[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 31 (Tuesday, February 26, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Page S1198]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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  (At the request of Mr. Reid, the following statement was ordered to 
be printed in the Record.)

        UNITED STATES ARMY'S RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITIES INITIATIVE

 Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I am proud to recognize a truly 
successful program that, over the past decade, has made important 
contributions to improving quality of life for our soldiers and their 
families. Now entering its 10th year, the Residential Communities 
Initiative, or RCI, has brought together members of the private real 
estate community and the Army to build new family housing, and upgrade 
and modernize existing family housing, on flagship Army bases all 
across the country.
  Back in 1996, the Army faced the enormous and costly challenge of 
replacing and renovating its aging and substandard family housing. Too 
many soldiers and their families were living in inadequate housing. 
According to the Army itself, roughly 70 percent of housing needed 
replacement or renovation at an estimated cost of $7 billion. It was 
clear that action had to be taken, and in 1996, Congress established 
the framework for what would become the Residential Communities 
Initiative when it authorized the Military Housing Privatization 
Initiative.
  Under the MHPI umbrella, the Residential Communities Initiative was 
presented in 1999 as one significant component of the Army's plan to 
address this challenge of overhauling inadequate family housing. Thanks 
in large part to the visionary leadership and hard work of my friends, 
Congressman Chet Edwards of Texas and then-Assistant Secretary of the 
Army for Installations, Logistics and Environment Mahlon Apgar, RCI 
successfully navigated both the Pentagon bureaucracy and a maze of 
congressional committees to come to fruition.
  Congressman Edwards's advocacy of RCI was particularly important and 
is just one example of his many successful efforts to improve quality 
of life for our troops and veterans. Congressman Edwards works on these 
critical issues as cochairman of both the House Army Caucus and the USO 
Congressional Caucus. Most recently, in 2007, as chairman of the 
Military Construction and Veterans' Affairs Appropriations 
Subcommittee, Congressman Edwards authored the largest VA budget 
increase in the VA's 77-year history.
  Indeed, both Congressman Edwards and Secretary Apgar should be proud 
of what their efforts have since spawned. RCI has made, or will be 
making, its way to 45 different Army installations all across the 
United States, from Fort Lewis in Washington State to Fort Hood in 
Texas to Fort Drum and Fort Hamilton in my home State of New York. At 
each of these bases, RCI has helped to provide our soldiers and their 
families with the kind of modern, quality housing choices that they 
deserve. In less than 10 years, more than 86,000 houses have been 
transferred to public-private partnerships under RCI, and thousands of 
Army families have already benefited from renovation and new 
construction completed under RCI.
  This initiative has not only been good for our soldiers and their 
families but also for American taxpayers. In the last decade, more than 
$10 billion of new private capital has been invested under the RCI 
program, compared with roughly $1 billion in government equity. In 
other words, RCI has produced a ten-fold return on our public 
investment.
  With so many of our brave servicemembers serving the Nation in Iraq, 
Afghanistan, and elsewhere around the world, it is our responsibility 
to ensure that they and their families have all of the support that 
they need and deserve here at home. This not only includes the best 
health care available but also modern, clean, and comfortable housing 
choices. I invite my fellow Senators from both sides of the aisle to 
join me in applauding the Residential Communities Initiative and its 
early champions, Chet Edwards and Mahlon Apgar, for doing so much to 
enhance quality of life for our Army families.

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