[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 190 (Thursday, October 28, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7444-S7445]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Affordable Housing

  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon to 
talk about the affordable housing crisis in the USA.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have this letter printed in 
the Record. It is from 44 different mayors representing 20 different 
States and the District of Columbia, talking about those housing 
priorities that we need to see in legislation that we will be voting 
on, including, No. 1, strengthening and expanding the low-income 
housing tax credit.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                 October 23, 2021.
      Hon. Joseph R. Biden, Jr.,
     President of the United States of America, Washington, DC.
      Hon. Charles Schumer,
     Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
     Hon. Nancy Pelosi,
     Speaker, House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. President, Leader Schumer and Speaker Pelosi: As 
     44 mayors representing communities across 20 states and the 
     District of Columbia, we are writing to urge you to include 
     our top housing priorities in any infrastructure investment. 
     During this time of uncertainty and financial instability, 
     the need to ensure all Americans can access safe, affordable 
     housing is greater than ever. Housing investments are 
     critical to the recovery of our cities and a top priority for 
     our residents. We respectfully request that you prioritize 
     them in the Build Back Better package, specifically:
       1. Strengthen and Expand the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit 
     (Housing Credit). The Housing Credit is our nation's primary 
     tool for creating and preserving affordable housing and a 
     critical building block to achieve multiple goals from the 
     Build Back Better agenda--stabilizing families, climate 
     resiliency, better physical and mental health outcomes, child 
     development, and racial justice and economic opportunity. 
     Further, Congress must act to increase Housing Credit 
     authority this year or we will see a cut to production with 
     the expiration of the temporary volume cap increase 
     implemented in 2018, which will happen at the end of this 
     year. States are also increasingly becoming bond-cap 
     constrained and lowering the 50 percent bond-financing test 
     would result in immediate production for those communities. 
     In all, the production provisions proposed by the House would 
     create an additional 1.4 million homes for 3.2 million people 
     and generate 2 million jobs.
       2. Include Robust Funding for the HOME Investment 
     Partnerships (HOME) and Community Development Block Grant 
     (CDBG) Programs. HOME and CDBG are proven tools in helping 
     states and communities address their most pressing housing 
     challenges, providing states and localities with the 
     necessary flexibility and resources. Currently, Build Back 
     Better includes $34.77 billion for HOME--which estimates 
     predict could help state and local governments develop nearly 
     107,000 new affordable housing units, while also providing 
     tenant-based rental assistance to over 300,000 low-income 
     families--and $8.5 billion for CDBG. HOME and CDBG are smart 
     investments that leverage billions more in public and private 
     dollars and jumpstart the economy. In fact, HOME leverages 
     more than $4.50 in public and private funds for every dollar 
     of HOME funding and has supported roughly 1.9 million jobs 
     and generated $123.6 billion in local income, according to 
     the HOME Coalition's most recent analysis. Likewise, every 
     dollar of CDBG leverages $4.09 in public and private sources 
     and has benefited 51.5 million persons through infrastructure 
     improvements and another 1.6 million households through 
     housing investments. Investment in these critical programs 
     would mean better infrastructure, more jobs, increased access 
     to key services, and additional units of affordable housing.
       3. Provide Housing Stability for Families by Investing in 
     Housing Choice Vouchers (HCV) and Project-Based Rental 
     Assistance (PBRA). We strongly support the $90 billion 
     housing investment in HCVs and PBRA passed by the House 
     Financial Services Committee in recognition of the critical 
     importance of investing in decent, accessible affordable 
     housing for those with the greatest needs--people 
     experiencing homelessness and people with the lowest incomes. 
     Taken together, transformative investments in HCVs and PBRA 
     would mark the beginning of the elimination of homelessness 
     once and for all. It would also provide a level of housing 
     resilience that would enable renters to weather the next 
     recession, pandemic, or disaster.
       Our country cannot address poverty without also addressing 
     our homelessness and housing crisis, and the investments in 
     this bill to support families and build back our 
     infrastructure will be diminished if families cannot afford a 
     place to call home.
       With a bold investment in housing, the federal government 
     can effectively end housing instability in our country. The 
     federal government has the opportunity to make that 
     aspiration a reality.
       Thank you for your time and leadership.
           Sincerely,
       Mayor Kathy Sheehan, Albany, NY; Mayor Justin M. Wilson, 
     Alexandria, VA; Mayor Esther Manheimer, Asheville, NC; Mayor 
     Lacey Beaty, Beaverton, OR; Mayor Lynne Robinson, Bellevue, 
     WA; Mayor Seth Fleetwood, Bellingham, WA; Mayor Jesse 
     Arreguin, Berkeley, CA; Mayor Alan Casavant, Biddeford, ME; 
     Mayor Kim Janey, Boston, MA; Mayor Albert B. Kelly, 
     Bridgeton, NJ; Mayor James Brainard, Carmel, IN; Mayor Lori 
     Lightfoot, Chicago, IL;
       Mayor Andrew Ginther, Columbus, OH; Mayor Michael B. 
     Hancock, Denver, CO; Mayor Cassie Franklin, Everett, WA; 
     Mayor David Meyer, Fairfax, VA; Mayor Paul Deasy, Flagstaff, 
     AZ; Mayor Kamal Johnson, Hudson, NY; Mayor Svante Myrick, 
     Ithaca, NY; Mayor Penny Sweet, Kirkland, WA; Mayor Leirion 
     Gaylor Baird, Lincoln, NE; Mayor Derek Armstead, Linden, NJ; 
     Mayor Robert Garcia, Long Beach, CA; Mayor Eric Garcetti, Los 
     Angeles, CA;
       Mayor Greg Fischer, Louisville, KY; Mayor Satya Rhodes-
     Conway, Madison, WI; Mayor Mark Gamba, Milwaukie, OR; Mayor 
     Jacob Frey, Minneapolis, MN; Mayor Libby Schaaf, Oakland, CA; 
     Mayor Adrian O. Mapp, Plainfield, NJ; Mayor Garrett Gatewood, 
     Rancho Cordova, CA; Mayor Hilary Schieve, Reno, NV; Mayor 
     Darrell Steinberg, Sacramento, CA; Mayor Todd Gloria, San 
     Diego, CA; Mayor London N. Breed, San Francisco, CA; Mayor 
     Sam Liccardo, San Jose, CA; Mayor Pauline Russo Cutter, San 
     Leandro, CA;
       Mayor Jenny A. Durkan, Seattle, WA; Mayor Rachelle 
     Arizmendi, Sierra Madre, CA; Mayor Ben Walsh, Syracuse, NY; 
     Mayor Victoria Woodards, Tacoma, WA; Mayor Muriel Bowser, 
     Washington, D.C.; Mayor Michael T. Foley, Westbrook, ME; 
     Mayor Kristine Lott, Winooski, VT.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor because many of my 
colleagues--29 have joined a bill that myself and Senator Young 
sponsored, and, I think, 132 Members in the House of Representatives 
joined, all saying we need to incent more affordable housing.
  Why do we need to incent more affordable housing?
  If you don't incent it with the tax credit, people won't build it, 
particularly in a place like Seattle, where you can build other things 
and get a whole lot more money.
  We need a workforce and we need the workforce to be in Seattle. We 
don't need them to be four counties away and drive in every day and 
clog our roads with added traffic that didn't need to be there. We need 
to build people close to their homes and need the flexibility of the 
affordable housing tax credit, which has been, in my mind, very helpful 
in being very specific in every community.
  You can build affordable housing just for returning veterans. You can 
build affordable housing for workforce needs. You can build affordable 
housing just to house previously homeless people. You can build 
affordable housing to take students who are still going to school and 
don't have a place to live, making them have affordable opportunities.
  The affordable housing tax credit is the primary tool with which we 
build housing. Let me say, 90 percent of the affordable housing that 
gets built in the USA gets built with the tax credit. That is right. 
Ninety percent of the affordable housing that gets built in the United 
States with the tax credit is built with--90 percent of affordable 
housing gets built with the tax credit.
  That means even if we have other programs in the legislation that we 
have been talking about between the House and the Senate--like the home 
grant program or vouchers or things of that nature--if you don't use 
this aspect of the program, you are not going

[[Page S7445]]

to be able to build that housing, so it has been incredibly popular.
  That is why we have to increase the amount of capital we are going to 
put towards the tax incentive. The reason why we have to do that is 
that the United States has a supply shortage.
  You can ask: Why did we get to this supply shortage?
  If you ask me, it was really accentuated in the downturn of 2008, 
when so many more individuals fell out of the job market, creating more 
demand for affordable housing at that price point. We also, at that 
point, had a lot of returning veterans, and we had really some very big 
changes in the diversification of our economy. We had a lot of mental 
health that had been deinstitutionalized and pushed in a different 
direction. And we had changes in policy as we saw the challenges of an 
aging population, really, living a lot longer than people anticipated 
and they are also needing housing.
  We had all these issues combined to this dramatic effect of 6.8 
million affordable housing shortage in the United States of America. 
That is the amount of units that we actually have to build.
  I wish I could say these problems go away if you just don't--if you 
say: Well, if they don't build the housing, it will just take care of 
itself.
  No, it doesn't take care of itself. If these people end up being 
homeless, it costs 30 percent more to deal with them in our hospitals 
and in jails. In various places, the people who are truly homeless and 
living on the streets are extra costs.
  We actually had hospitals support building affordable housing just so 
people wouldn't be in their emergency room every day. That is how much 
it was worth to hospitals to have affordable housing.
  So the crisis, as we know in America, is that there are now 10.5 
million Americans who pay more than 50 percent of their income in rent. 
That means they are rent-burdened. This number has just continued to go 
up in the charts for years in growth and, basically, continued to 
exacerbate the problem. Why? Because people will tell you, you can't 
spend 50 percent of your income in rent.
  These dynamics are what is plaguing us in the United States; and it 
is a problem that, until we increase the affordable housing tax credit, 
you are not going to get the relief that you think you can get out of 
this situation.
  Our legislation--myself and Senator Young's legislation--would have 
increased the tax credit by 50 percent over a 10-year period of time. 
That would have helped us build a million more units of affordable 
housing and try to address this problem in the near term.
  I hope our colleagues will--as we work through both the proposals 
that have been part of our infrastructure bill and the reconciliation 
act--will look and see that we need to include the low-income housing 
tax credit as part of that proposal. If we don't have the affordable 
housing tax credit as part of that proposal, we are not going to have 
the robust solutions that we need.
  While I understand there are very geographic differences across the 
United States--the East Coast may have some particular aspects that 
will be very benefited, and the West Coast has other aspects that would 
benefit--we all can benefit from the low-income housing tax program. 
That is what is so unique about it.
  Every State has used it with great flexibility. Every State has used 
it to solve their problems, and the incentives have helped us stimulate 
the economy. It is literally worth billions of dollars of economic 
activity, and that is why we also should be making this investment.
  Many times when our country has faced a downturn in the sixties or 
seventies or eighties, you would hear a shout-out for housing. People 
would say: Let's build housing.
  Well, you haven't heard that shout-out in the last decade or so. You 
literally haven't for a bunch of different reasons. No one has been 
trumpeting: We need more housing.
  I tell you, Mr. President, we need more affordable housing for those 
individuals. And I have met so many in my State whose lives have been 
changed--literally changed.
  A woman basically got out of an abusive relationship and moved in 
with her father in Walla Walla, but knew it wasn't sustainable. She 
lived in Billingham. Basically, the affordable housing program in Walla 
Walla got her and her son into a home. She started school. She got a 
job, changed her life.
  I have seen it recently in Spokane. Take a couple who basically had 
become homeless. They separated. They had children that couldn't all 
live together. They brought them back together under one roof. And in 
this particular housing project, the promise was made by the partners 
that everybody in that particular housing would get access not only to 
help them get a high school education, but a college education as well.
  That is what you can do with these projects. You can tailor-make them 
with community partners to address the needs of your specific 
community.
  So this tax credit is bipartisan. It worked successfully. I would say 
it is one of the most successful programs that we had in the United 
States for getting affordable housing. Let's not leave it off the 
table. Let's put it in this legislation and make sure it gets to the 
goal line of the President's desk and is signed into law.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Van Hollen). The Senator from Rhode 
Island.