[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 112 (Monday, September 9, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Page S8371]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        RECOGNIZING THE ENTERPRISE FOUNDATION'S 20TH ANNIVERSARY

 Mr. SARBANES. Madam President, I rise today to recognize The 
Enterprise Foundation as it celebrates its 20th year of building 
communities and improving low-income people's lives across America.
  Renowned developer James Rouse and his wife, Patty, launched 
Enterprise in 1982. Jim and Patty were inspired to start Enterprise by 
three women from the Church of the Saviour here in Washington. They 
asked Jim for help in turning two run-down, rat-infested buildings 
blighting their Adams Morgan neighborhood into affordable apartments 
for low-income residents of the area.
  With Jim and Patty's help and thousands of hours of volunteer time, 
the group achieved its goal. The buildings still provide a decent 
affordable home to low-income people in that community today.
  Jim and Patty founded Enterprise to help more community groups 
rebuild their neighborhoods. Today, Enterprise works through a network 
of more than 2,200 community-based organizations in more than 820 
locations to provide affordable housing, safer streets, and access to 
jobs and quality childcare.
  Through these unsung heroes at the grassroots, Enterprise has 
invested nearly $4 billion to produce more than 132,000 homes 
affordable to low-income people. On any given day, more than 250,000 
low-income people live in decent, affordable housing made possible in 
part by Enterprise.
  In addition, Enterprise's job training and placement programs have 
helped more than 32,000 hard-to-employ people qualify for work and 
retain employment. More than 4,500 children have benefited from 
Enterprise's childcare initiatives.
  President Clinton presented Jim with the Presidential Medal of 
Freedom in 1995. When Jim passed away a year later, Patty and the rest 
of Enterprise's leadership continued the work he began.
  That work goes on today. I have seen firsthand what Enterprise has 
achieved in many communities in my State. To cite just one example, 
Enterprise has been working since the early 1990s with the residents of 
Sandtown-Winchester in Baltimore City on a comprehensive effort to 
reverse decades of disinvestment and decay.
  After more than a decade, Sandtown is showing signs of a turnaround. 
The median income in the community increased by 50 percent during the 
1990s, according to the Census. Median home sale prices rose 376 
percent during that time, according to Johns Hopkins University's 
Institute for Policy Studies. In the parts of this 72-block community 
where Enterprise has been most active, crime is down and elementary 
school students are going better.
  More work remains, in Sandtown and in countless other low-income 
areas around the country. True to Jim Rouse's vision, Enterprise will 
not rest until all low-income Americans have the opportunity for fit 
and affordable housing and to move up and out of poverty into the 
mainstream of American life.
  I ask that we pay tribute to Mr. Rouse's legacy and to the profound 
impact that The Enterprise Foundation has had, and continues to have, 
on the lives of low-income Americans building better lives for 
themselves, their families and their communities.

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