[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 12 (Tuesday, February 12, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H253-H254]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REVISING CERTAIN GRANTS FOR CONTINUUM OF CARE ASSISTANCE FOR HOMELESS
INDIVIDUALS AND FAMILIES
Mr. GREEN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and
pass the bill (H.R. 3699) to revise certain grants for continuum of
care assistance for homeless individual and families.
The Clerk read as follows:
H.R. 3699
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN HOMELESS ASSISTANCE GRANTS.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Notice of
Funding Availability for Continuum of Care Homeless
Assistance Programs for fiscal year 2001, or any action taken
in furtherance of such Notice, the Secretary of Housing and
Urban Development shall not award a grant pursuant to such
Notice to Liberty Center for the Homeless Incorporated in
excess of $459,600. If an award has been made to such Center
in excess of such amount before the date of the enactment of
this Act, the Secretary shall modify the award and distribute
the amounts in excess of $459,600 to other applicants from
the Jacksonville, Florida, Continuum of Care in the order
listed in the project priority chart contained in their
application.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Green) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank)
each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Green).
General Leave
Mr. GREEN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all
Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend
their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 3699.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Wisconsin?
There was no objection.
Mr. GREEN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3699 is a simple technical correction to the
continuum of care application submitted by the Jacksonville, Florida,
local government and nonprofit organizations in response to the annual
application process for homeless assistance funding administered by the
Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Because of an error in the submitted application, and the
interpretation of the HUD Reform Act that would prohibit HUD personnel
from amending the application to make the corrections, statutory
language is necessary. This bill will merely change the dollar amount
to be distributed to the Liberty Center for the Homeless, Incorporated,
to reflect an annual amount as opposed to a 10-year amount
inadvertently included in the application.
Enactment of this bill and the technical correction will allow the
city of Jacksonville and its nonprofit organizations to receive its
entire homeless funding under Title IV of the McKinney-Vento Homeless
Assistance Act.
While it appears that this is a very minor technical problem, its
impact has brought significant disruptions to the efforts of very
worthy nonprofit organizations and the city of Jacksonville to
coordinate and provide needed services to homeless individuals and
families.
{time} 1530
I want to thank the Department of Housing and Urban Development for
their assistance in resolving this issue. More importantly, however, I
want to thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Crenshaw) and the
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown) for bringing this issue to the
attention of the Committee on Financial Services so that we can provide
a legislative resolution.
This bill is noncontroversial and has support from the gentlewoman
from New Jersey (Mrs. Roukema) and the gentleman from Massachusetts
(Mr. Frank), chairman and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Housing
and Community Opportunity, as well as the gentleman from Ohio (Mr.
Oxley) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce), chairman and
ranking member of the Committee on Financial Services.
I urge all Members to support H.R. 3699.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Crenshaw).
Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 3699.
As has been stated, it simply corrects an administrative and clerical
error in a grant application. This legislation corrects a horrible
wrong that would inadvertently defund numerous projects in
Jacksonville, Florida. This legislation simply turns back the clock to
the date that the 11 members of the coalition sat down together and
submitted a consolidated continuum-of-care application to help
Jacksonville's homeless outreach projects. It does not authorize any
additional funding. It only restores the original intent of the
homeless coalition's continuum-of-care application allowing funding to
be restored to all existing projects and to begin funding for new
projects.
Let me again repeat, this legislation will not cost the taxpayers any
additional funds; and it will not change the original grant award
amount. I want to thank the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown) for
joining me as an original cosponsor of this legislation.
I urge all of my colleagues to support passage of H.R. 3699.
Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I
want to apologize for being a little late, but I am pleased to learn
that some of the colleagues who preceded us were more concise than I
had anticipated. Perhaps I am being too pessimistic about their
ability.
I agree very much with what the gentleman from Florida has just said.
Let me say as the ranking minority member on the Subcommittee on
Housing and Community Opportunity that this is an issue that was
brought to my attention early and persistently and persuasively by the
gentlewoman from Florida whom the gentleman from Florida has graciously
mentioned. I know they worked together on this. She pointed out that
this was a matter, as has been explained, that would cost the
government nothing; it was simply correcting an error.
I should say this, Mr. Speaker. As a member of the Subcommittee on
Housing and Community Opportunity, I hope that the chairman will agree
that we can take up legislation that would make this sort of bill
unnecessary, that is, there needs to be a capacity at HUD to correct
errors of this sort. People make errors. I have had a couple of other
cases that were brought to me by Members where errors were made. We
have one that I hope will be coming down the pike. I know the minority
and majority staffs are working with people from Indiana to try and
straighten out one from Indianapolis.
I think a little history is helpful. We had terrible scandals at HUD
in the early 80s. When a former member of this body, Jack Kemp, became
the Secretary of HUD under the Presidency of George Bush, we worked
together, the then Democratic majority in the Congress and Jack Kemp,
to tighten up the rules so that the kind of abuses that had happened in
the 80s would not happen again. But we appear to have overtightened. We
were worried about the abuse of discretion; and we, as sometimes is the
case, went too far in the other direction.
So I look forward to working with Secretary Martinez and with the
majority on the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity so
that we can restore some common sense, I think we have done a good deal
of trying to get rid of the corruption, and the legislation of this
sort would not be necessary.
[[Page H254]]
Mr. Speaker, I am very glad that this legislation is being passed for
two reasons: first, because it will give some relief to the people of
Jacksonville; and, secondly, because I will not now have three
conversations a day with my good friend from Jacksonville, Florida (Ms.
Brown), who has been simply indefatigable in working for her
constituents on this subject.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman
from Florida (Ms. Brown) since it will no longer be mine.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) so much for his leadership and help in this
matter that greatly affects the people of Jacksonville. I also want to
thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Crenshaw) for his hard work in
helping to bring this bill to the floor.
I cannot begin to explain how important this legislation is to the
homeless service providers in our hometown of Jacksonville, Florida.
Unless this legislation is passed and signed into law, two long-time
agencies will stop serving their clients and terminate 16 jobs.
On February 28, the Quest program, which provides psychiatric
medication management to over 200 clients, and Goodwill Industries,
which last year placed 534 homeless clients in jobs, will end their
service. There are also eight other major providers that will be forced
to make the same hard decision. This legislation is the only thing that
will prevent hundreds of homeless clients from being returned to the
streets. Let me repeat this. This is the only thing that will stand in
the way of hundreds of homeless clients being returned to the streets.
I hope the Senate and the President will quickly get this legislation
passed and signed into law. These folks have a tough job to do, and we
need to put them back to work.
Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I
yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. GREEN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for
time, and I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Simpson). The question is on the motion
offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Green) that the House
suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 3699.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of
those present have voted in the affirmative.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas
and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be
postponed.
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