[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.