[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 64 (Thursday, May 9, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H4659]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                HOUSING AUTHORITIES SHOULD BE CONSULTED

  (Mr. GEKAS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, fairly shortly now we 
will be resuming the debate on the housing bill that is before the 
Congress, and one element of that requires our attention. Whether or 
not the Brooke amendment of the past will obtain for the future depends 
on what we do here today.
  There is a resource that we have back at home that we ought to take 
advantage of in making up our minds as to how to finally vote on this 
measure, and that is the members of the authorities, the housing 
authorities, that have the responsibility and the initiative to deal 
with these problems on an everyday basis. They have to consider the 
tenants, the low-income status of those tenants, the problems of drug 
dealers on the premises, the costs of overhead, a thousand different 
problems that we do not consider when we vote on the larger questions 
that are involved. I believe that we ought to call our authorities' 
people and find out how they think on these matters.

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