[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 86 (Thursday, June 17, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H4474]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT

  (Ms. LEE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. LEE. Madam Speaker, I call to my colleagues' attention the 
importance of the Community Reinvestment Act, also known as CRA, which 
is incorporated within H.R. 10, generally described as the Financial 
Modernization Act.
  The House will be considering H.R. 10 in the next several weeks, and 
I bring to my colleagues' attention the importance of maintaining CRA 
provisions in H.R. 10, as well as ensuring the modernization of banking 
securities and insurance functions to include modernization of the 
Community Reinvestment Act.
  Madam Speaker, CRA has been an enormous success in the last two 
decades in raising and leveraging over $1 trillion in low-interest 
mortgage counseling for housing and small businesses in our underserved 
communities. However, the need for this kind of support continues and 
grows. There are over 5 million Americans in substandard housing, 
according to a 1998 HUD report which states: There has been a sharp 
increase in the number of working poor families needing housing 
assistance, with the total number jumping by 265,000, that is 24 
percent, from 1991 to 1995.
  We have a housing crisis in this country. One way to meet this crisis 
is to maintain the CRA provisions in H.R. 10, which are in the Leach-
LaFalce language, and also modernize CRA by supporting the Gutierrez 
amendment to H.R. 10.

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