[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 159 (Tuesday, December 13, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H11453-H11455]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   SMALL PUBLIC HOUSING AUTHORITY ACT

  Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill 
(H.R. 3422) to amend the United States Housing Act of 1937 to exempt 
small public housing agencies from the requirement of preparing an 
annual public housing agency plan, as amended.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                               H.R. 3422

         Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives 
     of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Small Public Housing 
     Authority Act''.

     SEC. 2. PUBLIC HOUSING AGENCY PLANS FOR CERTAIN SMALL PUBLIC 
                   HOUSING AGENCIES.

       (a) In General.--Section 5A(b) of the United States Housing 
     Act of 1937 (42 U.S.C. 1437c-1(b)) is amended by adding at 
     the end the following new paragraph:
       ``(3) Exemption of certain small phas from filing 
     requirement.--
       ``(A) In general.--Notwithstanding paragraph (1) or any 
     other provision of this Act--
       ``(i) the requirement under paragraph (1) shall not apply 
     to any qualified small public housing agency; and
       ``(ii) except as provided in subsection (e)(4)(B), any 
     reference in this section or any other provision of law to a 
     `public housing agency' shall not be considered to refer to 
     any qualified small public housing agency, to the extent such 
     reference applies to the requirement to submit an annual 
     public housing agency plan under this subsection.
       ``(B) Civil rights certification.--Notwithstanding that 
     qualified small public housing agencies are exempt pursuant 
     to subparagraph (A) from the requirement under this section 
     to prepare and submit an annual public housing plan, each 
     qualified small public housing agency shall, on an annual 
     basis, make the certification described in paragraph (15) of 
     subsection (d) of this section, except that for purposes of 
     such small public housing agencies, such paragraph shall be 
     applied by substituting `the public housing program of the 
     agency' for `the public housing agency plan'.
       ``(C) Definition.--For purposes of this section, the term 
     `qualified small public housing agency' means a public 
     housing agency that meets all of the following requirements:
       ``(i) The sum of (I) the number of public housing dwelling 
     units administered by the agency, and (II) the number of 
     vouchers under section 8(o) of the United States Housing Act 
     of 1937 (42 U.S.C. 1437f(o)) administered by the agency, is 
     250 or fewer.
       ``(ii) The agency is not designated pursuant to section 
     6(j)(2) as a troubled public housing agency.''.
       (b) Resident Participation.--Section 5A of the United 
     States Housing Act of 1937 (42 U.S.C. 1437c-1) is amended--
       (1) in subsection (e), by inserting after paragraph (3) the 
     following:
       ``(4) Qualified small public housing agencies.--
       ``(A) In general.--Except as provided in subparagraph (B), 
     nothing in this section may be construed to exempt a 
     qualified small public housing agency from the requirement 
     under paragraph (1) to establish one or more resident 
     advisory boards. Notwithstanding that qualified small public 
     housing agencies are exempt pursuant to subsection (b)(3)(A) 
     from the requirement

[[Page H11454]]

     under this section to prepare and submit an annual public 
     housing plan, each qualified small public housing agency 
     shall consult with, and consider the recommendations of the 
     resident advisory boards for the agency, in any 
     determinations and actions of the agency regarding 
     establishing goals, objectives, and policies of the agency.
       ``(B) Applicability of waiver authority.--Paragraph (3) 
     shall apply to qualified small public housing agencies, 
     except that for purposes of such small public housing 
     agencies, subparagraph (B) of such paragraph shall be applied 
     by substituting `the functions described in the second 
     sentence of paragraph (4)(A)' for `the functions described in 
     paragraph (2)'.
       ``(f) Public Hearings.--''; and
       (2) in subsection (f) (as so designated by the amendment 
     made by paragraph (1) of this subsection), by adding at the 
     end the following new paragraph:
       ``(5) Qualified small public housing agencies.--
       ``(A) Requirement.--Notwithstanding that qualified small 
     public housing agencies are exempt pursuant to subsection 
     (b)(3)(A) from the requirement under this section to conduct 
     a public hearing regarding the annual public housing plan of 
     the agency, each qualified small public housing agency shall, 
     not less than annually, conduct a public hearing to discuss 
     the goals, objectives, and policies of the agency, and any 
     changes to such goals, objectives, and policies, and to 
     invite public comment regarding such issues.
       ``(B) Availability of information and notice.--Not later 
     than 45 days before the date of such a hearing, the qualified 
     small public housing agency shall--
       ``(i) make all information relevant to the hearing and any 
     determinations of the agency regarding the goals, objectives, 
     and policies of the agency to be considered at the hearing 
     available for inspection by the public at the principal 
     office of the public housing agency during normal business 
     hours; and
       ``(ii) publish a notice informing the public that (I) the 
     information is available as required under clause (i), and 
     (II) a public hearing under subparagraph (A) will be 
     conducted.''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Oxley) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) each 
will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3422, the Small Public 
Housing Authority Act, and wish to commend the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Neugebauer) for his work on this important legislation.
  The Small Public Housing Authority Act would amend the United States 
Housing Act of 1937 to exempt a small public housing agency from a 
requirement to prepare an annual public agency plan if the agency 
administers not more than a total of 250 dwelling units and section 8 
vouchers and is not a troubled agency and provides assurances of 
resident participation.
  Currently, public housing authorities are required to submit both a 
5-year plan and an annual plan to HUD. The 5-year PHA plan addresses 
the agency's mission and their plan to achieve their mission. 
Specifically, the annual plan has typically required public housing 
authorities to include information on the housing needs of the families 
in the jurisdiction, strategies to meet these needs, statement of 
financial resources, and PHA policies governing eligibility, selection, 
and administrations.
  Typically the average streamlined PHA plan is 47 pages with extensive 
attachments. For a small PHA with limited staff, compiling such a 
report is both time consuming and labor intensive. The regulatory 
relief provided in this legislation will give small public housing 
authorities more time to focus on the needs of their tenants. This 
exemption of smaller PHAs from filing plans will not affect the ability 
of tenant organizations to continue to have input with the managers of 
their developments. Language incorporated into the legislation ensures 
tenant participation and requires smaller PHAs to provide advanced 
planning required under the 5-year plans.
  Similar legislation sponsored by our good friend, retired 
Representative Doug Bereuter, was considered by the Financial Services 
Committee on March 17, 2004, and passed the House under suspension of 
the rules on May 5, 2004, in the 108th Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3422 deserves our support. I urge its adoption.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as 
I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, we agree that this is a useful piece of legislation. I 
am one who believes in appropriate regulation. And if you believe in 
appropriate regulation, you should be committed to doing away with 
inappropriate regulation. When you overregulate, when you put too much 
of a burden on people who should not have the burden, you undercut the 
case for those restrictions where they should apply. Clearly, when you 
talk about housing authorities, you are talking about entities that 
differ greatly; and this is one of those cases where to quote, I guess 
Marx I am afraid, ``Quantity can become quality.'' Differences in size 
can become so important that they become difference in kind.
  When you talk of the New York Public Housing Authority or the Los 
Angeles Public Housing Authority and you are talking about some of the 
very small public housing authorities, you are talking about very 
different entities, and you ought not try to put them all under one. So 
we appreciate the initiative that came on the other side from those who 
wanted to make this more flexible.
  We did have some concerns. By ``we'' I did mean myself and the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), who chairs the housing 
subcommittee, because we did not want to have tenants who, after all, 
are human beings in large authorities as well as small to be somehow 
inadvertently disadvantaged. So we appreciate the fact that the 
majority is willing to negotiate with us, and I always say that with 
trepidation lest my having acknowledged that we worked out something 
bipartisan in our committee and transformed something routine into an 
ideological war. But I would assure people that the negotiations here 
were of a fairly calm level.
  What we did, essentially, was to maintain the statutory role for 
resident advisory boards. They are advisory, and obviously it is 
important to watch housing authorities that are small and talk to the 
people who live there.
  Secondly, we left in a requirement that they have to have a public 
hearing at least once a year to talk about their objectives. I think 
these are beneficial. Finally, we wanted to make clear that they did 
have to self-certify that they were meeting the civil rights and fair 
housing laws.

                              {time}  1600

  No one has to investigate them, but leaving that out, leaving that 
requirement itself out of the equation, the vast majority of housing 
authorities are well-intentioned, and you do not volunteer to be on a 
housing authority unless you really care about the people who are 
there. The people who run the small housing authorities are very often 
very civic-minded people, people who care about the poor. Very rarely 
are the people who run these authorities getting back any kind of 
compensation, enough to make up for the time. But we want to make sure 
that we did not send the wrong message.
  So with those three fairly minor modifications that the majority 
accepted, this is a fairly useful bill, and we hope that it is passed.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to yield such time as he may 
consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer), the sponsor of 
the legislation.
  Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Oxley and Ranking 
Member Frank.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3422 would exempt public housing authorities with 
250 or fewer public housing units and section 8 vouchers combined from 
the requirement of submitting an annual plan to the Department of 
Housing and Urban Development.
  In the 108th Congress, the House passed a similar legislation 
sponsored by former Congressman Doug Bereuter. The Senate, however, 
failed to take up this legislation.
  I represent a rural West Texas district. Most of the public housing 
authorities in my district have fewer than 250 housing units and/or 
vouchers. Several have part-time directors or directors who split time 
between public housing authorities.
  The annual plan process, mandated by Congress in 1998, requires a 
significant amount of time and resources for

[[Page H11455]]

these public housing authorities. This mandate is especially burdensome 
on our PHAs, our small ones, because they have few staff resources to 
devote to the annual plans. While HUD has taken regulatory steps to 
reduce the reporting burden for small PHAs, the plans still require 
much unnecessary paperwork and additional time.
  Reducing the unnecessary paperwork and reporting will help smaller 
PHAs better serve their communities and focus on their mission of 
providing affordable rural housing to rural residents in need.
  H.R. 3422 only addresses annual plans. Small PHAs will still complete 
their HUD 5-year plan.
  This legislation also requires PHAs to continue providing their 
residents with opportunity to help set goals and policies for the 
housing authority and to continue to certify their civil rights 
compliance with HUD.
  However, I would note that the intent of this legislation is for HUD 
to keep the annual certification process as simple as possible and not 
create additional requirements and additional reports for PHAs.
  This is a small bill, but it has a positive impact on PHAs in rural 
areas in my district, and I ask the House that this much-needed, 
commonsense regulatory relief for small public housing authorities be 
passed.
  As the ranking member said, one of the things that makes sense is 
when government oversteps its bounds, it is appropriate for government 
to step back in and correct those. I think this is a much-needed 
correction so that we can let these small public housing authorities 
focus on the tenants and not on the paperwork.
  I thank, again, the chairman and the ranking member.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself some 
additional time to simply say, I appreciate what the gentleman from 
Texas said in closing which is to focus on the tenants.
  I think it is important that we continue to pay attention to housing 
authorities. Too often, people slip into the mistake of equating 
homeownership with homes. Homeownership is very important, yes, to the 
sense that people are economically and other ways able to own homes, 
that is a good thing. But a large number of low-income people, through 
a variety of reasons, economic and others, are not going to own homes, 
and we ought to be clear that it is the right of people to a home that 
we want to work for or at least the ability of people to have a decent 
home.
  In many cases, that will be homeownership. But in some cases, it will 
not be, and we want to make it very clear, as far as the public sector 
is concerned, we ought to have the same obligation to help people make 
the most out of their home, whether they are tenants or owners. This is 
an example of how we do that.
  So I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time. I just 
want to, again, congratulate the gentleman from Texas for his 
leadership and the cooperation on the other side.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Boozman). The question is on the motion 
offered by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley) that the House suspend 
the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 3422, as amended.
  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. OXLEY. 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 question will 
be postponed.

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