, such as the Down Payment Assistance Program,
to help people to break down those barriers so that they can be
homeownership-ready and can get into homeownership.
Ms. Williams of Georgia. So, we have to get these programs
in place and get them funded so that we can get these programs
working for the people. Thank you so much.
Mr. Edmonds, in your testimony, you mentioned how fully
funding the housing components of the Build Back Better Act
could translate to important repairs and upgrades within your
community that will improve life for its residents. More
specifically, how would ensuring broadband access in your
community help provide access to new opportunities for
residents?
Mr. Edmonds. In this building, when I first moved in--and
it was set up and paid for by the management--we have a
wireless router down in the basement, down in what we call our
library. You have to be down there nearby just to get the
signal. Maybe if you are outside by the window, you can get the
signal. And that is how the residents who can afford devices of
any type, who have a device, can communicate with others. That
was it. More recently, which we are still working on and it
started this week, we got some tablets from T-Mobile, about
250, and we are trying to get them set up with residents, teach
them how to use it, and create some accounts for them, things
like that. So, it has been difficult--doctor's appointments,
getting them to talk to the people handling their cases,
family. It has been rough.
Ms. Williams of Georgia. Thank you so much, and thank you
to all of the people who are here to testify today. And my
colleagues, I urge you to look beyond the dollars and cents. I
know that is critically important as we fund these programs,
but these are the faces that we are impacting in the work we
are doing, and I will always focus on the people in the work
that I am here to do in Congress. Thank you so much, Madam
Chairwoman, and I yield back.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you so very much. I want to thank
all of our distinguished panelists. This is our first panel--we
have two today--of witnesses. And at this time, I would like to
excuse the witnesses, because we are going to have a second
panel, and we are going to have to stand in recess for 5
minutes to allow the second panel of witnesses to be seated.
But I want you to know your presence here today is so
extraordinarily important while we are in the middle of
negotiating one of the biggest bills in the history of this
Congress, and transformational efforts that we are putting
forward, in housing, in particular. Thank you all so very much.
This panel is adjourned. Thank you.
Mr. Edmonds. Thank you.
Ms. Crawford. Thank you.
[brief recess]
Chairwoman Waters. The committee will come to order.
I want to welcome our second panel of witnesses today:
Professor Raj Chetty, the William H. Ackman Professor of Public
Economics at Harvard University; Dr. Carlos del Rio, the
Distinguished Professor of Medicine in the Division of
Infectious Diseases at the Emory University School of Medicine;
Ms. Lisa Rice, the President and CEO of the National Fair
Housing Alliance; Mr. Khalil Shahyd, the Managing Director of
the Equity, Environment and Justice Center with the Natural
Resources Defense Council; and Mr. Matthew Dickerson, the
Director of the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget
at The Heritage Foundation.
You will each have 5 minutes to summarize your testimony.
You should be able to see a timer on your screen or on the
table in front of you that will indicate how much time you have
left in your testimony.
And without objection, your written statements will be made
a part of the record.
Professor Chetty, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to
present your testimony.
STATEMENT OF RAJ CHETTY, WILLIAM A. ACKMAN PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC
ECONOMICS, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Mr. Chetty. Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member McHenry, and
members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to
discuss evidence on the importance of affordable housing for
economic mobility. I want to begin today by discussing the
American Dream, the idea that every child in America should
have a chance of succeeding regardless of their race,
ethnicity, or family income, an ideal of equality of
opportunity that I think we all share.
Back in the middle of the last century, virtually all kids
in America had access to the American Dream. Ninety-two percent
of children born in the 1940s went on to earn more than their
parents did. Today, only 50 percent of kids are on track to do
better than their parents. One factor that research has
identified as being particularly important in determining
economic opportunity is access to a neighborhood that has the
resources--from good schools to social capital--to support
upward mobility. Many studies have shown that there are stark
disparities across a range of outcomes, from income to
education to health, across neighborhoods. The maps on pages 3
and 4 of my written testimony show how children's chances of
upward mobility vary dramatically across places. As you can
see, kids from families with comparable incomes who grew up
just a few miles apart often experience vastly different life
trajectories.
Critically, neighborhoods have a causal effect on the
outcomes of kids who grow up there. When a given child moves to
a higher opportunity neighborhood, the amount they earn as an
adult increases. Indeed, large-scale experiments conducted by
HUD show that providing families housing vouchers to live in
low-poverty, high-opportunity areas can dramatically improve
their economic and health outcomes. Similarly, racial
disparities are also shaped in large part by unequal access to
high-opportunity neighborhoods. In light of this evidence, the
key question in my mind is, how do we give everyone access to
opportunity-rich neighborhoods?
This brings me to the second key point I want to make,
which is that access to housing in opportunity-rich areas is
severely constrained in the United States. Demand for housing
has consistently outpaced supply in the past decade, and many
poor families currently spend half of their income, or even
more, on housing. Furthermore, the neighborhoods that offer the
best chances for upward income mobility are often even more
expensive, hence low- and even middle-income families often
cannot access the neighborhoods that offer their children the
best chances of achieving upward mobility.
Now, Federal aid can play a major role in addressing some
of these challenges and making opportunity more accessible to
all. Indeed, many programs already exist that have precisely
that aim, but those programs are vastly underfunded at the
moment. At present, only 1 in 4 families who are eligible for
Federal housing assistance actually receive that aid.
This brings me to my third and final point, that well-
designed changes in Federal policy that expand support for
affordable housing can play a key role in restoring the
American Dream. Bolstering support for affordable housing
through the Voucher Program, through public housing, through
the Housing Trust Fund, and other policy models can increase
access to housing in high-opportunity areas, and thereby
increase upward mobility.
But I will note that it is very important that we design
any such policies well, in an evidence-based manner, to
maximize impact. To give you an example of that, we find that
even among families who do receive housing vouchers at present,
most of them currently live in lower-opportunity neighborhoods.
In a recent pilot study, we found that providing a small set of
additional support services during the housing search process
can dramatically increase the fraction of families who move to
high-opportunity areas, potentially generating increases in the
incomes of their kids by more than $200,000 over their
lifetimes. What this illustrates is that coupling Federal
assistance for housing with such support programs is likely to
be critical for maximizing their impact. As another example, in
addition to providing assistance for lower-income families in
renting existing housing, I think it is critical to also
provide support for expanding the total supply of housing in
order to relieve pressure on prices.
To conclude, we now have rigorous scientific evidence that
stable housing in high-opportunity neighborhoods can provide a
critical foundation for a variety of outcomes, such as higher
future earnings, better health, and better levels of education.
Well-designed Federal support for affordable housing can give
all children, irrespective of their race, ethnicity, or family
income, a chance of achieving the American Dream. Thanks very
much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Chetty can be found on page
88 of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. Next, we have Dr.
Carlos del Rio, a distinguished professor of medicine in the
Division of Infectious Diseases at the Emory University School
of Medicine. Dr. del Rio?
STATEMENT OF CARLOS DEL RIO, MD, FIDSA, DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR
OF MEDICINE, EPIDEMIOLOGY AND GLOBAL HEALTH, EMORY UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
Dr. del Rio. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters and Ranking
Member McHenry, and thank you, members of the House Committee
on Financial Services, for giving me the opportunity to present
to your committee.
My name is Carlos del Rio, and I am the Executive Associate
Dean for Emory University School of Medicine at the Grady
Health system. I am also the Distinguished Professor of
Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, and professor
of epidemiology and global health here at Emory University. In
addition, am the president-elect of the Infectious Disease
Society of America, and the past chair of the HIV Medicine
Association, and I am the international secretary of the
National Academy of Medicine.
As a physician researcher, I want to thank you for holding
this hearing on the importance of addressing housing stability
through the infrastructure and economic recovery legislation. I
am an infectious disease physician whose clinical care and
research prior to the COVID-19 pandemic primarily focused on
HIV prevention and care. I also have conducted research on the
key drivers of HIV-related disparities, including factors that
make certain communities and populations more vulnerable to HIV
infection and to experiencing worse outcomes from HIV.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the forefront the
impact of social determinants of health, including housing,
economic stability, education, food insecurity, healthcare
coverage and access, racism, and health vulnerability and
outcomes. Research evaluating the link between social and
community factors from COVID-19 incidence and outcomes
indicates that race and ethnicity, poverty, and housing
stability put certain populations at greater risk for COVID-19
and at a higher risk for more severe outcomes due COVID-19.
One study that evaluated housing conditions on COVID-19 in
all of the United States counties found that those with a
higher percentage of households with poor housing had a higher
incidence of COVID-19 and higher mortality associated with
COVID. Alarmingly, the researchers found that the percentage of
households living in poor housing conditions increased by 5
percent. In one county, the risk of COVID increased by 50
percent and the mortality increased by 42 percent. Factors
found in the study are likely contributing to greater
vulnerability to COVID, including overcrowding, inadequate
plumbing and sanitation, as well as high rent costs, leaving no
or only nominal resources to access healthcare services.
In addition to housing and living conditions affecting
health status, housing instability is married to healthcare
services that results in worse outcomes and higher healthcare
costs for individuals and families. For people with HIV, stable
housing is associated with viral suppression, which is when the
level of virus in your body is reduced to undetectable levels.
When individuals are virally-suppressed, their immune systems
are protected, they can live long and healthy lives, and the
risk of transmitting HIV to their sexual partners drops to
essentially zero. The Ryan White CARE Act Program supports an
overall viral suppression rate among people served by the
program of 89.3 percent, but that percentage drops nearly 15
percentage points to 74.5 percent for clients who are unstably
housed. I will remind you that the Ryan White CARE Act Program
serves over 50 percent of people living with HIV in our
country.
Community-based supportive housing that provides case
management and linkages to other healthcare services also
improves outcomes and breaks the cycle of chronic housing
instability. In 2018, the National Academy of Sciences convened
a committee to evaluate supportive housing and noted that
chronic homelessness is a highly complex social problem of
national importance because of the harms to health caused by
unstable housing. The committee recommended expanding access to
permanent supportive housing and other housing models while
continuing to evaluate supportive housing programs. Stable
housing coupled with case management and other services for
people with chronic conditions is important in alleviating
physical and mental stressors, providing sanitation and
refrigerators for food and some medications, and to facilitate
communications and connectivity with social services and
healthcare professionals and to maintain community and social
supports.
Expanding access to integrated and coordinated approaches
to providing healthcare and housing services or permanent
supportive community-based housing is important to improve
health outcomes for people with chronic conditions experiencing
chronic unstable housing, including seniors, people with
disabilities, HIV, behavioral health, and substance use
disorders. Stable and adequate housing is healthcare. For
people with HIV, it affects their ability to connect or
maintain a connection with the care and their ability to adhere
to daily HIV medications, which are necessary for them to
continue their viral suppression.
As a physician who cares for people with HIV and other
infectious diseases at the Grady Health System here in Atlanta,
I have seen firsthand the challenges that patients who are
unstably-housed face in accessing and staying connected to our
healthcare services. I also have seen the challenges that our
patients who are unstably-housed face in securing permanent
housing due to lack of affordable options. According to the
National Low Income Housing Coalition, American Indian or
Alaska Natives, Latino, and Asian households are more likely to
be extremely low-income renters than White households. These
population groups have also been disproportionately affected by
HIV and COVID-19, among other infectious diseases. For Black
households, 20 percent are extremely low-income renters. For
American Indians and Alaska Natives, it is 18 percent, and for
Latinos, it is 14 percent.
Chairwoman Waters. Dr. Rio, your time has expired. Thank
you.
Dr. del Rio. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Dr. del Rio can be found on page
104 of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. Ms. Rice, you are now
recognized for 5 minutes to present your testimony.
STATEMENT OF LISA RICE, PRESIDENT AND CEO, NATIONAL FAIR
HOUSING ALLIANCE
Ms. Rice. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member
McHenry, and members of the committee for the opportunity to
speak about the importance of housing and the Build Back Better
Act. My organization is a non-profit civil rights agency
dedicated to eliminating housing discrimination and ensuring
equitable housing opportunities for everyone.
The nation stands at a crisis, and housing is at its core.
As millions of people face eviction due to the ending of the
moratorium, Congress and President Biden have a once-in-a-
generation opportunity to help rectify centuries of injustice
in our nation's housing and lending markets, and redress the
negative effects of distorted race-based laws and policies put
in place by the Federal Government that provided housing and
wealth-building opportunities for Whites, while simultaneously
denying those same opportunities to the people of color who
helped build this country. These discriminatory policies helped
create inequitable systems like residential segregation,
restrictive zoning ordinances, and the dual credit market that
are still with us today, driving disparate outcomes in every
area and facet of our lives.
For example, White families hold 5 and 8 times the wealth
of Latino and Black households, respectively. That wealth gap
is driven by disparities in homeownership. White households
have a 40-percent higher homeownership rate than Black
households, a 36-percent higher homeownership rate than Latino
households, and a 21-percent higher homeownership rate than
Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander households. If we
freeze White wealth where it is today, it would take Black
households 228 years to achieve the level of wealth that White
households now have.
Moreover, housing insecurity brought on by the COVID
pandemic has been disproportionately felt by households of
color, who are more than twice as likely as their White
counterparts to be behind on their housing payments. Indeed, as
you have heard, housing and residential segregation are social
determinants of health. Quantitative and qualitative gaps in
housing are driving multiple disparate outcomes related to
education, incarceration, income, health, credit access,
longevity, and many other areas. Your ZIP Code determines your
outcomes in life.
The overwhelming majority of Americans understand this, and
they do not like it. The Bipartisan Policy Center's Morning
Consult poll published last month shows that most Americans,
including a majority of Republicans, Independents, and
Democrats, support significant funding for housing issues,
including public housing repairs, tax credits to develop and
renovate homes in distressed communities, and down payment
assistance for first-generation homebuyers. Voters know that
there is no city in our nation where someone making minimum
wage can afford a two-bedroom apartment. They view today's
affordable housing challenge as a crisis that needs immediate
action. Nearly 90 percent of people, including 76 percent of
Republicans, believe that the government has a role to play in
creating affordable housing solutions and want to see their
elected officials take action.
Congress has the opportunity to change history by helping
to eliminate the largest racial homeownership gap since
redlining was legal. The definition of insanity is to keep
doing the same thing, and expecting a different result. So, we
must implement new solutions, like down payment assistance for
first-generation homebuyers, as Chairwoman Waters' Downpayment
Toward Equity Act provides. Every $30 billion dedicated to down
payment assistance adds over 500,000 new Black and Latino
homeowners, increasing homeownership rates for both groups,
respectively, by 1 percentage point, and leveraging roughly
$141 billion in additional economic impact.
We must also support the renovation of the existing
affordable housing stock, as provided by the Neighborhood Homes
Investment Act and include $1 billion for the Fair Housing
Initiatives Program and $250 million for the Fair Housing
Assistance Program.
In conclusion, an overwhelming majority of Americans want
Congress and the President to fix our nation's housing ills. In
fact, President Biden ran on the promise of addressing racism
in housing inequality through his Build Back Better platform,
but we cannot address racial injustice without addressing
housing and homeownership inequities. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Rice can be found on page
126 of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. Mr. Shahyd, you are
now recognized for 5 minutes to present your testimony.
STATEMENT OF KHALIL SHAHYD, MANAGING DIRECTOR, EQUITY,
ENVIRONMENT AND JUSTICE CENTER, NATIONAL RESOURCES DEFENSE
COUNCIL
Mr. Shahyd. Thank you. Good morning, or good afternoon now,
Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member McHenry, and the
distinguished members of the House Committee on Financial
Services. Thank you for holding this hearing and for the
opportunity to testify. My name is Khalil Shahyd. I am the
managing director for environmental and equity strategies with
the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). At NRDC, we
recognize the importance of expanding affordable housing to
address many of our nation's environmental challenges, such as
climate change, and the uneven burdens faced by communities of
color due to racialized land-use policies that locate hazardous
materials and infrastructure disproportionately in our
communities.
I am here today to urge Congress to pass the Build Back
Better Act, including the critical investments voted for by
this committee for affordable housing development,
preservation, and retrofit. Making smart investments in
affordable housing will ensure the Build Back Better Act
addresses racial disparities in our nation's housing system
that disproportionately burden renters of color with high
housing costs, while devaluing homeowners in these same
communities, leading to an ever-widening racial wealth gap.
This is a national crisis. There are no red States or blue
States. We are unified by the fact that in no State,
metropolitan area, or parish can a worker earning a Federal
minimum wage afford a two-bedroom rental home by working a
standard 40-hour work week. The private market has never been
able or willing to produce an adequate supply of homes for
extremely low-income households, and the growth of low-wage
work exacerbates the problem. Without congressional action, 7
of the 10 occupations projected to experience the greatest
growth over the next decade will pay hourly wages that are
insufficient to afford modest apartments, meaning the problem
is likely to be exacerbated in the coming years.
Analysts expect that over the next 10 years, more than 400
new renter households will enter the rental market, many of
these households being low income. And if this were not enough,
low-income families pay more per square foot--on average, 20
percent more--of their incomes on electricity and heat. That is
a lot. And for a household, that means deciding between keeping
heat or lights on versus paying rent, buying food, or paying
for medicines or school supplies.
High energy burdens also create hidden dangers. Space
heaters are involved in 79 percent of fatal home heating fires,
when building heating systems are inadequate. And if that was
not enough, many families are increasingly facing the prospects
of dealing with major weather disasters, such as hurricanes,
flooding, wildfires, and other climate-related emergencies. The
number of affordable housing units at risk from flooding in
coastal areas will triple by 2050 unless action is taken today.
Fully funding the Build Back Better Act will provide
important investments to address the housing crisis while
creating quality jobs. The shortage of affordable housing costs
our economy $2 trillion each year in lower wages and
productivity. A 2015 study estimates that between 1964 and
2009, we could have had a $1.7-trillion increase in income
overall, and $8,775 in additional wages per worker with
improved housing quality. Just one year of construction of 100
affordable housing units can generate $11.7 million in local
income, and $2.2 million in taxes and revenue, and can create
161 local jobs.
Addressing the housing crisis is also key to equitable
climate action. Homes and buildings in the U.S. account for
nearly 40 percent of U.S. energy consumption, and nearly a
third of our greenhouse gas emissions. What we build today will
have a major impact on future energy costs and the protection
of communities from extreme weather due to the emission
thresholds we have already crossed. Investing in our nation's
affordable housing to make it more energy-efficient and
resilient must be the cornerstone of our nation's Build Back
Better strategy. These investments are also critical to ensure
success in fighting climate change and to ensure the positive
investments in the clean energy economy are shared.
With millions of Americans still struggling to afford a
stable home, the Build Back Better Act is not just an
opportunity; it is a national imperative. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Shahyd can be found on page
147 of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. Mr. Dickerson, you
are now recognized for 5 minutes to present your testimony.
STATEMENT OF MATTHEW DICKERSON, DIRECTOR, GROVER M. HERMANN
CENTER FOR THE FEDERAL BUDGET, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Mr. Dickerson. Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member McHenry,
and members of the committee, thank you so much for the
opportunity to be here and testify. My name is Matthew
Dickerson, and I am the Director of the Grover M. Hermann
Center for the Federal Budget at The Heritage Foundation. My
views in this testimony today are my own and should not be
construed as an official position of The Heritage Foundation.
Housing is an important component of the American economy,
but more importantly, housing is often the largest part of a
family's budget, and it is a vital determinant in their quality
of life. The affordability of housing depends on basic economic
factors, including an ample supply of available housing as well
as a growing economy where people can enjoy the dignity of the
fruits of their labor.
So, it is important that we consider housing in the context
of economic policy. Unfortunately, too often, government erects
barriers to opportunity. It should be no surprise that the
sectors of the economy that people express the most frustration
with--things like healthcare, education, energy, and housing--
are the ones where government is already the most involved.
Government rules, regulations, subsidies, and disincentives all
limit consumer choice. They stifle innovation, drive up costs,
and ultimately make things more difficult and less fulfilling
for people all around the country.
Congress is currently considering a massive tax and
spending package that is meant to transform the American
economy and expand government control over some of the most
personal aspects of people's lives. It would put more of the
economy's resources under the control of politicians and
bureaucrats rather than the people. It would use the force of
government to pick winners and losers, and that unfairly
empowers special interests. And all of this will just
exacerbate the challenges that families and communities are
facing as we continue to struggle to emerge from this pandemic.
Americans have been feeling the effects of price increases.
The Consumer Price Index has increased 5.4 percent in the last
year, which is among the highest increases since the 1970s.
Total government spending in Fiscal Year 2021 was 53 percent
higher than it was in 2019--53 percent higher. Of the roughly
$5.2 trillion in new Federal debt that was added since the
beginning of the pandemic, $2.8 trillion of that, or 54
percent, was purchased by the Federal Reserve. Fifty-four
percent of the new debt added since the beginning of the
pandemic has been monetized by the Federal Reserve. All of this
is unprecedented, and I am concerned that pumping even more
government cash into the economy could fuel a dramatic surge in
price inflation.
One of the biggest issues on the minds of people throughout
the country is the disruptions to the goods and services that
they need, that they rely on. Consumers are seeing shelves that
are bare of goods while the White House warns that Christmas
may be interrupted. We have even seen some basic goods
disappear from the shelves in stores. Factories have seen work
slowdowns and shortages due to interruptions of vital supplies
and components. Meanwhile, throughout the country, we see help
wanted signs posted in shops and restaurants. In August, there
were 8.3 million unemployed workers, and that is way too many,
but at the same time, there were 10.4 million job openings.
That is 2.1 million more job openings than people who were
looking for work.
The economy is facing very significant challenges, and the
Build Back Better Act threatens to make those worse by
increasing regulations and fiscal burdens, especially on small
businesses and independent workers like truck drivers,
especially as the economy is struggling to recover from
government lockdowns and economic disruptions. These policies
would reduce wages, cost jobs, harm economic growth, cut
investment, increase prices, and harm working families. And
that is the exact opposite of what we are supposed to be here
to do. Instead, I think we should focus on doing better. We
should be removing barriers. We should be rolling back
regulations, getting the budget on a sustainable path, and
giving people more opportunity.
And with that, I am happy to yield back the remainder of my
time, and thank you so much for the opportunities.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dickerson can be found on
page 110 of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. Votes have been
called on the House Floor. We will stand in recess, and we will
reconvene immediately following the conclusion of these votes.
I appreciate your patience.
The committee will stand in recess.
[recess]
Chairwoman Waters. The committee will come to order.
I now recognize myself for 5 minutes for questions.
Thank you for your testimony today, Professor Chetty. I
have long been a supporter of the Housing Choice Voucher
Program. Housing choice vouchers help families escape
homelessness and poverty, and they support the development of
more affordable housing. That is why we included $75 billion
for new Housing Choice Vouchers in my committee's section of
the Build Back Better Act.
This funding is a top priority for me. Just a few weeks
ago, I was out in the streets of my district working with the
Los Angeles County Development Authority to try and move people
experiencing homelessness immediately into permanent housing.
However, Los Angeles County simply does not have enough housing
resources to do so.
As a matter of fact, I had what is known as LAHSA, which is
the coordinating agency for the homeless in getting shelters,
et cetera, I had L.A. County and the City and the Housing
Authority, all come out. We met. I stayed out there 6 hours
with them. All of these makeshift tents that were lining the
median of this major street had been there for months, and I
have passed them week after week and month after month.
And so I went to each of the tents, and I asked them if we
could get them some temporary housing, the hotel housing
operation that we have, what they call the Hotel Key, I
believe, but it is very temporary, overnight style. They said
yes. So, we helped them to get some of their stuff stored, and
some of it they could not take with them, and that was carried
away.
But the idea was that we had all of the agencies--the City,
the County, the Housing Authority, and LAHSA--all there, and we
had people coming from the community around what we were doing.
They saw the activity, and they were begging me for vouchers.
They wanted vouchers. They knew that there is something called
Section 8 vouchers, and if you could get one, you would have an
opportunity to find a place.
So, I want to ask you about vouchers, because I have given
it a high priority in my funding. How can a significant
infusion of vouchers help places like Los Angeles address the
affordable housing crisis in the short term as we work to
increase our country's affordable housing stock? And really,
the question is not only about Los Angeles or California, but
vouchers everywhere that we can get to give people an
opportunity to go look for housing using these vouchers.
Do you think that vouchers can help us deal with this
homeless problem in significant ways?
Mr. Chetty. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters.
I completely agree with those sentiments. I think there is
good evidence that vouchers can help families find stable
housing, and expanding funding for vouchers, especially given
that only a small fraction of the families who are actually
currently eligible receive vouchers, is a critical step towards
getting more families vouchers and the housing they are
ultimately seeking.
Now that being said, I think there are two important things
to keep in mind. One, there are also serious supply problems.
If we just give people more vouchers, but there aren't more
total houses for people to rent, more total apartments, then
that is going to drive up prices and not necessarily lead to
more total housing.
So, I think in parallel to expanding vouchers, which is
critical, it is also important to figure out how you relax the
zoning restrictions and do other things to increase the supply.
And the second thing, I will go on quickly, is trying to
get people housed in areas that provide good opportunities for
upward mobility more generally. Schools, other resources,
networks, and so forth are extremely important to keep in mind
as well.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
Ms. Rice, the Build Back Better agenda has been championed
as a way to uplift America's middle class. Given the growing
racial wealth gap and demographic trajectories which show that
people of color will make up the majority of America by 2042,
is it really possible to build back better without robust
affordable housing investments?
Ms. Rice. No, it is not. And it is also not possible to
build back better without significant down payment assistance,
since those families do not have intergenerational wealth to
pass down due to our nation's legacy of inequitable housing
policies.
Chairwoman Waters. You mentioned how long it would take to
make up this wealth gap. Do you mean if we keep doing what we
are doing now, or do we need to do new and bigger things to
close that wealth gap?
Ms. Rice. Yes, we need to do new and bigger things. If we
keep doing what we are doing now, we will never close the
racial wealth gaps.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Posey, is now recognized
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Posey. Thank you once again, Madam Chairwoman, for
holding this important meeting.
I don't see Matthew Dickerson in the lineup here. Is he
still with us?
Mr. Dickerson. Yes, sir. I am here in person.
Mr. Posey. Oh, okay. Mr. Dickerson, can you tell us what
your research shows about the importance of reducing the cost
of building affordable housing and solving our overall
affordable housing challenges?
Mr. Dickerson. Absolutely. I think that is really the goal.
If the goal is to get more people into housing and make more
housing available to people, we should be removing government
barriers to building new housing, and that is the best way to
increase access to housing is to allow more housing supply to
be built. And also, allowing people to keep more of their
dignity and the fruits of their labor to be able to afford it.
Mr. Posey. Does any of your research give any basis
whatsoever for estimating how much Federal housing expenditures
have merely driven up the market prices and rents of housing as
opposed to reducing the costs of building new housing and
increasing the supply of housing in the private market?
Mr. Dickerson. I think that is a great question, and there
is no question that when the Federal Government gets involved
and it starts subsidizing different forms of housing, that just
drives up prices in the marketplace artificially rather than
allowing true market-rate housing to be available. So, I think
a lot of times when we are talking about market rate housing,
that doesn't actually exist in the housing market.
If you look at the mortgage financial system, nearly 90
percent of mortgages are backed by the Federal Government. The
Federal Reserve owns more than $2 trillion worth of mortgage-
backed securities. There is too much government intervention in
the housing marketplace.
Mr. Posey. Thank you. How do you foresee Congress being
able to help reduce the costs of building affordable housing in
the private market?
Mr. Dickerson. That is a great question.
There are some things in the Tax Code. The Tax Code is
actually biased against building new construction for housing.
If you want to build a new apartment building, you have to
depreciate those costs over 27\1/2\ years. So, it takes
multiple decades for a developer to build a new house and then
be able to write that off over the course of time.
What we could do--there are a couple of easy suggestions.
We should allow expensing, full and immediate expensing for
those types of investments like we do other capital
expenditures. Or we could allow other ways to write that down
which allow companies to actually recoup those costs so we can
build more and increase investment, which would, of course,
lower costs.
Mr. Posey. I remember a story about Mother Teresa in New
York. She built a house for the homeless, and they wouldn't let
her open it, because they said it didn't have enough bathrooms,
and they might have to wait in line. So they didn't have a
house, and they just went in the street.
Are there any estimates of how much reducing the cost of
building new housing and reducing regulatory cost burdens on
new housing could potentially increase the stock of affordable
housing in the private market?
Mr. Dickerson. That is another great point. We should
reduce the regulatory burdens to building at the local, State,
and Federal levels. There are things like Davis-Bacon
prevailing wage requirements, that if the Federal Government is
involved in building a project, that just artificially drives
up the cost. So, if the goal is to build more public housing,
we should try to build as much as we can in a cost-effective
manner for the taxpayers, rather than artificially increasing
the price of those projects.
Mr. Posey. Thank you. Have there been pretty solid studies
to back this up, of which you are aware?
Mr. Dickerson. Absolutely. I think there are lots of basic
economic studies that have been done by my colleagues at The
Heritage Foundation and many others throughout the country. I
know our colleagues at the Mercatus Center at George Mason
University have been specialists in this area. And there are
folks at the Manhattan Institute who have done very good work
in this space, that I would recommend as well.
Mr. Posey. Thank you, Mr. Dickerson, for joining us today,
and I thank the other witnesses as well for coming and sharing.
I see my time is about to expire, so I yield back, Madam
Chairwoman.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentlewoman
from New York, Ms. Velazquez, who is also the Chair of the
House Committee on Small Business, is now recognized for 5
minutes.
Ms. Velazquez. Thank you so much, Chairwoman Waters.
Dr. del Rio, for years I have been outspoken in saying that
the state of our nation's public housing system has become a
public health crisis. And earlier today, I told the first panel
that the residents of the New York City Housing Authority
(NYCHA) endure a consistent lack of hot water, insufficient
heat during the winter months, rodent and insect infestations,
and a widespread and recurring lead and mold problem.
As a result of these conditions, many NYCHA residents
suffer from respiratory illnesses. In your expert medical
opinion, is there a connection between poor housing conditions
and the development and exacerbation of respiratory illnesses?
Dr. del Rio. Thank you for your question, and I appreciate
the opportunity to address that.
Absolutely, I think when we talk about having decent
housing for individuals, we are also talking about people
having access to clean air and to adequate water and sanitation
in the place they live. Simply having a wall or a roof over
your head, which may be living in the streets in a made-up
housing, is not sufficient, right? You need to have other
things, and we know people suffer from respiratory illnesses.
We know people suffer from gastrointestinal illnesses because
their water is contaminated. We know recently that because of
water that was contaminated with lead, citizens in Michigan
have problems with that.
So your house can be the safest and the most secure place,
but it could also be--the place you live could also be where
you acquire infections. And I think in the case of COVID, we
saw that, that when people were brought together and you had
overcrowding, even though people were housed, because they were
overcrowded, the risk of transmission increased significantly.
Ms. Velazquez. Yes. Are respiratory problems and other
health conditions among residents in public housing an issue
you see across the country?
Dr. del Rio. I am not an expert on respiratory diseases, so
I cannot tell you, yes, that is the case. But in my reading, I
would say that we see in people who live in public housing a
higher incidence of asthma and other respiratory diseases.
People don't realize that, for example, asthma, is actually
more common in poor individuals. It is much more common in
people who live in unstable--in public housing than for people
who live in adequate housing.
Ms. Velazquez. Dr. del Rio, last year Senator Gillibrand
and I wrote to the NYCHA chairman highlighting our concern
about the poor conditions in NYCHA and the Authority's reported
failure to fix mechanical fan equipment, exacerbating the
spread of COVID among residents. Can you please explain how
improving housing conditions could have helped mitigate the
effects of the coronavirus?
Dr. del Rio. One of the things that I think we did wrong in
our country is when somebody was diagnosed with COVID, then
instead of sending them--in many places, people were found a
place to isolate, so they wouldn't infect other people. Here,
we diagnose individuals, and we send them back to their house.
And if their family members and the people living in the house
were not infected, they became infected, because the infected
person transmitted the disease.
Ms. Velazquez. Thank you.
Dr. del Rio. One of the most important things is the
ability to be able to isolate when you have COVID. And for
that, you need to have a private room and a private bathroom
and the ability to stay away from others who are not infected
in your household in order to prevent transmission.
Ms. Velazquez. Yes, and there are concerns about the
ventilation systems in public housing, as one area that could
have any type of connection with the spread of COVID-19.
Ms. Rice, as you know, our nation faces a homelessness and
affordable housing crisis. Can you explain the importance of
creating additional units of affordable housing and how the
Build Back Better Act helps us meet that challenge?
Ms. Rice. Congresswoman Velazquez, thank you for the
question.
Yes, we need 5 million additional affordable housing units
in the United States, and the Build Back Better plan would
provide funding to support the development of new affordable
housing units using funds from the National Housing Trust Fund
and also via tax credits. But it also provides funding to fix
the already-existing plethora of naturally-affordable housing
units that are in very, very poor condition in communities
throughout the States.
So, it provides a tax credit to update that housing so that
it can be onboarded and used for affordable housing purposes.
Ms. Velazquez. Thank you. Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentleman from
Kentucky, Mr. Barr, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Barr. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
And once again, I would like to thank the panel of
witnesses for appearing before the committee, and once again, I
must question why they are even here. We have had this debate
multiple times. In fact, since Democrats took control, we have
had 31 housing hearings, and 13 of those hearings have been in
the Full Committee.
We voted on the bill that this hearing purports to review,
and the final negotiations are apparently nearing the finish
line, arguably with little or no input from Democrats on this
committee. I say that because in public reporting, I am reading
that Democrats are considering cutting housing funding in this
massive socialism spending bill to roughly a third of the
initial amount proposed, as they try to lower the cost of the
bill to perhaps try to earn the support of Senator Manchin or
Senator Sinema.
The committee's portion of this bill and the broader
reconciliation package are simply a big government spending
blowout. Spending another $3.5 trillion financed through debt
and massive tax hikes will not only put us on the downhill
slide to socialism, it will perpetuate devastating inflation
felt by Americans across the country.
Rising prices are compounded by shortages due to supply
chain bottlenecks and the Biden Administration's failure to
adequately take action to address them. Higher prices and
scarcity at the grocery store are not, ``high-class problems,''
as senior White House officials suggest, and Americans should
not just, ``lower their expectations,'' as some in the
mainstream media have said.
Imagine being a middle-class working parent who sees the
price of milk, eggs, meat, and gas rising rapidly and once-full
shelves at the grocery store now bare. Now imagine being told
by so-called elites that you just need to suck it up and hope
for more government handouts. That is the reality in President
Biden's America: Just hope for more government handouts.
The argument that inflation is transitory is getting
thinner and thinner with each passing month. Increases in the
Consumer Price Index have topped 5 percent month after month
after month. Some of my colleagues may try to dismiss the
dramatic rise in prices as temporary due to supply chain
bottlenecks, increased demand from reopening the economy, or
overly-accommodative monetary policy. And while these elements
may play a role, let us be clear that reckless government
spending and across-the-board tax hikes will ensure that these
upward price pressures will remain with us for years to come.
Just this week, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
published a report that examined this question specifically:
Does runaway government spending have an impact on inflation?
And the answer was absolutely, yes.
The report finds that significant Federal spending under
the Biden Administration has resulted in higher inflation.
There is simply too much demand chasing too little supply, and
that is a basic recipe for increases in prices.
And the message is clear as we look to the future: Greater
amounts of wasteful government spending mean higher prices for
everyday Americans. And continuing to pay people to not rejoin
the labor market is also going to push prices higher because
you are just going to continue to have these supply chain
disruptions.
So, make no mistake about it, prices are up: the price of
gas is up 42 percent; beef, 18 percent; bacon, 19 percent; and
used cars, 24 percent. These aren't high-class products. These
are items that everyday Americans in Kentucky's Sixth
Congressional District and around the country need. And our
constituents are paying the price.
This is Joe Biden's inflation tax, and it is not a tax on
the wealthy; it is a tax on lower- to middle-income Americans.
A recent nationwide survey showed that consumers are worried
about rising prices and increasingly blaming blowout government
spending. Seventy-eight percent said rising prices were a
concern, and two-thirds said that they believed increased
government spending was a significant contributor to upward
price pressures.
Not to mention the concern about our government going
bankrupt and that future generations of Americans are going to
be paying the price tag. No matter how much the Biden
Administration and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle
want to sweep this problem under the rug or pretend that big
government tax-and-spend policies don't contribute, the data is
clear. And Americans are paying attention.
Inflation is a tax. It is a tax on Americans, and it is
dampening the spending power of consumers. Real wage growth is
down just as America is recovering from a global health and
economic crisis.
The Biden Administration's answer is more Keynesian blowout
spending the likes of which we have never seen. This threatens
to perpetuate inflation, bankrupt small businesses, and
compromise U.S. global leadership and economic security. So,
let us stop pushing for more wasteful government spending.
I yield back.
Chairwoman Waters. The gentleman yields back. The
gentlewoman from Iowa, Mrs. Axne, who is also the Vice Chair of
our Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development, and
Insurance, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Axne. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank you for
all of the work that you understand is important to this
country, which is housing for Americans and affordable housing
in all parts of our country.
I am here to actually ask questions about the real issues
that we are facing, and thank you to all of our folks here for
attending.
A study recently found that in Iowa, 75 percent of our
children under 6-years-old had lead in their blood. This is the
fourth-highest rate in the country.
Dr. del Rio, I know this isn't quite your specialty area,
but can you tell me a little bit about how lead can affect
children?
Dr. del Rio. Thank you very much for your question,
Representative Axne.
Yes. Lead accumulates in the brains of children, and
therefore, it impacts their development. Many years ago, the
government banned lead in paint and in toys and in other things
that could lead to children licking that lead and leading then
to lead intoxication, which causes anemia, causes many things,
but eventually will cause developmental deficits. And those
children with lead intoxication in their house are probably
never going to develop normally and will have developmental
disabilities, which will lead them then to actually not be able
to be productive Americans.
So, we are really hurting our future by exposing children
to lead.
Mrs. Axne. I appreciate you bringing that up. If I am
hearing you correctly, there is literally no safe level of lead
for children. Is that correct?
Dr. del Rio. Again, I am not an expert in that area, but my
answer will probably be, no, lead is not something that
normally goes into our bodies. So, any lead could probably be
dangerous lead.
Mrs. Axne. I appreciate that. Having this level of lead
poisoning in Iowa's children is very concerning to me, and so I
want to focus on some of the causes and solutions that we might
have here.
Mr. Shahyd, my understanding is that lead is far more
likely in areas where there is more older housing, especially
housing from 40 years ago or more. Does that fit with your
research?
Mr. Shahyd. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Representative, for
that question.
Yes, it does. Our housing stock across the nation has not
gotten the attention, particularly the housing that is relied
on by households with fixed incomes. So, our elders as well as
low-income families just haven't had the type of upgrading and
regular upkeep and maintenance.
And the lead issue, it is both an issue of paint inside the
house, but also issues, as we know, obviously with Flint,
Michigan, and with many other municipal water systems as well.
So, lead is also in the water lines.
Mrs. Axne. Thank you for that. I appreciate it.
It appears we don't see the same level of issues with new
housing. So, Ms. Rice, is building new housing or replacing
older housing with new, as we have structured in the Build Back
Better Act, likely to improve our children's health by better
protecting them from lead?
Ms. Rice. Yes, it definitely will. And in addition to that,
as I alluded to earlier, the Neighborhood Homes Investment Act
provides substantial subsidies to enable the refurbishment, the
renovation, and the rehabilitation of naturally-occurring
affordable housing that already exists in our communities
throughout the nation. So, it provides the funding needed to
remove the lead paint and to update the water lines.
Mrs. Axne. Thank you for that.
One last thing, I was surprised to learn when I got to
Congress that we had no USDA multifamily housing built in more
than a decade. This is, of course, housing for our rural
communities. And we all know you can't expect to have safe,
affordable housing for everyone if we don't build anything new,
and that is why I have been working to fix this for a couple of
years. Funding for new USDA housing is included in the bill we
passed here last month.
Ms. Rice, I am wondering if you can describe the impact
that you think bringing also affordable housing out to our
rural areas could do for this country?
Ms. Rice. That is tremendously important. One of the
challenges that we face in rural communities is problems around
infrastructure and the ability of that infrastructure to
support safe and healthy housing. So, the funding to support
rural housing development is really critical.
Mrs. Axne. Thank you so much.
I know that we need to get this work done to build more
affordable housing, of course, for our working families. And a
key part of that for me is to make sure that we protect our
Iowa kids from the dangers of lead exposure in these older
homes. I hope that we can all come together as Americans to
make sure that we protect our children and have safe,
affordable housing for people across this country.
Thank you so much for your time and for being here. I
appreciate all of your testimonies, and I yield back.
Thank you.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Williams, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Williams of Texas. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
There are so many different issues facing the American
people right now, and we are using the committee's time to hash
out arguments that the Democrats are having within their own
party. While the Democrats deal with their intraparty fighting,
I wanted to highlight some of the concerns I am hearing about
every single day in my district in the great State of Texas.
First of all, businesses can't find workers to hire as they
hope to ramp up for the holidays. Heating prices are expected
to climb over 50 percent this winter, and the Biden
Administration continues to wage war on the fossil fuel
industry.
Our grocery store shelves are empty, and supply chains are
falling apart. Inflation is wiping out any wage gains for the
middle-income workers, and there is a record inflow of illegal
immigrants coming to our country illegally, with 1.7 million
illegal encounters this year alone.
And out of all of these concerns, the single-largest I am
hearing about, the issue I am hearing about is tax increases
and the effects that this will have on their ability to
survive. We have people on this panel, for example, who are
tenured professors who can only be fired under truly
exceptional circumstances. This guarantee of tenure gives you
peace of mind, knowing that you will continue to receive a
paycheck and be able to provide for yourself and your family
regardless of outside economic factors or how bad things can
get.
Small business, like mine and others, don't have the luxury
of the guarantee of tenure. They are fighting every day to
compete with other businesses providing better products and
services within the marketplace. Let the customer decide whom
they want to do business with, not the government. And this
competition is at the heart of the American capitalism that
makes our country one of the top innovators in the world.
Now, I can tell you, everyone here today, when we are
talking about tax increases that the Democrats' so-called--in
their program called the Build Back Better plan, Main Street
America is scared to death of this, totally scared. Because
look, you can't raise taxes and help the economy. You have to
cut taxes and help small business and put cash flow in the
economy.
Main Street America sees through these lies. They see
through the lie that no American making under $400,000 will
have to pay more in taxes. Inflation alone is increasing their
costs of doing business.
So, Mr. Dickerson, thank you for being here, and thank you
for being on the scene to talk to us today. Can we discuss this
misleading point that we keep hearing from the left about this
terrible proposal and how these tax proposals would be
especially bad for small businesses, in other words, Main
Street America?
Mr. Dickerson. Absolutely. Thank you so much, sir, and I
know that you are a small businessman and have that experience.
So, thank you.
The Build Back Better Act would increase taxes. It would
increase taxes on people earning less than $400,000. It would
increase taxes on small businesses. It would increase taxes on
people all throughout the economy.
And what does that do? That raises prices. That costs jobs.
That costs people to not get the raises that they would
otherwise get. Why? Because the Federal Government has taken
it, so it can go under the control of politicians so that they
can dole it out for new spending programs.
And that is just bad for the American economy, it is bad
for families, and it is bad for our communities.
Mr. Williams of Texas. And small businesses right now, you
are probably seeing, too, are totally playing defense. They are
scared to death of tax increases. They are scared to death of
mandates that are being put on them, that are going to cost
them. So they have to decide, do I save money to pay my taxes
and cut a person loose and terminate a job? Or do I have to
terminate a job because I may have to pay for vaccinations or
whatever the case may be?
This is not inviting to the risk and reward that built this
country, where people can invest money and get a return on
their investment. And if you are the banks, you are worried
about this reporting system. They have no clue. The banks have
no clue what this $600 reporting system is going to cost them.
And that is going to go down to where people can't make
loans, the banks won't make loans. You dry up money, and big
government takes over. So we have to fight this, and I
appreciate you being here, I appreciate all of the panel being
here.
And the remainder of my time, Madam Chairwoman, I give back
to you.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentleman from
New York, Mr. Torres, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Torres. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
I just want to respond. During the first panel, I think one
of my colleagues, Representative Barr, responded to a comment I
made about how housing is a priority. We both agreed that
housing is a priority, but I believe he said that if you need
housing, get a job so that you can pay the rent.
And I agree, except there are millions of Americans who do,
indeed, have jobs but who, nevertheless, cannot afford market
rate rent. The affordability crisis has two causes. Not only is
the rent too high, but the wages are too low.
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition,
there is something known as the, ``housing wage,'' the wage
that a tenant would need to earn to afford an apartment. The
national housing wage is more than $20 an hour, versus a
Federal minimum wage of $7.25. So, let that sink in.
The Federal minimum wage is about a third of the national
housing wage. And if you earn the Federal minimum wage of $7.25
an hour, you would have to work 72 hours to afford a one-
bedroom apartment--72 hours. And in the United States, not only
do we have the working poor, but increasingly, we have the
working homeless.
Nearly half of the household heads in the New York City
shelter system are working people, essential workers who put
their lives at risk for all of us during the peak of the
pandemic, but who find themselves languishing in a shelter
system because the affordability crisis is raging out of
control.
Now, the Republicans on the committee have consistently
said that the latest hearing on housing is a waste of time, and
Representative Barr asked, why are we here? And if you wish to
know why we are here, look no further than the research of Dr.
Chetty. Dr. Chetty's research demonstrates that housing is
foundational not only to who we are, but to who we can become.
It is foundational to the American Dream.
Where you live in America determines your opportunity and
mobility. It determines the quality of the schools you attend
and the quality of the services you can access.
And so, Dr. Chetty, I want to ask you, can we build back
better without housing investments aimed at promoting upward
mobility?
Mr. Chetty. Thank you, Representative Torres.
And I absolutely think investments in housing designed in
the right way are central for creating economic mobility and
the type of inclusive prosperity for which I think we all aim.
Mr. Torres. I have a question for Mr. Dickerson. I know you
are from The Heritage Foundation, so I suspect we have
radically different worldviews. You have emphasized the role of
the government in raising the cost of housing. Is single-family
zoning an example of the kind of housing intervention that
raises the cost of housing?
Mr. Dickerson. Yes, sir. Thanks for the question. I think
we probably have a lot more in common than we might have
different as Americans.
And yes, I do think that local zoning regulations are an
example of government intervening in the marketplace and making
it more difficult for people to do what they want to do with
their own private property, to develop it, which can create an
opportunity to build more housing. So, I think that is a
perfect example of things--
Mr. Torres. Including single-family zoning?
Mr. Dickerson. The types of reforms that could be done--
Mr. Torres. But single-family zoning is an example of a
housing intervention that would raise the cost of housing?
Mr. Dickerson. Yes, absolutely. If a local community wants
to make those rezones.
Mr. Torres. We do agree. My colleagues have characterized
the housing component in the Build Back Better Act as some kind
of nefarious socialist scheme. The Build Back Better Act
invests billions of dollars in lead remediation and abatement.
Do you think protecting children from lead exposure in public
housing and elsewhere--does that strike you as a nefarious
socialist scheme or an evil thing to do or--
Mr. Dickerson. I don't think lead exposure is a good thing.
I think it is important for us to consider how we do that.
Mr. Torres. So, you would agree that the government has a
legitimate role to play in protecting children from lead paint
exposure?
Mr. Dickerson. I would say it is important for us to
consider what the proper role of the Federal Government is in
that type of a policy. Did the Federal Government put--
Mr. Torres. Let us take public housing. Public housing was
founded by the Federal Government. It is primarily funded and
regulated by the Federal Government. Do you think that the
Federal Government has an obligation to protect children from
lead exposure in public housing, which we founded, which we
regulate, and which we fund.
Mr. Dickerson. I think that is a good argument for getting
the Federal Government out of housing. It should be devolved to
the State and local levels.
Mr. Torres. But we have been in the business for 8 decades.
There are a million people who live in public housing. We
cannot withdraw overnight. So, there are children who are
exposed to lead. And as you know, if you are exposed to lead,
you could be brain-damaged for the rest of your life.
Should we just let those children be brain-damaged, or
should we actually remediate the mold and make the Federal
investments required for mold remediation or lead remediation?
Mr. Dickerson. And I think that is why we should get the
Federal Government--
Mr. Torres. So, you are not in favor of lead remediation?
[Gavel sounding.]
Mr. Torres. Okay.
Chairwoman Waters. The gentleman's time has expired. The
gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Loudermilk, is now recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Loudermilk. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I appreciate
the opportunity to be here.
Earlier this week, the Washington Post ran an opinion piece
that has gotten quite a bit of coverage, saying that everyone
should stop complaining about understaffed stores and supply
chain problems. Unbelievable.
The American people just need to quit complaining about
what they have been used to for decades and centuries as
actually having the products they need on the shelves. In other
words, the American people should lower their expectations,
they were saying, and just accept that this Administration and
the outgoing Majority in Congress can't seem to get anything
right.
The Secretary of Transportation said, look, these shortages
are because the economy is good. Expecting that people are
going to accept that paying over $3 for a gallon of gas is
good, and the inflation that we are seeing is good, yes, it may
be that the people are buying, but what they are getting for
what they are spending is less than it was in the previous
Administration. That is clear.
I have a better idea. Let's stop pushing the policies that
are causing the problems. Out-of-control spending is causing
consumer prices to skyrocket. The massive expansion of
entitlements has caused millions of people to stay at home and
not go to work. Hence, the supply chain catastrophe that we are
currently in.
There is an all-time record of unfilled jobs. And by the
way, an economist just came out and said the reconciliation
bill will cost 8 million jobs. I guess that is one way of
balancing out the 10 million jobs that are available, just make
8 million of them disappear. That takes care of part of it.
But the outgoing Majority is engaging in the very
definition of insanity. They are doing the same thing over and
over again, expecting different results. I have some bad news
for the outgoing Majority. A new poll came out yesterday, which
shows that 62 percent of Americans believe the Biden
Administration's out-of-control spending policies are
responsible for the skyrocketing inflation that we are
experiencing.
In other words, they don't want Congress to spend another
$5 trillion because that is the primary cause of this
inflation. Also, I might add, two-thirds are opposed to the
Orwellian proposal to spy on their bank accounts. But even with
nearly 75 percent or 73 percent or 66 percent, whatever the
numbers are, an overwhelming majority of Americans are opposed
to this, and the lame duck Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has continued
to push this proposal.
Mr. Dickerson, would spending another $5 trillion to expand
entitlements make our economic problems better or worse?
Mr. Dickerson. Thank you so much for that question. I think
that is a really key question, and I am really glad you are
bringing that to the forefront.
I think that the proposal in front of Congress would
significantly exacerbate the problems that we are seeing, that
our families and our communities are seeing.
Mr. Loudermilk. Mr. Dickerson, housing prices have
skyrocketed over the last year-and-a-half. Would another $330
billion of housing entitlement spending make the housing market
better or worse?
Mr. Dickerson. I don't see how it would.
Mr. Loudermilk. Do you think it would make it worse?
Mr. Dickerson. I don't see how it would make it better.
Mr. Loudermilk. Yes. I think it is basic economics, and it
is interesting that one of my colleagues on the other side just
mentioned that the Federal Government has been engaged in
Federal housing for 80 years, which makes me think of a quote
by Ronald Reagan, ``The closest thing to eternal life on this
planet is a government program.''
Whether it works or it doesn't, we just believe that to
throw more money into it will fix the problems. But as Ronald
Reagan said, ``Government is not the solution to the problem.
Government is the problem in most instances.''
The economic disaster we find ourselves in is a direct
result of government meddling in the economy and out-of-control
spending. The economy was at full strength not long ago when
the Republicans were in control, and we can get that back, we
can get back to that, and it looks as if we are on a trajectory
to be able to do that before too long.
The solution is simple. Get the government out of the way.
Empower the American people. They can take care of their
problems, and let us make equal opportunity for everyone.
With that, I yield back.
Chairwoman Waters. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Loudermilk. I have yielded my time back.
Chairwoman Waters. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Loudermilk. Are you asking me to yield my time back? I
have already done that.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. I think that the gentleman
has the ability to do that if he desires.
Mr. Loudermilk. I am not sure what you are asking for.
Chairwoman Waters. I just simply wanted you to yield your
time.
Mr. Loudermilk. Madam Chairwoman, I have already yielded my
time back to you.
Chairwoman Waters. I'm sorry. I wanted you to yield to me--
Mr. Loudermilk. The 22 seconds I have remaining.
Chairwoman Waters. Okay. Thank you.
I would just like to ask if when you talk about government
spending, did you support the government spending for all of
the restaurants and the airlines and all of the big businesses
that also were beneficiaries of the government response to the
pandemic?
Mr. Loudermilk. Madam Chairwoman, if I can reclaim that
time to answer you, I did support that because that was an
issue, an economic issue that the government caused. And so,
therefore, I did support the government providing relief to
private institutions who were forced to shut their doors
because of government mandates.
Chairwoman Waters. The gentleman's answer is yes. Thank
you.
The gentlewoman from Massachusetts, Ms. Pressley, who is
also the Vice Chair of our Subcommittee on Consumer Protection
and Financial Institutions, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters.
And I wish to associate myself with your most recent
comments and query right there, and also with the words of my
colleague, Congressman Torres, as well. I am just sitting here
shaking my head. Some of the commentary offered here, I am not
sure if it is callousness, cluelessness, or both. But it
certainly is at the height of hypocrisy here.
But, Madam Chairwoman, housing is a human right, period.
Everyone deserves a safe and stable home, period. But for some
of my colleagues in the Senate who don't share this view, let
us break down the economic need for housing investments.
Experts estimate that the bipartisan infrastructure bill
and the Build Back Better Act combined would create nearly 4
million new good-paying jobs each year. Now, these new jobs are
sorely needed as millions of people in America, as our
colleagues across the aisle continue to underscore, are still
unemployed. However, if we don't also make housing more
affordable, job gains from these bills will be severely
weakened.
Professor Chetty, you are an economist and an expert on
economic mobility. In your opinion, could you characterize what
it means to have a, ``good-paying job?'' What is that? What
does it look like?
Mr. Chetty. I would say it is being financially secure,
having some savings, having a good quality of life, having
stability.
Ms. Pressley. I would agree with that. So if someone is
paying 50 percent of their income on rent, and has no savings
month after month, would you say they are financially secure?
Mr. Chetty. No, I would not.
Ms. Pressley. Yes, me neither. If someone can't afford a
$200 medical bill on top of their monthly rent, would you
consider them financially secure?
Mr. Chetty. No, I would not.
Ms. Pressley. Yes, me neither. If someone's rent is so high
that they can't afford to order takeout once a month on their
income, would you consider them financially secure?
Mr. Chetty. No, I would not.
Ms. Pressley. Yes, me neither. So, passing legislation that
creates millions of good-paying jobs is absolutely critical.
But if housing costs continue to rise at these rates, those
good-paying jobs will barely keep folks housed. They will
barely be making ends meet when factoring in their housing
expenses.
Residents in my district are moving farther and farther
away from work to find housing that is affordable. Right now,
they have to work an 87-hour work week to afford a median
market rate one-bedroom apartment. Boston area drivers spend
164 hours in traffic per year. They are moving farther and
farther away from work to find housing.
Not only is the added commute time impacting the quality of
life and the environment, but it costs the economy $4 billion--
that is ``billion,'' with a ``b''--a year from lost
productivity. So, Professor Chetty, how would investing in
affordable housing in opportunity-rich neighborhoods help boost
local economies and break the cycle of intergenerational
poverty?
Mr. Chetty. Thank you, Representative Pressley.
I think investing in affordable housing in opportunity-rich
areas is likely to be critical, both for people who are facing
precisely the challenges you just laid out in allowing them to
achieve better lives, but I would argue more broadly in helping
our economy in general by giving more kids pathways to the
types of jobs that will lead to innovation and lead to
development that will help all of us in the long run.
Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Professor Chetty.
The Build Back Better Act must include investments to
preserve and build new affordable housing. If you don't support
that because it is the right thing to do, if you can't do that
out of benevolence, then support it because it is the smart
thing to do for our economic recovery.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentleman from Tennessee,
Mr. Kustoff, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Kustoff. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Mr. Dickerson, if I can go back to your testimony, I think
you had a statistic that in 2019, Americans spent more on taxes
than on food, clothing, and housing combined, which is an
incredible statistic. Can you talk about the tax burden, and
let us play things out. Let us assume that a reconciliation
package of some type passes along party lines. What will the
increased government borrowing and the spending--how will that
impact quality of life for the people that you cited in your
remarks?
Mr. Dickerson. That is a great question, and I think that
should be why we are here, and tone hing that we are taking
into consideration is what is the effect on real people
throughout the country of the policies that Congress is
considering?
Increasing the tax burden even further would take money
away from people who earned it, and it would give it to the
politicians here in Washington, D.C., and away from the people
who earned it. And I think that some taxes are necessary,
probably way less taxes than Congress currently collects from
people, because Congress spends too much. They spend too much
on the wrong things that are outside of the proper role of the
Federal Government.
Mr. Kustoff. And again, taking it further, and obviously at
this point, we don't know whether reconciliation is going to
pass or not. We don't know at what limits. We do know that we
have inflation. There are some economists who characterize the
inflation as transitory. How do you characterize inflation?
Mr. Dickerson. I am concerned about it, especially if
Congress does go through and spend another $3.5 trillion or
potentially even more if this $1.1 trillion infrastructure
bill. So much money, borrowed money going into the economy,
printed cash going into the economy, that severely increases
the risk of drastic price increases.
It would, as Mr. Barr described earlier, cause even more
cash chasing even fewer goods. Combined with the rest of the
policies in the bill that would restrict the supply of goods,
and restrict the supply of labor, that is just a recipe for
disaster for our economy.
Mr. Kustoff. And how would increased taxes that would be
passed in reconciliation to pay for some of this affect not
high earners, not high-income Americans, but everyday
Americans?
Mr. Dickerson. That is a great point as well.
President Biden has promised over and over and over that he
would not increase the tax burden on anyone making under
$400,000. Unfortunately, we know that is not true, based on the
Joint Committee on Taxation's (JCTs) analysis of the Build Back
Better Act. The JCT analysis shows that hundreds of thousands
of Americans making less than $20,000 a year will see their
taxes go up in 2023 under the bill. That is the Joint Committee
on Taxation's analysis.
By 2027, more than half of all middle-income earners will
see their tax burden go up by a collective $3 billion. That is
a violation of the President's promise, according to the
nonpartisan official congressional scorekeeper.
Mr. Kustoff. Mr. Dickerson, we talked about State and Local
Tax (SALT) deductions. As we know from reports, there has been
some talk that the SALT deduction that was part of the 2017 Tax
Cuts and Jobs Act, which I think a lot of us can argue was a
main driver for the economy performing as strongly as it did
before the pandemic and even after the pandemic, that with that
deduction, there is some talk of either increasing that limit
or maybe outright repealing the deduction cap.
When we talk about the SALT deductions, whom does that
benefit the most?
Mr. Dickerson. Almost exclusively high earners and high-tax
States.
Mr. Kustoff. And in the earlier panel, we heard from a
property owner who talked about having a tough time with making
ends meet. Part of it is property taxes. What would the
repealing of the SALT cap deduction or increasing it, what
effect would that have, in your opinion, on local governments
and their ability to increase property taxes?
Mr. Dickerson. It would be a Federal subsidy for local
property taxes, which high-income earners would be able to
deduct, and low-income earners would not be able to deduct.
Mr. Kustoff. Thank you. My time has expired.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentleman from
Florida, Mr. Lawson, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lawson. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and I thank the
ranking member as well. And I would like to welcome our
panelists to the committee today.
I know from the standpoint of when we are talking about
affordable housing, now the panel has heard everything except
affordable housing what people are talking about. I can tell
you during my tenure in the legislature in Florida for 20-some
years, even when we had full employment, one of the biggest
concerns then, when they said there were jobs and everything
around, there were still concerns about affordable housing. How
can we get affordable housing because of the amount of minimum
wage, as you heard some of my colleagues explain about, and how
would people be able to have access?
We have had the problem in Florida with schoolteachers,
where communities wanted to invest in affordable housing in
order to keep teachers in the State of Florida, because of the
amount of money that they were earning.
And my question will probably go to Dr. del Rio. What we
have found is that where hospitals have decided also to invest
in affordable housing because of the shortage of nurses and
bringing nurses into different communities, especially into the
larger cities, is finding affordable housing for them so they
can function and help take care of our medical needs. Some
hospitals have begun to do a lot of investment in that area.
Dr. del Rio, please discuss how affordable housing can
lower medical costs for individuals and diminish the need for
such expensive care?
Dr. del Rio. Thank you, Representative Lawson.
This is actually a really important issue. What we learned
is that very little healthcare actually happens in hospitals,
right? A lot of the healthcare happens in the community. A lot
of your health happens in the community.
While we, as a nation, talk a lot about how genetics
determines your disease and how we are doing personalized
medicine, I can tell you that your disease outcomes and the
type of diseases that you are going to get are more determined
by your ZIP Code than by your genetic code. Where you live
determines what kind of diseases and what outcomes you are
going to have.
If you are going to have cancer, your outcomes may be a lot
worse if you live in certain ZIP Codes than if you live in
others--same individual, same genetics.
In the hospital, as a clinician, not uncommonly we will
have somebody that we need to discharge who happens to be
homeless, and that person may go to a shelter, but sometimes
will also go to the street. And then, not uncommonly, that
individual will then not take their medications, not be able to
fill their prescriptions, and then will be readmitted. So the
cost to healthcare is frequently the cost of readmissions and
the cost of unnecessary care that could have been avoided by
doing housing.
For that reason, many healthcare systems across the nation
are now actually investing in creating housing and in finding
housing so they can have patients housed. They are partnering
with organizations like that. There is an important need to
create housing for people who are unstably housed and are being
discharged from the hospital. It is a way to decrease the cost
of healthcare in America.
Mr. Lawson. Thank you, Doctor. And I would like to see if
Ms. Rice would like to respond to that?
Ms. Rice. Thank you, Congressman Lawson.
Yes, I agree with the response by Dr. del Rio 100 percent.
We know that housing and residential segregation are social
determinants of health. In fact, my organization, the National
Fair Housing Alliance, just partnered with Zillow Corporation
because Zillow, as a company, is so concerned about this issue.
Zillow found that healthcare facilities are hyper-
concentrated in predominantly White communities, and they are
very sparsely located in communities of color. And that has
contributed to the disparities that we are seeing related to
the COVID pandemic. So, yes, we definitely need to address
housing issues and build more affordable housing in areas that
are very well-resourced.
Mr. Lawson. Thank you very much, Ms. Rice.
And I know my time is running out, but I want to say to my
colleagues that it is not just affordable housing for the poor,
but it is affordable housing for everyone who has been left
out, without the opportunity to have a roof over their head.
With that, Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentleman from
Ohio, Mr. Davidson, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Davidson. I thank the chairwoman.
And it is like deja vu all over again. Here we are talking
about housing. And housing truly is important, but it is one of
many things that are important within the Financial Services
Committee. But of course, when you are homeless, one of your
priorities is to get housing. But let us talk about the whole
scope of housing within our committee.
Housing affordability and homelessness have been used
really as a proxy to try to implement Bernie Sanders' socialist
agenda. A lot of Democrats feel betrayed because they voted for
Joe Biden, not Bernie Sanders. But what we are voting on here
in the House is gussied up, rebranded, and called something
else, but it is really Bernie's agenda.
Massive spending is already fueling inflation, and it is
destroying the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar. And who
does this hurt the most? Retirees and working-class Americans.
Despite how much President Biden and his staff would like to
think that inflation is a, ``high-class problem,'' it is the
working class who suffer most when you destroy the purchasing
power of the U.S. dollar.
Just to quote one of our witnesses from earlier today
speaking to you, Madam Chairwoman, was John Harrison. He was
formerly homeless and now works for Prince George's County
Department of Social Services. And he said that the housing
vouchers aren't going as far anymore because of the price of
housing.
Housing isn't deflating. It is getting more expensive. And
the more money we dump into the market, the more expensive it
gets. And this highlights one of the problems at the Federal
Reserve. They provided essential stability when this crisis
first hit in March and April of 2020. The market needed
liquidity, and they provided important backstops.
But since then, they have continued to inflate the housing
market. They are adding $40 billion a month of mortgage-backed
securities purchases. It is driving up the housing values by
funding the market, fueling low interest rates that are putting
that cash out of dollars into property.
When people go out and they say, the good thing about
inflation--because we heard from our Press Secretary that
inflation is actually a good thing. It is not a bad thing. Most
people don't think it is a good thing. But, okay, if you got a
raise, 2 or 3 percent, I guess that is good, except it is not
keeping up with inflation that is at 5 to 8 percent.
But even if you get one of those raises, what is happening
to the money? What is happening to the money? You get a raise,
and if you are on the edge in a safety net program and you are
starting to work your way out of it, you could hit a benefit
cliff.
This is why I want to talk about a bill I have called the
People-Centered Assistance Reform Effort. It is designed to
create a commission that would work together, four Republicans,
and four Democrats, and they would get a year-and-a-half to
work together, and what could they do?
They couldn't cut spending, but they could redesign the
program. So instead of five programs intended to accomplish the
same purpose, you could have one common goal and one set of
funds. And you could have onramps and offramps in that program.
But whatever they do, it would be up to the commission, and
then Congress would get a vote.
So, here is the solution. Our safety net programs cost our
country about $1 trillion a year. This isn't Social Security or
Medicare. This is just means-tested programs. Collectively, 90-
plus programs, $1 trillion a year. And they are hard to
administer, they are expensive to administer, and they are not
incredibly effective.
As the 31 hearings we have had in the committee on housing
highlight, the system, in spite of the resources, isn't
effective because we aren't using the resources well. So this
commission, I hope everyone in the committee would cosponsor,
is that it doesn't advantage of disadvantage any one party, and
frankly, it goes way beyond the scope simply of this committee
to look at the whole safety net and to deal with benefit
cliffs.
Mr. Dickerson, in the time we have left, could you just
highlight how important it is to deal with the impact of
inflation? And when you look at the means-tested programs, what
is the impact of, I guess, mal-administration in some of those
programs?
Mr. Dickerson. I think that is a great question.
The Ways and Means Committee has produced a really
interesting infographic that has this crazy spiderweb of more
than 80-plus means-tested welfare programs that exist at the
Federal level, and that just has to be incredibly difficult to
navigate.
We have spent trillions and trillions of dollars since the
war on poverty was declared, without a measurable advancement
in outcomes. So, I do think that is a really important thing
that Congress should be examining. How do we get better results
for people and make it so that we can have an opportunity
society and allow people to not have to depend on Federal
Government welfare programs?
Mr. Davidson. Thank you so much for that.
And look, it is important that we explore these issues, and
it is really important that we work together where we can agree
because, obviously, with two parties, we disagree about some
things. But we have really in the House, a leadership in
Speaker Pelosi and, frankly, some of our other leaders are
opposed to working with any colleagues on any issue.
I yield back.
Chairwoman Waters. I tried to get it in before you--will
you yield?
Mr. Davidson. I yield to the Chair.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
As you know, Mr. Davidson talked about this working
relationship that we should have, and I am sitting here not
really understanding how is it we can work with those who would
deny that January 6th was an invasion on our Capitol and an
undermining of our democracy?
How can I work with people who won't even protect voting
rights for all of the people in this country? How can I work
with people who would deny vouchers to the poorest people in
this country, but support the biggest businesses in this
country for tax cuts?
Give me a break. Yes, we could work with each other if
there was some respect for the basic issues that affect people
of color and poor people in this country. Without that, it is
very difficult, if not impossible.
I yield back.
Thank you very much. The gentlewoman from North Carolina,
Ms. Adams, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Adams. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and amen
to that.
Thanks for holding this hearing, and thank you to the
witnesses for their testimony.
Ms. Rice, you have spoken extensively about the links
between racial inequality and access to housing. And I think a
number of us on this committee are actually aware of the links
between those topics, but I would like to hear directly from
you. Can you talk about why it is important for any substantial
investment in our nation's housing infrastructure to address
the intersection of systemic racism and access to housing?
Ms. Rice. Congresswoman Adams, thank you so much for the
question.
For centuries, since before the inception of our nation,
laws and policies enacted to create land, housing, and credit
opportunities were race-based. They were race-conscious,
denying critical opportunities to Black, Latino, Asian
American, and Native American individuals.
Throughout the course of this hearing, I have heard some
Members of Congress refer to the Build Back Better plan as,
``social spending,'' and if that is the case, I feel compelled
to point out that this nation, the United States, has always,
always had social spending, invested in social spending to
support land and homeownership, but it was just social spending
for White citizens to the exclusion of people of color.
The Indian Removal Act was massive social spending that
transferred hundreds of millions of acres of land away from
Native American populations and into the hands, overwhelmingly,
predominantly, of White households. The Homestead Act was
social spending. The Land Grant Act was social spending. The
Home Owners' Loan Incorporation Act, in which we saved
predominantly almost exclusively White homeowners from
foreclosure during the Great Depression, was social spending.
The National Housing Act was social spending.
But again, these policies were developed and implemented in
an explicitly racially-discriminatory manner. These laws and
policies created residential segregation, unequal credit
markets, institutional redlining, restrictive zoning, and other
structural barriers that are still with us today.
And the Build Back Better plan provides that all of the
housing provisions remain in the bill; provides a start. It
gives us a beginning in helping to remove these structural
barriers because it contains critical provisions to address
housing inequities and fair housing.
Ms. Adams. Great. Thank you.
Professor Chetty, I would like to touch briefly on
something that I brought up earlier in this hearing, the link
between accessible affordable housing and quality education.
Ms. Galindo earlier today talked about how difficult it was to
provide both a good home and a quality education for her son.
So, Professor, can you discuss the links between affordable
housing and education outcomes for our students?
Mr. Chetty. Thank you, Representative Adams.
Yes, I think there is a strong link between affordable
housing and educational outcomes in particular because we have
such varied school systems across neighborhoods in the United
States due to local property tax financing typically and issues
of single family zoning that was brought up before. This
creates a lot of variation in the quality of schools across
areas. And often, it is very difficult for families to afford
housing in the neighborhoods that can give their children the
best chance of getting a good education and ultimately
achieving better life outcomes.
So, I view these two things as integrally connected.
Ms. Adams. Thank you.
Dr. Shahyd, can you elaborate on the intersections of
racial inequality, climate change, and the need for housing
investment?
Mr. Shahyd. Yes, thank you, Representative Adams.
Housing and climate change are intricately linked in a
number of ways. First and foremost, the expansion of the
interstate highway system, the suburbanization of America was
largely fueled by White Flight racism, moving out of the inner
cities, the transfer of wealth from Black communities, the
transfer of public investment from inner-city communities to
build suburban communities outside of the city, which really
fueled our transportation emissions, our car-dependent
infrastructure, and our car-dependent cultures, which have
really fueled climate change.
So, the relationship between climate change, the
disinvestment of Black communities across this country, and the
buildout of our residential neighborhoods are all intricately
linked to our histories and our legacies of racism in this
society.
Ms. Adams. Thank you so much.
Madam Chairwoman, I yield back. I am out of time.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentleman from
North Carolina, Mr. Budd, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Thank you.
Mr. Budd. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
And Mr. Dickerson, thank you for being here, and thank you
for being here in person.
The physical condition of America's public housing stock
has declined, and it has a lot less to do with funding and more
to do with a shift over the last 40 years toward modern housing
programs. There is simply little justification to put enormous
amounts of new funding into a public housing system that is
mismanaged and outdated when better alternatives exist.
Mr. Dickerson, can you talk about some of the ways that we
can better use funding to achieve public housing goals?
Mr. Dickerson. I think that is a great question, sir, and I
think that is a good argument for devolving public housing
programs away from the Federal Government so that those types
of investments can be made by State and local communities and
civil society groups that are much closer to the problem than
the bureaucrats here in D.C.
Mr. Budd. Okay. The Federal Government will hit record high
spending levels this year. We poured trillions of dollars into
the economy already, and now Democrats are trying to spend
trillions more in reckless spending. As a percentage of GDP,
our public debt reached 125 percent in the second quarter. Do
you believe that there is a level of debt that is unsustainable
for our economy, and if so, what is that number?
And I asked--in that very seat, I asked Secretary Yellen
that a few weeks ago, and she indicated that we could sustain a
significantly higher debt burden than we have right now. A
Democrat following my questions actually, in a dialogue with
Secretary Yellen, said that number could be closer to Japan's
number, which is 250 percent of GDP. That would be doubling our
debt to $60 trillion or more.
What do you think?
Mr. Dickerson. There certainly is a natural debt limit, and
what I mean by that is there is a point at which creditors will
not lend to the United States Government. The problem is nobody
knows what that is. It is impossible to predict that because as
soon as you know when that is, that pulls the crisis forward in
time, as people try to get ahead of the global financial
crisis.
So, at some point, we will hit that point. We don't know
when that is going to be. We do know that if we continue on the
current path, at some point over the long run, we can't keep
spending more at the Federal Government faster than the growth
of the economy. We can't legitimately promise our creditors
that we will be able to tax at high enough rates in order to
pay back the creditors if we continue spending at a rate that
is faster than the growth of the economy.
Mr. Budd. Thank you.
In closing, I hear every day from people back in North
Carolina how inflation is impacting them. They are telling me
how much harder it is to make ends meet.
What impact does this level of spending have on American
families? What do you think, Mr. Dickerson, about this level of
spending?
Mr. Dickerson. I think it is unsustainable, and it is
damaging. Not only the level of spending, but the things that
the Federal Government is spending on that are outside the
scope of what the proper role of the Federal Government is.
It distorts markets. It creates inefficiency. It creates
waste. There is all sorts of duplication in the Federal
Government. And as you mentioned, all of this additional debt-
fueled government spending goes into the marketplace, and then
it drives up prices. And that is very concerning.
Mr. Budd. Yes. Thank you for your time. I yield back.
Mr. Torres. [presiding]. The gentleman from Indiana, Mr.
Hollingsworth, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Hollingsworth. Wonderful. I appreciate the time that
has been afforded and I certainly appreciate the Majority
holding such an important hearing to talk about these really
weighty topics. I know a lot of us have done much work over the
past few Congresses in trying to find solutions to this that
will be workable and hopefully enduring to close some of these
gaps that are so important.
Ms. Rice, I wanted to ask you a few questions, because I
read with eagerness your lengthy written testimony. On page 15
of that testimony--I don't know if you have it in front of
you--you have a chart, ``Denial Rates Based on Race.'' I am
trying to divine your intent with this chart to help me
understand what you were showing me by virtue of its inclusion.
Ms. Rice. Congressman Hollingsworth, thank you so much for
the question.
Yes. So, we were speaking to and explaining the impact of
historically discriminatory policies and the inequitable
systems that they have created. For example, one of the
inequitable systems that we have now in existence is our dual
credit market in which--
Mr. Hollingsworth. Right.
Ms. Rice. Yes.
Mr. Hollingsworth. Okay. I guess what I am trying to
understand from this is, is the aim to have equal denial rates
based on race?
Ms. Rice. No, that is not the aim. The chart is just an
explanation of the current reality.
Mr. Hollingsworth. Got it. But the reality is we want to
have equal denial and equal acceptance rate for anyone who is
similarly situated, irrespective of their race, right?
Ms. Rice. Yes. So people who are substantially--
Mr. Hollingsworth. Correct.
Ms. Rice. Yes.
Mr. Hollingsworth. Correct. So when you break this down by
race, what you are really doing is showing that race is closely
correlated with income and wealth, which is a historic inequity
that needs to be corrected. But it is not really that the
denial is dependent on race. It is more that race is correlated
with income and wealth, which is also correlated with denial
rate. Isn't that the case?
Ms. Rice. Yes. And race is also highly correlated with
structural inequities.
Mr. Hollingsworth. For clarity, the outcomes are highly
correlated with race. Structural inequities may be the reason
why those outcomes exist. Correct?
Ms. Rice. What I mean by that is race is highly correlated
with structural inequity. For example, race is the number-one
predictor of whether or not a payday lender will be
geographically located in a neighborhood.
Mr. Hollingsworth. Right. But that is also just a proxy
variable for income level in that particular neighborhood. My
point is you cannot say--
Ms. Rice. No, it is not.
Mr. Hollingsworth. My point is that you cannot say that
structural inequities are closely correlated with race. What
you can say is that the outcomes from inequities historically
are highly correlated with income and wealth, which are also
highly correlated with race.
And on page 13 of your testimony, you say the following,
``The bias in our markets is not a bug, but a feature. They
were built that way and intended to operate in a discriminatory
fashion.'' Can you distinguish between a bug and a design
feature? What do you mean?
Ms. Rice. What I mean by that is that it is not a fluke.
The bias that we see in our marketplace is not a fluke. It is
not a happenstance. It is not perchance.
Mr. Hollingsworth. What you mean is it is intentionally
designed into the system?
Ms. Rice. Yes.
Mr. Hollingsworth. You believe that in the architecture of
the financial markets system, there was intent to create
discrimination today?
Ms. Rice. Yes.
Mr. Hollingsworth. Okay. Buttress that really kind of
astoundingly broad claim with data or some sort of
understanding of what the intent was in the creation of the
financial system. You don't go on to provide any evidence to
that.
Ms. Rice. Yes, it is in the testimony.
Mr. Hollingsworth. Okay, where is it?
Ms. Rice. Yes, it is in the testimony. For example, the
Home Owners' Loan Corporation, which we explain in the
testimony, developed a system for underwriting homes and rating
communities and rating consumers that was race-based. So, if
you look at the residential security surveys that were
developed by the Federal Government, they specifically ask for
the number of African Americans living in a geographical area.
Mr. Hollingsworth. Do they do that today?
Ms. Rice. No, but--
Mr. Hollingsworth. The problem today is that race has
become highly correlated with income and wealth. That is a
problem I want to solve. But we should not pretend the problem
is its correlation with race. We should find the underlying
variable, not the variable between the two.
And with that, I will yield back.
Mr. Torres. The gentleman's time has expired.
I would like to thank our witnesses for their testimony
today.
The Chair notes that some Members may have additional
questions for these witnesses, which they may wish to submit in
writing. Without objection, the hearing record will remain open
for 5 legislative days for Members to submit written questions
to these witnesses and to place their responses in the record.
Also, without objection, Members will have 5 legislative days
to submit extraneous materials to the Chair for inclusion in
the record.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:01 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
October 21, 2021
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