[Senate Hearing 117-570]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




                                                        S. Hrg. 117-570


   SAFE AT HOME: PRESERVING AND IMPROVING FEDERALLY ASSISTED HOUSING

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

                                HEARING

                               before the

                            SUBCOMMITTEE ON
           HOUSING, TRANSPORTATION, AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

                                 of the

                              COMMITTEE ON
                   BANKING,HOUSING,AND URBAN AFFAIRS
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                                   ON

   EXAMINING HEALTH THREATS IN HOUSING AND ESPECIALLY PUBLIC HOUSING

                               __________

                             JULY 20, 2021

                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban 
                                Affairs



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                Available at: https: //www.govinfo.gov /





                                 ______
                                 

                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

50-749 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2023













            COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS

                     SHERROD BROWN, Ohio, Chairman

JACK REED, Rhode Island              PATRICK J. TOOMEY, Pennsylvania
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey          RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama
JON TESTER, Montana                  MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
MARK R. WARNER, Virginia             TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts      MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland           THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada       JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
TINA SMITH, Minnesota                BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona              CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming
JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  JERRY MORAN, Kansas
RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia             KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
                                     STEVE DAINES, Montana

                     Laura Swanson, Staff Director

                 Brad Grantz, Republican Staff Director

                      Cameron Ricker, Chief Clerk

                      Shelvin Simmons, IT Director

                    Charles J. Moffat, Hearing Clerk

                                 ______

   Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development

                      TINA SMITH, Minnesota, Chair

          MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota, Ranking Republican Member

JACK REED, Rhode Island              RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey          MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
JON TESTER, Montana                  BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada       CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland           JERRY MORAN, Kansas
JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia             STEVE DAINES, Montana

                Tim Everett, Subcommittee Staff Director

Caroline Hunsicker, Senior Policy Advisor for Housing, Transportation, 
                           and Native Affairs

         Jackie Bossman, Republican Subcommittee Staff Director

                                  (ii)








                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                         TUESDAY, JULY 20, 2021

                                                                   Page

Opening statement of Chair Smith.................................     1

Opening statements, comments, or prepared statements of:
    Senator Rounds...............................................     4

                               WITNESSES

Dave Jacobs, Chief Scientist, National Center for Healthy 
  Housing, Columbia, Maryland....................................     5
    Prepared statement...........................................    20
Jennifer Keogh, Deputy Executive Director, Minneapolis Public 
  Housing Authority, Minneapolis, Minnesota......................     7
    Prepared statement...........................................    39
Sharon Vogel, Executive Director, Cheyenne River Housing 
  Authority, Eagle Butte, South Dakota...........................     8
    Prepared statement...........................................    43

              Additional Material Supplied for the Record

Statement of Captain John Gardell, Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire.....    47
Joint Statement of the Leading Organizations of the Nation's Fire 
  and Emergency Services.........................................    51
Statement of Mary McGovern, President, Minneapolis Highrise 
  Representative Council.........................................    53

                                 (iii)








 
   SAFE AT HOME: PRESERVING AND IMPROVING FEDERALLY ASSISTED HOUSING

                              ----------                              


                         TUESDAY, JULY 20, 2021

                               U.S. Senate,
  Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs,
    Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community 
                                               Development,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Subcommittee met at 2:45 p.m., in room 538, Dirksen 
Senate Office Building, Hon. Tina Smith, Chair of the 
Subcommittee, presiding.

             OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIR TINA SMITH

    Chair Smith. The Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, 
and Community Development will come to order. This hearing is 
in hybrid format. Our Members are in person, but we will have 
witnesses testifying both in person and by video.
    So thank you so much, Senator Rounds, for joining me in 
this bipartisan hearing to look at health threats in housing 
and especially public housing. And thank you to all of our 
panelists, our three panelists, for joining us in this 
important hearing.
    On Wednesday morning, at 3:56 a.m. on November 27th, 2019, 
one day before Thanksgiving, Minneapolis firefighters were 
dispatched to the Cedar High Apartments, a 49-year-old public 
housing highrise at 630 Cedar Avenue. And as they arrived, 
through the light snow and fog, firefighters discovered that 
alarms had been triggered for a fire on the 14th floor of the 
25-story building.
    Firefighters quickly recognized the magnitude of the 
challenge and immediately called for backup. The first three 
firefighters on the scene attacked the fire and attempted to 
rescue the victims, but the overwhelming heat of the fire soon 
forced them to turn back. As backup arrived, the firefighters 
launched a second attack, but the fire quickly spread 
throughout the 14th floor and on to the units on the upper 
floors, fueled by gusting wind blowing through a window that 
had come open.
    As the fire spread, residents clamored to get out. 
Stairwells and corridors filled with smoke and heat, and people 
struggled to get down the highrise stairs. For hours, brave 
firefighters battled the blaze and worked to rescue people from 
the inferno. It is tragic that not everyone made it out safely 
that frigid morning. Five residents, ranging in age from 32 to 
79, perished. Four were on the 14th floor and one on the 17th 
floor.
    There are a number of factors that contributed to the 
deaths in the 630 Cedar fire, but many experts point to the 
building's lack of fire sprinklers as a leading cause. Under 
Federal law, highrise public housing buildings built before 
1992, like 630 Cedar, are not required to have fire sprinklers. 
The Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that 
there could be as many as 184,000 public housing units across 
the country that lack fire sprinklers, just like the Cedar 
highrise.
    The loss of life in the 630 Cedar fire is tragic, and 
nothing that we do will bring back those lost to their families 
and their loved ones. But, colleagues, I hope that today's 
hearing will galvanize us to understand these life and safety 
risks and then take action to protect our constituents from 
further tragedy because fires are not the only life and safety 
risk that people face in their homes.
    Today, more than 500,000 children in the United States live 
with elevated levels of lead in their blood, according to the 
Centers for Disease Control. Children exposed to lead face 
significant health risks, including lower intelligence scores, 
behavioral problems, and hearing and speech issues. Black 
children and lower-income children are disproportionately 
victims of lead paint exposure. The leading cause of exposure 
is lead paint on walls and window sills, and this problem 
exists in every State.
    According to the National Center for Healthy Housing, 54 
percent of homes in Minnesota were built before 1978 and are 
likely to contain lead-based paint. In South Dakota, the number 
is exactly the same, 54 percent. In Ohio, it is 68 percent. In 
Pennsylvania, it is 69 percent.
    Another significant risk at home is exposure to radon gas. 
Radon, which is colorless, odorless, and radioactive, is the 
leading cause of lung cancer among nonsmokers, resulting in 
21,000 deaths per year, according to the EPA. In Minnesota, 
estimates are that two of every five homes has unsafe radon 
levels. And in South Dakota, the National Center for Healthy 
Housing estimates that 48 counties have average indoor radon 
levels higher than the EPA's action level.
    Yet, many Americans have no idea of the risks that they 
face in their homes. So these health and safety risks are not 
limited to public housing and federally assisted housing alone, 
but the Federal Government, I think, has a special obligation 
to make sure that homes supported by, or funded by, taxpayers 
are safe and free of known hazards. And I hope that this 
hearing will raise awareness for all Americans about these 
health and safety risks.
    Mitigating these risks will not be easy, public housing 
authorities operate on tight budgets and face billions of 
dollars of maintenance backlog. The reality is that we need 
significant investments in fire sprinklers and fire safety 
measures and carbon monoxide detectors, and in lead paint 
testing and remediation, and in radon testing and remediation.
    But the good news is that many of us are working on a 
solution. The American Jobs Plan would invest $40 billion for 
life-safety upgrades and other renovations in our Nation's 
public housing stock, and this investment will save lives. We 
should all push to secure funding specifically for fire 
sprinklers and other fire prevention efforts in public housing 
and support funding for programs to test for and remediate lead 
paint and radon in public and privately owned housing.
    I have introduced legislation to fund fire sprinkler 
installation in public housing, which has bipartisan support in 
the House, and I ask my Republican and Democratic colleagues to 
join me on this bill.
    Now before I turn to Senator Rounds, I would like to just 
briefly share excerpts from three letters that I have received 
from Minnesotans and from firefighters in this last week, and I 
would ask that these letters be inserted in the record in full, 
without objection.
    The first comes from Hawo Geyre, a resident of the Cedar 
High apartment complex, and she said, ``We still feel the loss 
of the five beloved community members, and every day we can 
still see where the fire happened. It is time to require the 
retrofitting of sprinklers in highrises, and it is time for the 
Federal Government to provide the funds to make this happen. We 
do not want to see any more lives lost to fire.''
    And another is a letter signed by the International 
Association of Fire Chiefs, the National Association of State 
Fire Marshals, and 10 other fire safety associations, and they 
write, ``There is no single investment that HUD can make when 
it comes to addressing life-safety issues that is more 
important than retrofitting public housing with fire sprinkler 
systems. In buildings with sprinkler systems, the death rate 
per fire can be reduced by at least 87 percent. In fact, the 
risk of death to firefighters is nearly eliminated, and the 
injury rate is lowered by 67 percent in structures with fire 
sprinklers.''
    And, colleagues, finally I want to read a bit of a letter 
from Captain John Gardell of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire on 
behalf of the International Association of Firefighters, and he 
shares his personal experience with a highrise fire in 
Pittsburgh during his first year on the job. The blaze was on 
the fifth floor of an eight-story highrise, and Captain Gardell 
writes, ``Arriving at the door of the apartment, my crewmates 
and I made entry into the residence. Through the thick, black 
smoke and elevated temperatures, we located the victim and 
extracted her from the building. Once outside, we turned her 
over to the on-the-scene paramedics. Alive but in critical 
condition, she received advanced life-support medical care on 
the scene while being transported to the hospital. Sadly, our 
rescued fire victim did not survive. She died in the hospital a 
few days later.''
    ``I tell you this story,'' says Captain Gardell, ``because 
I have thought about this call many times over my career. I am 
very confident this fire death was preventable. I am certain 
that had an automatic fire sprinkler system been present in the 
building, the victim would likely have survived.''
    So this issue of home health and fire safety is critical to 
every American. Many have recently seen footage of the tragic 
highrise condo collapse in Florida and are asking themselves 
for the first time whether their own homes are safe. So in this 
moment, I hope that we can join together to raise awareness of 
these critical life and safety hazards and commit ourselves to 
doing everything we can to stopping preventable deaths and 
dangers in our communities.
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, and I thank 
you and will now turn to Senator Rounds for his opening 
Statement.

            OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MIKE ROUNDS

    Senator Rounds. Thank you, Madam Chair. And let me just 
being once again by apologizing for being late to this. Once 
again, we are intermixing votes along with the Committee 
schedule, but thank you, Madam Chair.
    And thank you to our witnesses for taking the time to 
attend today's hearing. I would especially like to thank Ms. 
Sharon Vogel from my home State of South Dakota for her 
willingness to testify. I look forward to hearing from all of 
you.
    When it comes to federally assisted housing, I think we all 
can agree that the goal is to provide a safe living space for 
those who need it. However, the means to achieve that end can 
be debated. Now is the perfect time to take a step back and to 
evaluate how current allocations are being utilized and how to 
better tackle these issues. While a lack of resources could be 
seen as a primary problem, I believe that agencies across the 
board can be more efficient with their program implementation 
and mission-critical functions. After these bureaucratic 
inefficiency problems are addressed, that is when additional 
funding can be considered.
    For example, HUD has instituted mitigation efforts to 
decrease radon exposure. However, for the 6 years between 2013 
and 2018, HUD did not test for radon in a single unit operated 
by a housing authority directly managed by the Department. How 
can we justify additional allocations for a program that is not 
utilizing its resources in the first place? Sometimes it really 
is not a funding issue; it is a utilization and implementation 
issue.
    There are similar issues when it comes to Native American 
housing as well. Native housing funds come from both HUD and 
the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The BIA has been dubbed the least 
effective and most mismanaged Federal agency, which becomes 
apparent when you take a deeper look into the conditions of 
federally assisted Native American housing. According to the 
National American Indian Housing Council, 40 percent of on-
reservation housing is inadequate, a fact that is unmistakable 
to me every time I drive through a reservation back home and 
see many of the homes boarded up and unfit for use.
    One of the most pressing housing issues prevalent on 
reservations is overcrowding. According to a 2017 HUD report, 
nearly 16 percent of American Indians' and Alaska Natives' 
households experienced overcrowding compared to the national 
average of 2.2 percent. This level of overcrowding not only 
affects those living in the houses but the structures 
themselves. A staggering 12 percent of these households have 
heating issues compared to just one-tenth of 1 percent of the 
total in the United States. This is simply unacceptable.
    However, there is a bit more to tell in regards to the 
struggles Native Americans face with housing. Despite having 
mismanaged funds and inefficiencies at the agency level, there 
is a true lack of resources available to this population. This 
issue is perpetuated by the fact that much of the population 
data coming from reservations is significantly undercounted. 
The undercounting happens for a multitude of reasons, one being 
that families are afraid to admit the number of people they 
have living in their homes. When the population is not 
adequately counted, it results in inadequate funding levels, 
and the problems such as overcrowding persist.
    It is apparent there are a wide range of public housing 
safety issues across the country. It is time we work to address 
these problems, and I look forward to joining Chairman Smith in 
this effort, especially in regards to some of the most 
prevalent and least addressed safety issues that are found on 
reservations in South Dakota.
    Again, we welcome all of you here today, and I do look 
forward to hearing from our witnesses on the State of housing 
safety in our country. Thank you.
    Chair Smith. Thank you, Senator Rounds. I am now going to 
introduce our witnesses, and I will introduce all three and 
then turn to each of you to make your opening Statements. We 
are grateful to welcome today Dr. David Jacobs, who is the 
Chief Scientist at the National Center for Healthy Housing, 
Jennifer Keogh, who is the Deputy Executive Director of the 
Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, and Sharon Vogel, who is 
the Executive Director of the Cheyenne River Housing Authority 
in Eagle Butte, South Dakota. Welcome and thank you for your 
willingness to be with us today, and I look forward to hearing 
from each of you.
    Before the witnesses begin, I have just a few reminders. 
This hearing is in a hybrid format. Our Members are in person, 
but we will have witnesses testifying both in person and by 
video. If there is a technology issue, we will move to the next 
witness and then come back again.
    For each of you, you have 5 minutes for your opening 
Statements, and you have a clock in front of you or on your 
screen to guide you. And your full written Statement will be 
made part of the record. For Ms. Vogel, who is joining 
virtually, you will hear a bell ring when you have 30 seconds 
remaining and then again when your time is expired. And the 
speaking order will work out here at the podium amongst the 
Senators.
    I will now turn to Dr. Jacobs for 5 minutes for his opening 
Statement. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF DAVE JACOBS, CHIEF SCIENTIST, NATIONAL CENTER FOR 
              HEALTHY HOUSING, COLUMBIA, MARYLAND

    Mr. Jacobs. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before 
you today. I come before you not only as scientist but also as 
a low-income housing provider. I have served on the board of 
Lincoln Westmoreland Housing. Here in the District in the Shaw 
neighborhood, we provide housing for over 150 families. So I 
sort of straddle both worlds.
    I think in general the link between housing and health is 
pretty still poorly understood. If you think about it, these 
are two biggest parts of our economy that are at risk. We are 
dealing with an affordable housing crisis, and we are still 
trying to figure out how to deal with our health care financing 
system. So there is an enormous cost and burden here. If we 
were to understand the links, we could avoid some of the 
unnecessary expenditures and optimize both worlds.
    A lot of the burden that we have talked about is not only 
lack of funding, but as Senator Rounds said, it is also 
implementation issues. But in general, we have as a Nation 
failed to construct, maintain, preserve housing that not only 
prevents injury or illness but actually supports good health. 
If you think about it, it just makes no sense in the world to 
have a child go to the emergency room with an asthma attack or 
a lead poisoning and then treat the symptoms, only to release 
him back into the home with mold or with asthma triggers or 
lead-based paint hazards. That causes increased costs 
needlessly.
    There is some alarming new evidence that I want to put 
before the Committee today. Blood lead testing, according to 
CDC, has been down by 34 percent during the pandemic. There is 
some preliminary evidence that hospitalizations for serious 
lead poisoning cases may actually be increasing. And HUD's new 
survey on housing shows that there is an additional 4.6 million 
homes that have deteriorated lead-based paint. Half a million 
kids still have blood lead levels above the CDC reference 
value, and in my book, that is an epidemic, in anybody's 
counting.
    Thirty-five million homes have at least one health and 
safety hazard. As we have heard, these problems are most severe 
among low-income and populations of color, but I do want to 
note that HUD's survey also shows the problem is just as bad in 
the rural areas. We did a study in Illinois on private well 
waters, and we found that 48 percent of those wells had lead in 
the water. Now that is the bad news.
    The good news is that solutions do exist. We have 
researched this extensively. We have the systems that we know 
how to prevent a lot of these, and so we only need to take them 
to scale and release our people's ability to make the right 
decisions and to expend the resources wisely.
    We sent letters on both appropriations and infrastructure. 
So I want to, first of all, thank the Congress in recent years 
for increasing the appropriations for a long neglected issue of 
lead in healthy homes. The House provided 460 million in its--
in its appropriations bill. The National Safe and Healthy 
Housing Coalition, which, I would note, is cochaired by someone 
from Indian Country, has recommended a figure of $600 million. 
We also need increases at CDC and EPA. I would note CDC has not 
updated its blood lead surveillance data since 2017.
    I also think that it is important to include lead in the 
infrastructure bill, lead paint specifically, and specifically 
window replacement. There is a friend of mine in Minnesota who 
has probably replaced more windows than anybody else in the 
country. Windows have the highest levels of lead paint. They 
create--if we replace them, it creates jobs, it creates 
improved energy value, it eliminates a major source of lead 
poisoning, and it increases home value and reduces fuel bills. 
So what is not to like?
    We, at the Center for Healthy Housing, talk to many 
jurisdictions, and the need for increased technical assistance 
remains dire. For example, we provided technical assistance to 
Cleveland, which was able to pass its own local lead poisoning 
prevention law. And I think that gets to Senator Rounds' issue 
about implementation. The technical assistance does not really 
happen if it is not included in the bills.
    We have some specific recommendations with regard to 
disclosure. Most houses in this country remain uninspected, and 
that means parents do not know exactly where the lead or other 
hazards are located in their own homes.
    We have different income eligibility criteria across 
different programs. So CDBG, Lead Hazard Control, HOME 
weatherization, LIHEAP, Medicaid, they all have slightly 
different income requirements, and there is just no good reason 
to have these different definitions of ``low income.'' We could 
streamline that.
    I agree with Senator Smith that Congress should also 
increase radon testing. It is shameful that they did not do 
more in previous years. We just did a study on this that showed 
the importance of testing all homes.
    So I want to close with a--quickly with a quote from 
President Roosevelt, who said, ``A Nation must believe in three 
things: It must believe in the past. It must believe in the 
future. And it must, above all, believe in the capacity of its 
own people to learn from the past so that they can gain in 
judgment in creating their own future.''
    So I think lead hazards and other healthy homes issues 
belong in our past. Let us do something so that they do not 
remain in our future. Thank you.
    Chair Smith. Thank you very much, Dr. Jacobs. We will now 
turn to Ms. Keogh.

    STATEMENT OF JENNIFER KEOGH, DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 
  MINNEAPOLIS PUBLIC HOUSING AUTHORITY, MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA

    Ms. Keogh. Chairwoman Smith, Ranking Member Rounds, Members 
of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify 
today. My name is Jennifer Keogh, and I am the Deputy Executive 
Director of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority in 
Minneapolis, Minnesota. I am also the Chair of the Legislative 
Network Advocacy Committee of the National Association of 
Housing and Redevelopment Officials, also known as NAHRO.
    The Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, or MPHA, is the 
largest housing authority in the State of Minnesota, and our 
mission is to deliver quality, well-managed homes to a diverse, 
low-income population. MPHA provides rental assistance to 
26,000 people through our Public Housing and Housing Choice 
Voucher Programs. We own and operate 6,000 units of public 
housing, including 900 family units and 42 highrise 
communities. Our highrise population is 60 percent elderly and 
disabled; 80 percent identify as a person of color. And our 
average household income is under $13,000 annually, which is 
approximately 18 percent of the area median income.
    I am here today to support Senator Tina Smith and Senator 
Amy Klobuchar's Public Housing Fire Safety Act, which would 
provide needed resources to PHAs, including MPHA, to install 
fire sprinklers. Additionally, I am here to support the 
investment of at least $70 billion to address the capital needs 
of public housing properties across the country. Housing is 
critical infrastructure.
    In November 19, a fire occurred in one of MPHA's highrises 
that took the lives of 5 residents. In April 20, I was selected 
to serve as MPHA's new Deputy Executive Director alongside Abdi 
Warsame, MPHA's new Executive Director and CEO. Despite 
overwhelming physical needs throughout the entire portfolio, we 
have made the installation of fire suppression systems a top 
priority. In doing so, due to the lack of funding, we are 
forced to ignore other critical needs of aging building 
systems.
    MPHA is implementing a plan in 2021 to install sprinkler 
systems in 10 of its buildings. Sixteen of our buildings are 
already retrofitted with sprinkler systems, and we have plans 
to complete installations in all remaining buildings within the 
next 3 years. Retrofitting a sprinkler system is costly. It can 
cost $1 million or more, and the overall cost for this year's 
installation in those 10 additional units is estimated at 
approximately $12 million.
    While we recognize that the investment in sprinklers is 
essential, the results of prioritizing the sprinkler work is 
that other crucial capital needs remain unmet. These needs 
include not just sprinklers but electrical, plumbing, heating, 
elevators, and other essential building systems. MPHA has an 
estimated $164 million capital repair backlog across our 6,000-
unit portfolio, and this figure does not include important 
upgrades to actually improve the housing we provide.
    We cannot make these needed repairs without significant 
resources provided by Congress. Our residents are depending on 
Congress to finally provide MPHA with the funding it needs to 
improve and preserved our units. Minneapolis is not the only 
PHA that struggles to keep up with growing capital needs and 
few Federal resources to preserve our affordable housing. The 
State of Minnesota's estimated capital backlog is $355 million, 
and this problem is mirrored across the country.
    In 2010, the National Public Housing Capital Needs 
Assessment found that the backlog for public housing capital 
funding was $26 billion, with an annual growth rate of $3.4 
billion. The report noted that deferring maintenance each year 
causes the amount of backlog to compound at an 8.7 percent 
inflation rate. As a result, even when accounting for other 
Federal capital programs, NAHRO estimates that the capital fund 
backlog was approximately $70 billion in 2019.
    Housing is critical infrastructure. We need Congress to 
meet their obligation to provide safe housing to our residents 
by fully funding the $70 billion capital backlog. We also need 
targeted investments through the passage of the Public Housing 
Fire Safety Act to help us quickly address pressing safety 
issues.
    Chairwoman Smith, Ranking Member Rounds, thank you for the 
opportunity to testify today. I am happy to answer any 
questions.
    Chair Smith. Thank you so much. And we will now turn to Ms. 
Sharon Vogel.

 STATEMENT OF SHARON VOGEL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CHEYENNE RIVER 
          HOUSING AUTHORITY, EAGLE BUTTE, SOUTH DAKOTA

    Ms. Vogel. Good afternoon. Thank you, Chairman Smith and 
Ranking Member Rounds, and Members of the Subcommittee, for the 
opportunity to testify before you today on preserving and 
improving our federally assisted homes.
    [Technical difficulties.]
    Chair Smith. OK. Ms. Vogel is having technical 
difficulties. So while we are waiting, maybe I will start with 
a couple of questions, and then when she comes back in, we can 
get going. That is great.
    OK. Ms. Keogh, I would like to start with you a little bit. 
I appreciate your testimony about the Cedar High apartment fire 
in 2019, which was the impetus for the bill that Senator 
Klobuchar and I are working on. Could you just tell us a little 
bit more about what Minneapolis has done since that fire?
    And in your testimony, you described how you have had to 
prioritize sprinklers as opposed to other deferred maintenance. 
Could you tell us a little bit more about what you have not 
been able to get done as a result of that reprioritizing?
    Ms. Keogh. Thank you, Chairwoman Smith. So as you know, I 
was not--I certainly was not there in November when the fire 
happened. So when I came into leadership with Abdi, what we--
what presented before us was they had a fire suppression plan, 
which I know we have shared with you, and it was over a period 
of time. So that fire suppression plan that we evaluated was 
that we would do fire suppression as--not as a standalone 
project but during major rehabilitation projects and as dollars 
were available. That plan--as we came into leadership, very 
clearly fire suppression became a top priority. So we went into 
our first budget process and determined how can we accelerate 
this plan in a shorter amount of time, and that is where--that 
is where that three--that 3-year plan came.
    So that plan, though, as you asked, is we have to ignore 
other critical needs. So the toughest part of this job is when 
you have to compare what are all critical life and safety 
issues: Catastrophic fire. Elevators go down in the middle of 
the night, and it is a 284, you know, story highrise of 
seniors. They are all--it is--they are all difficult decisions. 
But it is elevator repair. It is--it is our heating systems. It 
is our windows and facades. It is our roofs. All of those types 
of things you make decisions on, what will get funded that year 
and what will not, based on appropriations coming in from the 
capital fund.
    Chair Smith. Right. And your deferred maintenance gap 
backlog is about 160?
    Ms. Keogh. $164 million.
    Chair Smith. $164 million, right. So I think that this just 
illustrates the scope of the challenge that we have--that we 
have in front of us.
    Dr. Jacobs--I want to thank you for that, Ms. Keogh.
    Dr. Jacobs, I wanted to touch base with you on a related 
issue. The COVID-19 pandemic has made abundantly clear the 
connections between health and housing. The CDC identifies 
housing as a key social determinant of health, meaning that the 
environment and the conditions that you live in have a big 
impact on what health risks you face and what health outcomes 
you get. And I think this is an important foundation for this 
conversation that we are having about health and safety risks 
in housing generally.
    So, Dr. Jacobs, could you talk a bit about housing as a 
social determinant for health, what that means, and how housing 
conditions impact outcomes, and especially what impact this has 
on children when they are living in substandard housing?
    Mr. Jacobs. Thank you for the question. I will open with a 
speech I heard in Minnesota from the CEO of the Blue Cross Blue 
Shield Foundation, and he opens it with a picture of a salmon 
swimming upstream. And he said: Those of us in the health 
world, we need to do what this fish is doing. We need to swim 
upstream and look at the root causes. It is not enough to just 
treat people after they get sick.
    So as you indicated, housing is clearly one of those. Over 
a hundred years ago, housing and health were actually joined at 
the hip through the sanitation movement. We had cholera. We had 
typhoid. We had tuberculosis. And while better medicine played 
a key role in conquering those diseases, it was also by 
improving ventilation, improving potable water supply in the 
buildings.
    And then over the years, that connection atrophied, and so 
people lost the connection between housing and health. The 
housing world became more financial. The medical world became 
more treatment oriented. And only now we are realizing when it 
comes to chronic diseases, like lead poisoning and asthma and 
mold-induced illness and certain injuries, if we do not attack 
the root causes, we will pay the cost down the road, which is 
illogical. Right? It does not make sense.
    So making the investment in building systems so that we 
reduce the health care cost is--it has been shown over and over 
again through lots of cost-benefit analyses. It just makes 
simple sense.
    We should not have to choose between--I remember a housing 
authority director once told me, ``Well, you pick one. I have 
got enough money to keep my furnaces working in the winter, or 
I can take care of my lead paint problem. Which one would you 
pick?''
    Chair Smith. Right.
    Mr. Jacobs. We should not be in a world where we have to 
make those kinds of choices. We can do the right thing.
    Chair Smith. Thank you so much.
    I think, Senator Rounds, Ms. Vogel is back on the phone, so 
we will get her. But I think that that is very much the point 
that you were making about the substandard housing that we see 
so often in Indian Country.
    All right, Ms. Vogel. Welcome back and you may begin your 
testimony.
    Ms. Vogel. Thank you very much, and good afternoon, 
Chairwoman Smith and Ranking Member Rounds and Members of the 
Subcommittee, for the opportunity to testify before you today 
on preserving and improving our federally assisted homes.
    My name is Sharon Vogel. I am the Executive Director of the 
Cheyenne River Housing Authority located on the Cheyenne River 
Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. I am also the Chairwoman of 
the United Native American Housing Association, comprised of 33 
tribally designated housing entities from the States of North 
and South Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, and 
Colorado. I am also proudly serving my first term on the Board 
of Directors of the National Low Income Housing Coalition and 
continue my service as a board member of the National American 
Indian Housing Council.
    The Cheyenne River Housing Authority currently provides 
low-income housing to over 800 families. We serve primarily a 
Native American population throughout 19 communities on our 
reservation. The Cheyenne River Housing Authority is the 
tribally designated housing entity for the Cheyenne River Sioux 
Tribe. We currently manage 735 rental units, 86 home ownership 
units, with 42 new rental units under construction, and we 
continue to build our successful record of developing 
affordable housing by designing and financing rental and home 
ownership homes for eligible families.
    Native Americans living in tribal areas and remote Alaskan 
villages experience some of the greatest housing needs in the 
country, with high poverty rates, low incomes, overcrowding, 
lack of plumbing and heat, and unique development issues. Due 
in part to these unique conditions, Native American households 
have been especially hard hit by the pandemic and its resultant 
economic downturn, being more likely to develop serious illness 
as a result of the pandemic.
    But overcrowding of available housing stresses both the 
occupants and the structures themselves. Homes on Cheyenne 
River require much more maintenance than the average wear and 
tear to remain safe and livable. This is not for the lack of 
property management. It is because there are not enough homes 
to go around. A 3-bedroom house is designed for a family of 5 
or 6, but often because of overcrowding these units are 
occupied by 3 or more families, sometimes as many 15 
individuals sharing a house.
    Preserving limited Indian housing resources nationwide 
makes it essential that Indian housing be remembered in the 
upcoming infrastructure legislation, including the 70 billion 
being targeted for rehabilitation of federally assisted 
housing.
    We strongly support the recently introduced bill to 
reauthorize the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-
Determination Act, sponsored by Senators Smith and Rounds. In 
particular, the proposed provisions reinstating the highly 
successful drug elimination program and the long-awaited 
changes to the NAHASDA program requirements, many of which were 
originated by our UNAHA region.
    In order to bring NAHASDA resources where they are needed 
the most, we also support the proposed 9 billion increase for 
the competitive IHBG program.
    The pandemic has exposed significant gaps in our Federal 
housing safety net. Housing inequities contributed to the 
spread of COVID cases and deaths. And the lack of a universal 
housing assistance program placed tens of millions of renters 
at risk of losing their homes and, with that, the ability to 
keep themselves and their families safe. We can build back 
better by closing gaps in our safety net so that our tribal 
governments and our Nation are better prepared for the next 
crisis. Thank you.
    Chair Smith. Thank you so much, Ms. Vogel, and to all of 
our testifiers. And I will now turn to Senator Rounds for 5 
minutes of questioning.
    Senator Rounds. Thank you, Madam Chair. And look, first of 
all, let me just say thanks to Ms. Vogel for taking the time to 
speak with us today as well as our other two panelists. Your 
information is critical that we share it and that we look at 
ways to improve housing across this country for those 
individuals that simply do not have other alternatives.
    Ms. Vogel, I would like to thank you for taking the time 
out of your day to join us all the way from Eagle Butte in 
South Dakota. You may be familiar with a member of my personal 
staff, Kyle Chase, who is also an enrolled member of the 
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. He is also my chief legal counsel, 
and he has been a real asset in terms of providing us with 
additional information about working through some of these 
issues.
    But I want to begin by inquiring as to the unique 
vulnerabilities that Native American communities face when it 
comes to housing safety. Ms. Vogel, can you expand on the 
specific housing safety issues facing tribes today and how 
those issues differ from off-reservation public housing?
    Ms. Vogel. Thank you for that question, Senator Rounds. The 
unique threats that are facing our--the safety of our families 
is, of course, one, the rural isolation of our communities, the 
response time for any first responders. You know, not having 
firefighting equipment stationed locally, that is one.
    Another is the meth contamination of our units. We have an 
epidemic of meth use in our tribal communities, and the 
residual effects of the use of meth in our homes leaves our 
elders and our young children, those with compromised health 
conditions, in very vulnerable positions. That is also a big 
concern of ours.
    Others is, you know, that the overcrowding creates a lot of 
stress on the house. Mold is a problem, you know, from just all 
the moisture in the house and not having proper ventilation. 
You know, the lack of heating and upgrades to keep up with the 
demand. You know, we face, you know, serious problems with 
heating and cooling costs, making, you know, families choose 
between, you know, do I pay my light bill, do I pay my heating 
bill, or you know, do I buy groceries.
    So there is a lot of stresses because of the threats that 
face our families to ensure--that are not the same as what the 
others testified. There is not enough money to address every 
threat, and so we, too, have to prioritize. Thank you.
    Senator Rounds. Ms. Vogel, thanks for that. And I would 
like to follow up a little bit. You indicated earlier that 
Chair Smith and I have promoted the reauthorization of NAHASDA, 
and part of that is it reinstates the HUD drug elimination 
program. I am curious. Sometimes I do not think folks realize 
what an impact a meth house is or what impacts that has in 
terms of getting somebody new into a home that has had meth in 
the past. Could you talk just a little bit about what it takes 
to rehab a home where meth has been a problem?
    Ms. Vogel. Yes. That is--that has been an increasing cost. 
You know, when we discover--when we have a vacant unit, we test 
that unit to see if it tests positive for meth. So if it tests 
positive for meth, then it is the cleanup cost, the 
remediation, before we can even start to address the 
rehabilitation of it.
    But the condition of the homes that--when there is meth 
used and the behaviors of the tenants themselves is there is a 
lot of tenant damage to the unit. And so, you know, we have 
gone in where we have had to strip the sheetrock down, and 
because of holes in the walls we find dirty needles behind the 
sheetrock, and so we have to be very careful in removing 
things. Doors are missing. There is broken windows. So there is 
just structural damage to the unit. So you know, when we go in, 
we have to replace cabinets. We have to replace vanities, 
doors. We have to re-sheetrock. There is just an extensive lot 
of damage unfortunately because of the drug use and the 
behaviors, violent behaviors, that come with that.
    So we always have catchup. So we try to do as many as we 
can, you know, throughout the year, but at the end of the 
fiscal year, we are carrying vacant units into the next year.
    Senator Rounds. Thank you for that, and my time is expired. 
But I think you lay out some of the additional costs that maybe 
a lot of folks out there are not aware of that go into trying 
to rehab a home that in the past worked, but with someone on 
meth or using meth in that home, the type of damage that it 
does to the home and what it takes to get it all put back 
together. Thank you very much for participating this afternoon.
    Chair Smith. Thank you, Senator Rounds.
    Senator Cortez Masto.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair and 
Ranking Member. Let me follow up on Ms. Vogel's conversation 
with Senator Rounds. I am a proud cosponsor of the bipartisan 
NAHASDA reauthorization. Based on the challenges, Ms. Vogel, 
that you highlighted, how would the NAHASDA reauthorization 
improve the State of Indian housing? What would you be able to 
do with this reauthorization?
    Ms. Vogel. Well, there are so many improvements to it just 
for program-wise. You know, having the reinstatement of the 
drug elimination program would allow us to really focus on 
prevention and engaging our youth in drug-free activities, 
which would give them options.
    Other improvements, of course, would be the--allowing the 
rent structures to be determined by the TDHE, working with our 
tribal government. We have such--some of our families have zero 
income. I mean, they go months without income because of the 
general assistance is sporadic. And so we do not get the 
revenues from them, you know, on an ongoing basis.
    The other improvements, of course, would happen is that, 
you know, we would be eligible. The HUD-VASH would be 
permanent. We would be able to apply for those vouchers for our 
veterans and be able to house our homeless veterans.
    The--just the inclusion of making sure that, you know, we 
could use the Federal funds that are program funds as matching 
funds for other Federal programs, and so we would be able to 
leverage our dollars with other Federal funding opportunities 
to do infrastructure or build homes. So there are so many 
improvements that would make a difference for our TDHEs and 
just have an immediate impact.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. And then, Ms. Keogh, same 
question to you, with respect to reauthorization of NAHASDA but 
also some of the ways that Congress can support efforts by 
State housing authorities, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban 
Development, to make federally assisted housing more resilient 
to fires, floods, or other natural disasters.
    Ms. Keogh. Thank you for the question. Regarding NAHASDA, 
we do not have any Indian housing within my portfolio. So I 
cannot address that, but thank you for the question in regards 
to what can we do for federally assisted housing. For years 
right now, we are receiving 10 cents on the dollar for the 
dollars that we need for capital repairs. And so the bill that 
Senator Smith and Senator Amy Klobuchar have out for fire 
safety having standalone dollars that are set aside just for 
fire suppression would be incredibly impactful for housing 
authorities like mine as well as the other housing authorities 
nationally that still have work to do with fire suppression.
    In regards to the other critical life and safety issues, 
again 10 cents on the dollar, so funding a housing authority is 
at levels that allow them to make all of the repairs necessary 
so that we are providing decent, safe, and sanitary housing.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. And, Dr. Jacobs, you said 
it best. We know that safe and stable housing was critical to 
preventing additional illness and deaths due to the COVID-19 
pandemic. Housing is health care; it is. And in your testimony, 
you point to a specific downside of stay-at-home practices for 
low-income children, especially Black and Latino children: 
higher levels of lead paint poisoning and asthma from mold. 
What did your research find about an increase in housing-
related illnesses? What else should we be aware of?
    Mr. Jacobs. This underscores the importance of CDC's 
surveillance system. We have a pretty good surveillance system 
for medical care. When it comes to housing, there is not really 
a good way to track ongoing housing deficiencies that can 
impact health in the long run. So CDC needs to release its data 
on blood lead levels. It looks actually like asthma, for 
example, improved a little bit, along with certain other 
communicable diseases. On the other hand, it appears that 
injuries, home-based injuries, might have increased a little 
bit.
    It is still very preliminary, but it is logical, if you 
think about it, that because children or elders spend more time 
at home during the pandemic we want our homes to be healthy. If 
they do not--because they shield us in part from the pandemic. 
But as you spend more time at home, your exposure goes up. And 
with exposure going up, then other things can happen, whether 
it is carbon monoxide poisoning or others. So it is important 
that houses be built in a resilient manner, and that means 
increasingly using green standards.
    You may remember Superstorm Sandy looked at--when they did 
the rebuilding, beyond the rescue they also said, let us not 
just build it back the way it used to be; let us build it back 
in a more resilient fashion. And therefore, if you are going to 
rebuild using HUD dollars, you have to comply with green 
standards. Green standards is sort of an emerging area, if you 
will, but the evidence is increasingly clear that they improve 
health, improve resilience, and also, of course, have an energy 
benefit.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
    Chair Smith. Senator Van Hollen.
    Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Madam Chair, Ranking Member 
Rounds. Thank you to all our witnesses today.
    Dr. Jacobs, thank you for your work in this area. I am 
proud of the fact that the National Center for Healthy Housing 
is in Maryland. Columbia, Maryland.
    Let me ask you this. We know that communities across 
Maryland, in fact across the United States, including Baltimore 
in our State, you can see the legacy of disinvestment. You can 
see the legacy of segregation and redlining. And in fact, 
nationally, 60 percent of Black Americans live in historically 
redlined communities, the same communities that also have a 
much higher risk of lead poisoning, and that, as you know, has 
been an ongoing issue in Baltimore City as well.
    We have had hearings in this Committee that, you know, 
talked about the correlation between that redlining and 
segregation and the wealth gap. And can you talk a bit about 
how housing safety issues are also intimately tied to health 
equity outcomes, especially in low-income communities and 
communities of color?
    Mr. Jacobs. Thank you for the question. It is critically 
important. It seems to me that this issue is sort of the poster 
child, if you will, of environmental justice or environmental 
injustice, if you will. We pay the price over the long run for 
not making sure that not only we have adequate health standards 
for housing but that it is equitable. Equity matters a great 
deal. And increasingly, what we need to do is think about, 
well, how do we build resilient communities so that they are 
mixed income, so that they are diverse, so that people can use 
the strengths that all of us have to overcome each of our own 
weaknesses. So I think there are some models out there that 
point to that direction, but building mixed-income 
neighborhoods from a housing perspective, it is tough.
    I opened the hearing by saying I am president of the board 
of a low-income housing development here in DC, in the Shaw 
neighborhood. Now 10 years ago, that was a struggling 
neighborhood. Now it is going upscale, and some people no 
longer want us in that neighborhood. We are the only affordable 
housing left there.
    So overcoming the barriers, helping people to grasp why 
mixed-income neighborhoods, why diverse neighborhoods, and why 
that is good for the Nation seems to me an ongoing challenge 
that those of us in both housing and health need to think 
through more thoroughly. It is a great question.
    Senator Van Hollen. Well, I appreciate your answer because, 
as you have heard from my colleagues on the Committee and as 
you know, we are in the process now of looking at major 
investments in housing, both in terms of greater potential for 
first-time ownership but also more rental assistance. And one 
of the proposals that we have put forward, actually on a 
bipartisan basis, in legislation has been affordable housing 
vouchers that allow families with younger kids to move to areas 
of greater opportunity, which would increase diversity of 
neighborhoods. Are there other policies we should be thinking 
about here at the Federal level as we work on this legislation 
that would address the issues that you are talking about?
    Mr. Jacobs. The research based on this is pretty clear. 
There is a long-running study called ``Moving to 
Opportunities''. I am sure you are familiar with that. But it 
shows the positive health and many other benefits that accrue 
when we build these sorts of diverse neighborhoods.
    When it comes to the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher 
Program, I think it is important that we think through how 
those housing units qualify for the program. We have talked 
about carbon monoxide. We talked about lead. You cannot see 
those things with the naked eye, and yet most of HUD's 
inspection systems rely on visual assessment, which is not 
adequate for a number of these health concerns. So those 
inspection systems need to be reformed and based on good 
scientific evidence.
    And we should increasingly use standards like the National 
Healthy Housing Standard that two HUD secretaries released 
along with us and the American Public Health Association. That 
seems to me to be the trajectory of where we should go, and all 
federally assisted programs should comply with it. It is not 
enough to just leave it up to local jurisdictions to figure out 
how their own housing stock can be made safe and healthy and 
resilient. It is going to take some leadership from the Federal 
Government to clarify that.
    Senator Van Hollen. Can I do one quick follow-on, Madam 
Chair?
    And I know you are applying that idea across the board, and 
I think that is exactly right. I know that you have also done 
some specific work in the area of asthma. Is there an ongoing 
effort that those proposals that you just referenced include 
establishing certain standards with respect to protecting 
people from asthma in federally assisted housing programs?
    Mr. Jacobs. Yes, absolutely. So for example, one key 
component is ventilation. It turns out to be a rather 
complicated issue, but in multifamily housing, a lot of which 
is federally subsidized, there are not--there are not actually 
clear requirements when it comes to ventilation. I spent time 
in Chicago. It is good enough to open the bathroom window, 
according to the local code. But in the winter time, people do 
not do that. So asthma is highly correlated with inadequate 
ventilation.
    And clearly, if we were to reduce--if we were to improve 
ventilation standards--and there are some voluntary ones that 
are out there that should be used. I sit on the American 
Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning 
Engineers, which has a voluntarily standard. There is no reason 
why federally assisted housing should not adopt that standard. 
It says specifically how much air should be brought in, how it 
is going to be distributed, how it can be optimized so that you 
do not pay a huge energy penalty. And the evidence base is 
pretty clear that when you do that you have lower rates not 
only of asthma but moisture problems and the like.
    So housing needs to be thought of as a system, not as these 
sort of disparate, substandard elements.
    Senator Van Hollen. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Chair Smith. Thank you so much.
    Senator Rounds I do not believe has any follow-up 
questions. And, Senator Cortez Masto, do you have any other 
questions you would like to ask? OK.
    Right. I just have two things I would like to follow up on 
briefly and before we wrap up. I appreciate the questions that 
Senator Van Hollen was getting at, really focusing on issues of 
housing and equity. And in most places around the country, the 
residents of federally assisted housing are low-income; they 
are more likely to be elderly people, people living with 
disabilities, and people of color.
    Ms. Keogh, could you talk--this is clearly then an equity 
issue as we think about the much-needed investments in these 
federally supported housing. Ms. Keogh, could you tell us a 
little bit about the demographics of folks living in the 
residences that you serve in Minneapolis and why this lens, 
this equity lens, is so important?
    Ms. Keogh. Thank you for the question. So across our public 
housing portfolio, over 80 percent identify as a person of 
color, over 30 percent are Somali head of household, and 
specific to our highrise population, over 60 percent are 
elderly and/or a person with disabilities.
    So using an equity lens is imperative. It is imperative as 
we create policies, policies whether at the Federal level or 
policies that we get to create as housing authorities in how we 
in how we implement our programs, how we create new programs, 
whether again it is at the HUD level or at the local level, and 
how we balance our budgets. We have to be using an equity lens 
to address the disparities that exist across racial and ethnic 
lines.
    Communities were designed intentionally, and Senator Van 
Hollen talked about that, through redlining. In Minneapolis in 
particular, racial covenants were recorded. They are recorded 
back into homes back to 1910, and the use of those racial 
covenants forced our Black community to live in segregated 
communities. And we see that living out today in our city that 
is incredibly segregated, and the racial disparities along 
those lines are deep.
    And if we want to be a thriving community, we know that we 
need to make better investments in the city of Minneapolis as 
well as within our region. We have this--we have an opportunity 
to be intentional. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, I 
think, with the investments that are at stake, to intentionally 
repair what has resulted in displacement, racial segregation, 
and inequitable communities.
    Chair Smith. Thank you. Thank you so much for that.
    The last thing I want to just touch on has come up in the 
conversation is the issue of HUD inspections. And, Dr. Jacobs, 
HUD has procedures to inspect public housing buildings and HUD-
assisted multifamily buildings on a routine basis, and they 
look at conditions inside the building walls and doors and 
ceilings and so forth. And theoretically, HUD is equipped to 
identify and address the issues that they find. But what can 
you tell us about how these inspections work in practice? What 
is--you know. What in this process is not working? And does HUD 
have the staffing and the resources and the capacity to do what 
Congress is asking them to do?
    Mr. Jacobs. So there are disparate inspection protocols 
that different programs use. There is one for public housing. 
There is one for project-based Section 8 housing. There is one 
for Housing Choice Vouchers.
    I think it was in 2017 Congress asked HUD to consolidate 
all of those inspection protocols and also think about 
specialized inspection protocols, like for lead paint or asthma 
triggers or injury assessments. So HUD has not done that. We 
are trying to help them do exactly that. The National Healthy 
Housing Standard has annotated, scientific, evidence base that 
shows which housing defects are important, how the 
interventions can be done to improve them.
    I think it is a little--it is not clear who is in charge at 
HUD, frankly, on this. There is the Real Estate Assessment 
Center. There is the Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard 
Control, which I previously ran back in the 90s and the aughts. 
It is a little disparate. And so I think it is probably worth 
thinking through how can Congress mandate a true consolidation 
so that the inspection systems are reliable, they have been 
validated, and they are based on good evidence so that we can 
direct our scarce dollars to the remediations that make the 
most sense and the repairs. If we do not do the inspections 
properly, we will not be able to respond intelligently.
    So I think HUD could use some direction to proceed. It is 
not--they have been doing demonstrations now for, I do not 
know, a few years. It is time to marshal the evidence of what 
those demonstrations actually showed and develop a unified 
inspection protocol.
    Chair Smith. Thank you. And I just want to double-check if 
Ms. Vogel or Ms. Keogh would like to add anything to that HUD 
inspections issue.
    Ms. Keogh. Senator Smith, I can tell you I am certified in 
HQS. So I can do inspections for the voucher program, and I 
have done thousands of inspections in units across the Twin 
Cities' area.
    And this is just--I am going to just go on the record that 
this is my own personal thought, that you are right on the 
money, Doctor. They are very subjective. The way we do 
inspections for vouchers, what is required for public housing 
units are different. And from a voucher standpoint, it is 
incredibly subjective because it is based on a person's 
assessment of what they are going into. We are not trained to 
identify mold. Mold is something by sight. And so when we think 
about all of the healthy hazards that lie within units, having 
some type of standard protocol across all of our federally 
assisted programs, to me, just makes good sense.
    Chair Smith. Thank you. Ms. Vogel, would you like to add 
anything?
    Ms. Vogel. Yes. Thank you. I do support that, of 
establishing some standards. Currently, we do inspections. It 
is a requirement under our grant conditions that we do annual 
physical inspections of all of our rental units. And we do 
comply with that, but it is all done in-house. And so having 
the additional training and the resources to be able to become 
an industry standard is something that we definitely support.
    Chair Smith. Thank you so much. Well, I want to thank all 
of our witnesses for being here today and for providing 
testimony.
    And for Senators who wish to submit any questions for the 
record, those questions are due 1 week from today, which will 
be Tuesday, July 26th. For our witnesses, you will have 45 days 
to respond to any questions for the record. And thank you again 
so much.
    Thank you, Senator Rounds.
    And with that, our hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 3:48 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
    [Prepared statements and additional material supplied for 
the record follow:]
                   PREPARED STATEMENT OF DAVE JACOBS
    Chief Scientist, National Center for Healthy Housing, Columbia, 
                                Maryland
                             July 20, 2021


[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


                  PREPARED STATEMENT OF JENNIFER KEOGH
   Deputy Executive Director, Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, 
                         Minneapolis, Minnesota
                             July 20, 2021

    The Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA) is the largest 
housing authority in the State of Minnesota and our mission is to 
promote and deliver quality, well-managed homes to a diverse low-income 
population and, with partners, contribute to the well-being of the 
individuals and families in the community we serve. MPHA provides 
rental assistance to over 26,000 people through our public housing and 
Housing Choice Voucher Programs. MPHA owns and operates over 6,000 
units of public housing, including over 900 single family homes/
townhomes and 42 highrise apartment communities. Our highrise 
population is over 60 percent elderly and disabled, over 80 percent 
identify as a person of color, and our average household income is 
under $13K annually, which is approximately 18 percent of the Area 
Median Income.
    I am also the Chair of the Legislative Network Advisory Committee 
of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials 
(NAHRO). NAHRO, which was established in 1933, is a membership 
organization of 20,000 housing and community development providers and 
professionals throughout the United States. NAHRO members create and 
manage affordable housing for low- and middle-income families and 
support vibrant communities that enhance the quality of life for all. 
They administer more than 3 million homes for more than 8 million 
people.
    I come here today to support Sen. Tina Smith's and Sen. Amy 
Klobuchar's Public Housing Fire Safety Act (S. 265), which would 
provide needed resources to Public Housing Agencies (PHAs), including 
MPHA, to install fire sprinklers. Additionally, I am here to support 
the investment of at least $70 billion to address the capital needs of 
public housing properties across the country.
Why Sprinkler Systems Are Critical Infrastructure: Minneapolis Public 
        Housing Authority's Story
    In November of 2019, a fire occurred in one of MPHA's 42 highrises 
that took the lives of 5 MPHA residents. In April 2020, I was selected 
to serve as MPHA's new Deputy ED alongside Abdi Warsame, MPHA's new 
Executive/CEO. Despite overwhelming physical needs throughout the 
entire portfolio, we have made the installation of fire suppression 
systems a top priority. In doing so, constrained by a severe lack of 
funding, we are forced to ignore other critical needs of our aging 
building systems.
    MPHA is implementing a plan to install sprinkler systems in 10 of 
its buildings in 2021 (16 are already retrofitted with sprinkler 
systems) and plans to complete installations in all remaining buildings 
within the next 3 years. Retrofitting a single sprinkler system can 
cost $1 million or more, with the overall cost for this year's 
installation in ten additional highrises estimated at over $9.3 
million. Each of these buildings has many additional urgent needs that 
demand attention at the same time, but this work alone will consume 
more than one-half of all capital funds appropriated from Congress to 
MPHA for 2021. While we recognize that the investment in sprinklers is 
essential, the result of prioritizing the sprinkler work is that other 
crucial capital needs remain unmet.
    Federal investment in public housing has declined for many years 
and there is a growing backlog of capital needs. These needs include 
not just sprinklers, but electrical, plumbing, heat, and other 
essential building systems. MPHA estimates a $164 million capital 
repair backlog across our 6,000-unit portfolio and this figure does not 
include important upgrades to improve the housing we provide for the 
long-term.
    Despite inadequate funding, MPHA has made progress on addressing 
the health and safety needs in our public housing buildings. We have 
installed radon mitigation systems in all new builds since the mid-late 
2000s. This includes a few scattered sites, 350 Van White, Feeney 
Manor, and most recently Minnehaha Townhomes. Funding/dates as follows:

    350 Van White: primarily HUD HOPE VI funds, 2005

    Feeney Manor: primarily Federal competitive stimulus 
        dollars (ARRA), 2009/10

    Minnehaha: State, county, city, Federal Home Loan bank and 
        MPHA/HUD resources, 2018/19

    We have installed a few radon mitigation systems in existing 
scattered sites, as issues were identified in the course of major 
rehabilitation work. For the scattered sites rehab effort, we plan to 
test all units as part of lender due diligence and install mitigation 
systems as part of construction in all units that have radon levels 
that require mitigation. We plan to test in fall 2021 and work from 
2022-24. We have installed soil vapor mitigation systems at three 
highrise properties--the two Elliot Twins and Signe Burkhardt Manor. We 
received a Brownfield Gap grant from Hennepin County for the 
consulting/design work associated with the Elliot Twins.
    Minnesota Statute 299F.50 requires approved carbon monoxide (CO) 
alarms in all single-family homes and multifamily apartment units. MPHA 
installed combo smoke-carbon monoxide (CO) detectors in all units in 
the mid-late 2000s and we replace in kind as required/needed in 
accordance with State requirements.
    Finally, like all PHAs nationwide, in 1992 MPHA evaluated its 
scattered sites portfolio for lead-based paint hazards; remediation 
efforts were completed in the 426 homes where hazards were identified. 
In 2018, MPHA applied for and was awarded a $1M HUD LBP capital grant 
to reevaluate and remediate identified LBP hazards in our scattered 
sites homes. MPHA identified and remediated LBP hazards in interiors/
exteriors of 26 units and the exteriors only at 180 units. The exterior 
work identified was primarily soils remediation work.
    In recent years, our Minnesota State lawmakers and Congressional 
delegation have been working on a variety of bills that would help 
address the need for fire sprinkler systems in highrise buildings. The 
Minnesota National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials 
has estimated that in addition to MPHA, at least 1,000 other public 
housing units in the State are not fully sprinkled. In July 2021, the 
MN Legislature passed a bill that will mandate sprinklers in public 
housing highrise apartments by 2033, but the bill did not include any 
type of funding to support this mandate. MPHA hoped that the State 
legislature would have recognized the scale of the expense and public 
housing's overall unmet capital needs along with its recognition of the 
need for sprinklers. The funding proposed in the Public Housing Fire 
Safety Act would help us address this unfunded State mandate.
Housing Is Infrastructure: Federal Disinvestment in Public Housing Is a 
        National Problem
    Minneapolis is not the only agency that struggles to keep up with 
growing capital needs and few Federal resources to preserve our 
affordable housing. The State of Minnesota has units in all 87 counties 
with a total estimated backlog of $355M. The National Association of 
Housing and Redevelopment Officials estimates that the current backlog 
of capital needs for public housing properties nationwide exceeds $70 
billion.
What Is the Capital Fund Backlog?
    PHAs own and operate approximately one million units of federally 
subsidized public housing, providing affordable housing to families, 
the elderly, persons with disabilities, and veterans. Funding for 
public housing comes from two sources, the Operating Fund, which covers 
day-to-day maintenance and operations, and the Capital Fund. PHAs use 
Capital Fund dollars to repair and improve their public housing sites 
and buildings, address deferred maintenance needs, and replace obsolete 
utility systems. Sadly, chronic underfunding of the program has placed 
the inventory at risk, and Capital Fund appropriations lag dangerously 
behind accruing modernization needs.
    In 2010, the national Public Housing Capital Needs Assessment 
showed that the total backlog for public housing capital funding was 
$26 billion, with a projected growth rate of approximately $3.4 billion 
per year. Furthermore, the report noted that each year the cost of the 
backlog compounds at a rate of 8.7 percent due to inflation and the 
increased cost of addressing deferred maintenance. As a result, even 
when accounting for other Federal capital programs, including the 
Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) and Choice Neighborhood Grants, 
NAHRO estimates the Capital Fund backlog was approximately $70 billion 
in 2019.
NAHRO Capital Fund Backlog Methodology
    Since 2010, the number of public housing units across the country 
has decreased from the 1,079,561 units included in the 2010 assessment 
to 957,971 units in 2020, based on HUD Picture of Subsidized Housing 
(POSH) data. This represents an 11.26 percent reduction in units. To 
address this, we have decreased the backlog by 11.26 percent, 
representing the percentage of units that have left the Public Housing 
program through RAD, demolition, disposition, and voluntary conversion 
since 2010. This places the backlog at $78.828 billion.


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    PHAs have been able to reduce the Capital Needs backlog through RAD 
and Choice Neighborhood Grants. PHAs have used $12.6 billion through 
RAD and have received $487.425 million in Choice Neighborhood 
Implementation Grants specifically for housing rehabilitation and new 
construction through those grants since 2010. RAD and Choice 
Neighborhoods have only reduced the backlog by about $13.087 billion. 
In June 2020, MPHA completed their first RAD conversion, which enabled 
us to do a complete rehabilitation, including sprinkler retrofitting.
    In addition, MPHA has turned to looking for resources outside of 
the Capital Fund to complete our sprinkler projects. In February 2020, 
I, along with Resident Commissioner Tamir Mohamud testified before the 
State legislature about the Capital Fund backlog and advocated for 
State dollars to fill the gap to allow for the completion of important 
health and safety projects. We have advocated and applied for dollars 
at the city, State, and Federal levels. Most recently we applied for 
Congressionally Directed Spending within all 3 of our MN delegation 
offices.
What Can Be Done To Save Public Housing?
    Eradicating the public housing capital needs backlog is an 
investment in people and a cost-saving mechanism that prevents 
additional expenditures downstream. Each year the Capital Fund backlog 
grows, resulting in deferred maintenance costs add additional strains 
to the public housing portfolio. Accounting for underfunding, 
inflation, and the costs of deferred maintenance, the Capital Needs 
backlog has grown significantly in the past decade. Congress must 
provide the funding necessary to ensure communities can provide safe, 
secure housing to current residents of public housing and families who 
will need access to low-income housing in the future.
    This is unlikely to happen through annual appropriations. Congress 
must make a large-scale investment in public housing to preserve this 
affordable housing asset for future generations. Congress must include 
at least $70 billion for the Public Housing Capital Fund, including a 
robust allocation to Capital Fund formula funding.
    Additionally, funding targeted specifically at health and safety 
issues in public housing would ensure that any issues with properties 
that could endanger residents' lives are quickly addressed. The Public 
Housing Fire Safety Act, in conjunction with a large-scale investment 
in the Public Housing Capital Fund, is needed to ensure that the 
critical needs of public housing across this country are being met.
    MPHA cannot make these needed repairs without significant resources 
provided by Congress. My residents are depending on Congress to finally 
provide MPHA with the funding it needs to improve and preserve their 
units.
Public Housing Is Worth Preserving
    Public Housing is a critical piece of the affordable housing 
landscape. It provides permanently affordable units to the lowest 
income families across our Nation. According to a recent report by the 
National Low-Income Housing Coalition, there were only about 37 
affordable and available rental units for every 100 extremely low-
income renter households prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. At that point, 
70 percent of extremely low-income renters spent more than half of 
their incomes on housing costs. Preserving public housing for future 
generations is crucial to meeting the growing need for more affordable 
units in every community.
    In Minneapolis, public housing is an integral part of the 
community, serving 5 percent of the city's population. In March, 
Minneapolis High Rise Representative Council Vice President Tamir Ali 
Mohammad testified before the House Financial Services Housing, 
Insurance, and Community Development Subcommittee on the importance 
public housing played in his community during the pandemic. I want to 
share with you his testimony that in his words shows the importance of 
having a safe and affordable place to call home:

        When the pandemic hit and Gov. Walz issued the first stay-at-
        home order last March, MPHA closed the highrise community rooms 
        and asked residents to stay in their apartments and only go out 
        for appointments, necessary shopping, and exercise.

        MPHA stopped staff from entering resident apartments for 
        routine maintenance and instead had them do extra cleaning of 
        building entrances and elevators. MPHA provided food boxes and 
        boxed meals by working with community partners when congregate 
        dining and mobile food shelves had to close, including 
        providing halal meals during Ramadan. MPHA hosted a mask drive 
        and through community donations, including Dunwoody Institute, 
        they were able to provide masks for all residents and staff 
        when that became a recommendation for preventing COVID. Through 
        community donations and a grant from the Pohlad foundation, 
        MPHA organized delivery of personal hygiene products to 
        residents after many stores were looted and burned following 
        the police killing of George Floyd in May.

        MPHA posted informational signs about mask wearing and physical 
        distancing and worked with Resident Council members and 
        Security to enforce mask mandates. MPHA also restricted the 
        number of visitors that could come into the buildings and added 
        extra security guards to help control traffic and enforce the 
        mask-wearing rules. Throughout the year, MPHA staff shared 
        information and answered questions at ongoing resident meetings 
        held via teleconference due to the pandemic.

        MPHA organized onsite COVID testing throughout the pandemic and 
        offered onsite flu shots in the fall. On March 8, MPHA, through 
        its collaboration with the city health department, began 
        vaccinations in highrises and today nearly all 1st round of 
        COVID vaccination clinics have been completed at all 42 
        highrises at MPHA.

        Not only has MPHA provided me with stable housing, MPHA has 
        been an important partner with residents. Through resident 
        councils and MHRC board and committee meetings, residents 
        regularly communicate, and problem solve with MPHA staff on 
        individual highrise and citywide issues, like safety and 
        building maintenance. This partnership and cooperation has been 
        invaluable in improving the quality of lives of people living 
        in public housing highrises.

        Public housing is a valuable resource to the city of 
        Minneapolis as it means safe and affordable housing for the 
        members of our community who have the greatest need. 
        Homelessness has grown in Minneapolis. We see ``tent cities'' 
        spring up all around us and there are not enough shelter beds 
        to meet the need. Public housing is one answer to the housing 
        shortage. It is critical that it is preserved and increased. We 
        depend on Congress to provide enough funding to preserve and 
        expand public housing. It has failed in this role for too long. 
        It's time to provide sufficient funds so that existing public 
        housing homes are no longer lost to disrepair and it's time to 
        end the prohibitions on construction of new public housing.
Conclusion
    In order for MPHA to make the needed investments in its public 
housing stock, including the addition of fire sprinklers in its towers, 
we need Congress to meet their obligation to provide safe housing to 
our residents and fully fund the $70 billion Public Housing Capital 
Fund backlog. We also need targeted investments to help us quickly 
address this pressing safety issue through the passage of the Public 
Housing Fire Safety Act.
    Chairwoman Smith, Ranking Member Rounds, thank you for the 
opportunity to testify today. I am happy to answer any questions.
                                 ______
                                 
                   PREPARED STATEMENT OF SHARON VOGEL
  Executive Director, Cheyenne River Housing Authority, Eagle Butte, 
                              South Dakota
                             July 20, 2021

    Good afternoon, thank you, Chairwoman Smith and Ranking Member 
Rounds, and Members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to testify 
before you today on preserving and improving our federally assisted 
homes. My name is Sharon Vogel, I am the Executive Director of the 
Cheyenne River Housing Authority located on the Cheyenne River Sioux 
Reservation. I am also the Chairwoman of the United Native American 
Housing Association (UNAHA), with 33 member tribally designated housing 
entities (TDHEs) from the States of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, 
Montana, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado. I am also proudly serving my 
first term on the Board of Directors of the National Low Income Housing 
Coalition (NLIHC) and continue my service as a Board Member of the 
National American Indian Housing Council (NAIHC).
    The Cheyenne River Housing Authority currently provides low-income 
housing to over 800 families. The Cheyenne River Housing Authority 
serves a primarily Native American population in communities throughout 
the Reservation. The Cheyenne River Housing Authority is the tribally 
designated housing entity for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and we 
currently manage 735 rental units, 86 home ownership units--with 42 new 
rental units under construction and we continue to build on our 
successful record of developing affordable housing by designing and 
financing rental and home ownership homes for eligible families.
    Native Americans living in tribal areas and remote Alaskan villages 
experience some of the greatest housing needs in the country, with high 
poverty rates, low incomes, overcrowding, lack of plumbing and heat, 
and unique development issues. Due in part to these unique conditions, 
Native American households have been especially hard hit by the 
pandemic and its resultant economic downturn--being more likely to 
develop serious illness as a result of the pandemic. But overcrowding 
of available housing stresses both the occupants and the structures 
themselves--homes on the Cheyenne River Reservation require much more 
maintenance than the average wear-and-tear to remain safe and livable--
this is not for lack of property management, it is because there are 
not enough homes to go around. A three-bedroom house is designed for a 
family of 5 or 6, but often because of overcrowding these units are 
occupied by three or more families--sometimes as many as 15 individuals 
sharing the house. Preserving limited Indian housing resources 
nationwide makes it essential that Indian housing be remembered in the 
upcoming infrastructure legislation, including the $70 billion being 
targeted for rehabilitation of federally assisted housing.
    We strongly support the recently introduced bill to reauthorize the 
Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act (NAHASDA) 
sponsored by Senators Smith and Rounds. In particular the proposed 
provisions reinstating the highly successful Drug-Elimination program 
and the long-awaited changes to the NAHASDA program requirements, many 
of which were originally proposed by the UNAHA region.
    In order to bring NAHASDA resources where they are needed the most, 
we also support the proposed $1B increase for the competitive IHBG 
program.
    The pandemic has exposed significant gaps in our Federal housing 
safety net. Housing inequities contributed to the spread of COVID-19 
cases and deaths, and the lack of universal housing assistance placed 
tens of millions of renters at risk of losing their homes and with 
them, the ability to keep themselves and their families safe. We can 
build back better by closing gaps in our safety net so that our tribal 
governments and our Nation are better prepared for the next crisis.
    Severe substandard housing exists on Native lands in a much higher 
percentage than anywhere else in the Country. These conditions have 
been confirmed by nearly every Indian and Alaska Native housing study, 
and were highlighted in HUD's most comprehensive and recent ``Housing 
Needs of American Indians and Alaska Natives in Tribal Areas: A Report 
From the Assessment of Americans Indian, Alaska Native, and Native 
Hawaiian Housing Needs'', by HUD PD&R and the Urban Institute, January 
2017--which was commissioned by Congress and funded through HUD several 
years ago. Although these housing conditions exist in many Indian 
communities and Alaska Native villages throughout the country, they are 
rampant in three particular regions: Arizona/New Mexico, the Northern 
Plains, and in Northwest Alaska Native villages. Not surprisingly, 
these three regions also have the highest poverty levels in Indian 
country. The Report summarizes that ``[H]ousing problems of American 
Indians and Alaska, particularly in reservations and other tribal lands 
are extreme by any standards.'' We are aware of these conditions and 
their impact on Native reservations and communities--in part because a 
majority of our UNAHA members are suffering from extremely poor housing 
conditions. We understand and live with these conditions and their 
consequences even when there is not a devastating global pandemic. It 
should be unacceptable that our Country inadequately funds its Indian 
housing program and continually fails to address both the severe 
shortage of housing and the unhealthy and unsafe conditions that 
continue unabated. Tribes and TDHEs battle each day to provide decent, 
safe, and sanitary housing to their people, but many of us simply do 
not have the necessary financial resources to address these conditions.
    The effects of the pandemic and the housing crisis have also 
persisted all throughout the United States. Last week, NLIHC and State 
partners around the country, including the Cheyenne River Housing 
Authority, released Out of Reach, the annual, national report that 
determines the housing wage--or hourly wage a full-time worker would 
need to earn in order to afford their housing--for every State, 
metropolitan area, combined nonmetropolitan area, and county in the 
United States. For individuals working at the minimum wage in South 
Dakota a person must work 51 hours to afford a modest 1-bedroom rental 
home at Fair Market Rent--thus highlighting the need for Cheyenne River 
Housing Authority to continue to increase its stock of subsidized 
affordable housing.
    The 2021 national housing wage is $24.90, for a full-time worker to 
afford a modest two-bedroom apartment. This is more than three times 
the Federal hourly minimum wage of $7.25. A full-time minimum-wage 
worker can afford a one-bedroom rental home at fair market rent in just 
218 of the Nation's 3,000 counties. All of these 218 counties are 
located in States with a minimum wage higher than the Federal minimum. 
On the Cheyenne River Reservation the average general assistance (GA) 
recipient gets only $278 a month or $3,336 annually--well below the 
amount necessary for them to be housed without a deep subsidy.
    Early this year NLIHC's The Gap report, the annual, national report 
that measures the availability of rental housing affordable to 
extremely low-income households and other income groups was released. 
Based on the American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample (ACS 
PUMS), The Gap presents data on the affordable housing supply and 
housing cost burdens at the national, State, and metropolitan levels. 
The report also examines the demographics, disability and work status, 
and other characteristics of extremely low-income households most 
impacted by the national shortage of affordable and available rental 
homes. The U.S. has a shortage of 7 million rental homes affordable and 
available to extremely low-income renters, whose household incomes are 
at or below the poverty guideline or 30 percent of their area median 
income. Only 37 affordable and available rental homes exist for every 
100 extremely low-income renter households. 72.5 percent of extremely 
low-income households are severely housing cost-burdened, meaning that 
these households are spending more than 50 percent of household income 
on housing costs. In South Dakota, there are 58 affordable and 
available rental homes for every 100 extremely low-income renter 
households with 61 percent of these renter households being severely 
cost burdened with housing expenses. While the State as a whole does a 
bit better than the rest of the Nation, we know that there are unique 
challenges for not only Native Americans, but also African-American and 
Latino households who often face systemic and racial discrimination, 
tend to be worse off than White households.
Policy Solutions
    This year we have an enormous opportunity to invest in not only the 
future of Native American Tribes but the future of housing in America. 
Housing is Infrastructure and it is time that Congress can come 
together to undo the decades of discrimination and inequity for the 
most marginalized groups in the United States. While we do appreciate 
that Congress has allocated money under both the CARES Act and the 
Appropriations Act of 2021, including the Emergency Rental Assistance 
Program (ERAP), to alleviate the short-term effects of the COVID-19 
pandemic. We can confirm that this money had an immediate and vital 
impact on preserving and protecting housing services and resources in 
our tribal communities. Our proposal is to now address the more long-
term and sustainable solutions to improving Indian housing.
    First, we support the bipartisan legislation reintroduced by 
Senators Brain Schatz (D-HI), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Mike Rounds (R-
SD), and Tina Smith (D-MN) that would reauthorize the Native American 
Housing Assistance Self-Determination Act of 1996. Funding under 
NAHASDA programs is the main source of Federal assistance to ensure 
American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians have access to 
safe, accessible, and affordable housing. Authorization for most 
NAHASDA programs expired in 2013, although Congress has continued to 
fund them. The Indian Housing Block Grant (IHBG) under NAHASDA the main 
source of housing assistance for Native communities, primarily benefits 
low-income American Indian families. This bill also includes new 
provisions to address the housing crisis in tribal areas including the 
reinstatement of the highly successful HUD Drug Elimination program and 
would permanently authorize the Tribal HUD-VASH veteran's housing 
program which is currently a demonstration. Such formal reauthorization 
is long overdue.
    Since the inception of NAHASDA in 1997, Indian Housing Block Grants 
have had an average flatline funding of approximately only $625,000,000 
a year. Because no adjustment has ever been made for inflation, the 
value of that funding has sharply declined over the past 25 years. In 
addition, the amounts received by individual tribes have further been 
reduced by more previously nonfunded tribes joining the program. Adding 
to this is that Native populations have increased and TDHEs have had to 
divert development funding to the rehabilitation of existing units to 
keep their aging units from disrepair.
    Tens of thousands of new units are needed. Thousands of existing 
units, some of which are currently boarded up because of lack of 
funding and severe methamphetamine contamination, are also in need of 
substantial rehabilitation. The simple fact is that $2,000,000,000 (two 
billion dollars) of additional new funding is needed for the each of 
the next 7 years if these conditions are going to be effectively 
addressed. This funding is vitally needed for Tribes and their TDHEs to 
build and rehabilitate their housing. Most observers know and most 
studies show, including the Report, that TDHEs have, or if needed can 
quickly reacquire, the capacity to build housing and other related 
infrastructure construction on this scale. TDHEs are prepared to 
quickly gear up to produce a substantial number of new units. This will 
help tribes and Alaska villages generate for their communities and the 
country postpandemic economic recovery--just as they did successfully 
10 years ago after the Great Recession with American Recovery and 
Reinvestment Act (ARRA) moneys.
    It is our recommendation and opinion that these new funds should be 
evenly divided between HUD's Indian Housing Block Grants (IHBG) and its 
IHBG Competitive Grants. Using the existing IHBG program to deliver 
some of this money would allow some of the grants to be allocated using 
the NAHASDA allocation formula. By this method, half of the money would 
be divided up among all the tribal and Alaska Native TDHEs. Then using 
IHBG Competitive Grants, HUD can award the other half of the funds to 
those TDHEs that have the greatest need, but who also have the capacity 
required to quickly and effectively deliver this badly needed housing 
and to contribute to economic resurgence. This is exactly how TDHEs 
were successful when called upon a decade ago to use ARRA moneys.
    We also recommend and support the passage of the Native American 
Rural Homeownership Improvement Act introduced by Chairwoman Smith (D-
MN) and Ranking Member Rounds (R-SD). The Section 502 program is 
credited with building more than $40 billion in wealth for our Nation's 
poorest families, while also being one of the most cost-effective 
Federal housing programs. The program provides low and very low-income 
applicants with payment assistance so that they can purchase safe, 
decent, and sanitary housing in eligible rural areas. This program 
could help address the relatively low home ownership rates in rural 
Native communities, however, from 2016-2021 only 2.6 percent of those 
loans were made to borrowers who identified as Native Americans. USDA 
currently operates a pilot program in South and North Dakota, where the 
Department has partnered with Four Bands Community Fund located on the 
Cheyenne River Reservation and Mazaka located on the Pine Ridge 
Reservation, two Native Community Development Financial Institutions 
(CDFIs), to leverage their deep ties in local communities and deploy 
Section 502 loans to eligible Native borrowers. The pilot program has 
demonstrated that Native CDFIs can help the Department reach Native 
homebuyers more effectively, especially homebuyers living on Tribal 
land. This bipartisan legislation would expand this pilot program 
federally and create a national relending program within the Section 
502 Direct Loan these mortgage loans for Native American Families. This 
year we have a great opportunity to redress the damage caused by 
discriminatory housing practices and the housing crisis through once in 
a generation infrastructure legislation. Congress has to not only 
improve housing and home ownership rates but to eliminate homelessness 
for the future. Housing is Infrastructure, and there is no better time 
for Congress to act on that message than right now. Congress should 
include in any infrastructure bill the HoUSed campaign's top 
priorities. These include:

    A major expansion of Housing Choice Vouchers to pave the 
        way toward universal rental assistance for all eligible 
        households. Our members, who are working directly with people 
        experiencing or at risk of homelessness, report to us that this 
        would be the biggest achievement needed to ensure everyone has 
        a home.

    $70 billion to repair and preserve public housing for 
        current and future generations. Public and Indian housing is 
        home to some of the lowest-income renters in America. Over the 
        years, we have seen a drastic reduction in funding going for 
        repair and a reduction in the number of homes available. People 
        who live in federally assisted housing deserve quality housing.

    $45 billion for the national Housing Trust Fund (HTF) to 
        build and preserve new homes affordable to America's lowest-
        income and most marginalized households. The HTF is the only 
        Federal housing program exclusively focused on providing States 
        with resources targeted to serve households with the clearest, 
        most acute housing needs. In 2016, the Cheyenne River Housing 
        Authority was the first TDHE recipient of an HTF grant and 
        received a second grant in 2018--which resulted in construction 
        of a total of 24 units of affordable housing for very-low and 
        low-income families.

    The American Jobs Plan proposal included two of these three 
priorities along with the $2 billion to meet the housing needs of 
tribal communities. All three of the HoUSed campaign's top priorities 
and the $2 billion for the Native American Housing Block grants are 
included in House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters' (D-
CA)--bills ``Housing is Infrastructure Act'' and ``Ending Homelessness 
Act'', both of which we support and still encourage that at least $1 
billion allocated for Native American housing go through competitive 
funds.
    Finally, The FY22 House Appropriations bill also saw an increase 
for NAHASDA programs, up increasing by $75 million from FY21 levels for 
formula programs and $150 million for the competitive programs. We, of 
course, support these significant increases and the priority 
consideration within the competitive program to projects that would 
improve water and energy efficiency or increase resilience to natural 
disasters, we will continue to encourage the highest possible 
allocation.
    If the Country fails now to address the plight of Indian housing, 
it would be disastrous to tribes and Alaska Native communities, and to 
those hundreds of thousands of Native people and families who suffer so 
greatly with overcrowded and severely substandard housing. Most tribal 
and Alaska Native people that today live in Indian areas, their 
Governments, and their TDHEs, have no other option but to look to the 
Federal Government for the housing funds that they so badly need. For 
the United States to continue, at this particular moment, to ignore 
these tribal needs would be nothing short of a tragedy and sadly yet 
another abandonment by the United States of longstanding concerns and 
obligations to tribal sovereigns, Indian people, and Alaska Natives.
    The pandemic has exposed significant gaps in our Federal housing 
safety net. Housing inequities contributed to the spread of COVID-19 
cases and deaths, and the lack of universal housing assistance placed 
tens of millions of renters at risk of losing their homes and with 
them, the ability to keep themselves and their families safe. We can 
build back better by closing gaps in our safety net so that our tribal 
governments and our Nation are better prepared for the next crisis.

              Additional Material Supplied for the Record

      STATEMENT OF CAPTAIN JOHN GARDELL, PITTSBURGH BUREAU OF FIRE

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 JOINT STATEMENT OF THE LEADING ORGANIZATIONS OF THE NATION'S FIRE AND 
                           EMERGENCY SERVICES

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      STATEMENT OF MARY MCGOVERN, PRESIDENT, MINNEAPOLIS HIGHRISE 
                        REPRESENTATIVE COUNCIL 

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