[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Pages 22645-22646]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                     THE VA-HUD APPROPRIATIONS BILL

  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, last Friday, the Senate passed the VA-HUD 
appropriations bill. I first want to commend the chairman and ranking 
member of that subcommittee for the superb job they did in managing 
that legislation as it went through the Senate.
  I do want to indicate a concern about what was missing in that bill 
because there is one program that was not funded which I believe is 
very important to the country, certainly to my State, which is the 
Community Builders Program. It is my hope that this problem can be 
corrected in the conference committee. I asked the chairman and the 
ranking member of the VA-HUD appropriations subcommittee to pay special 
attention to attempting to provide the resources necessary to keep the 
Community Builders Program going.
  Despite HUD's successful efforts to reduce staff and provide better 
service, the committee bill will result in the termination of more than 
400 community builders across the country. That is a program that is 
working. This program is designed to bring new blood into that agency. 
It has been called a prototype for the new type of public servant in 
the 21st century. HUD, in recruiting for those 400 positions, had over 
9,000 applications, including lawyers, academics, and economic and 
community development experts. These are people who were asked to come 
and give 2 years to helping revitalize HUD. We signed them up. We 
recruited them. We signed contracts with them, and now we tell them, 
sorry, we have changed our minds--even though the program is working. I 
don't think so.
  The individuals who were selected to participate in community 
builders are experts in community outreach and development, who agreed 
to a 2-year term of service with HUD. They don't sit at a desk in 
Washington. They work in the 81 field offices doing face to face 
contact with people in the communities in which they serve. This is a 
program that has received accolades from every independent source that 
has looked at the program, including evaluations conducted by Booz, 
Allen & Hamilton, the respected private firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, 
one of the major accounting firms in the country, and the public 
strategies group--all who made independent reviews of the Community 
Builders Program and all of whom said it was a significant improvement 
for HUD.
  If the community builders are now eliminated, some HUD field offices 
will drop below the minimum staffing level and will have to close. That 
includes the only office in my State. We have only one and it is going 
to close. Some people say: North Dakota is a small State, a rural 
State, you don't have many housing problems. Well, I can tell you that 
is not the case. We do have serious housing problems. Go to the Indian 
reservations in my State and you will see housing problems that are 
enormously serious.
  But more than that, when disaster strikes, HUD is absolutely 
critical. We saw that in 1997 when the flooding disasters hit eastern 
North Dakota. Let me say that HUD's presence in the State was 
critically important to the recovery in North Dakota. Secretary Cuomo, 
in particular, was absolutely superb in his response to the crisis. He 
understood the very human impact this devastating flood was having on 
the people of Grand Forks and the people of eastern North Dakota, and 
he responded. He went out of his way to make certain that HUD's 
response took into account the unique circumstances of this event.
  Rarely have I seen public servants respond in the way we saw in the 
1997 flood disaster in North Dakota. I have heard lots of criticisms of 
HUD over the years, but I can tell you firsthand that their response 
was extraordinary, and I will never forget it.
  Let me give one example. After the disaster bill passed Congress, top 
HUD staff, including the Secretary, stayed and worked all weekend at 
HUD headquarters in order to get the money out to North Dakota. That is 
a level of commitment we rarely see. They were there Saturday, Sunday, 
from morning until night, to get the money flowing. Indeed, we were 
able to get $50 million into the hands of the Grand Forks community 
within 48 hours after the legislation passed. That is the kind of 
performance one would like to see from public servants on a routine 
basis. That is what we saw from HUD. They delivered, and they delivered 
in a way I think makes us all proud.
  Because of HUD's quick work, Secretary Cuomo was able to provide that

[[Page 22646]]

$50 million in disaster recovery funds to the city to meet the 
immediate needs shortly after the bill was signed by the President. 
Without those funds and the dedicated work of countless HUD staff, 
Grand Forks would not have been able to recover from that devastating 
flood. I toured Grand Forks with the head of FEMA, James Lee Witt. We 
were there during the August break, and we saw the resurgence of that 
community. It is remarkable. This is a town where more than 90 percent 
of the homes were affected by flood. This is a community that was also 
hit before the floods by the worst winter storm in 50 years. Then the 
floods came. In the midst of floods came fire. It was an extraordinary 
series of events, but there was also an extraordinary Federal response, 
and I am here today to thank my colleagues who stepped forward and were 
willing to assist. But I also want to recognize the extraordinary work 
of HUD, and specifically Secretary Cuomo, because rarely have I seen 
the kind of response we saw during our period of crisis. In part, it 
was because he had this new mechanism, these community builders across 
the country who were infusing new energy and new ideas into the agency 
that made that response possible.
  In Washington, we hear over and over that government needs to be more 
responsive to people's needs and that government needs to be more 
flexible and work similar to the private sector. I can say that in 
Grand Forks, HUD did just that. Grand Forks is not an isolated example. 
We saw it up and down the Red River Valley. It wasn't just in Grand 
Forks; it was in Fargo; it was in Wahpeton; it was in Grafton; it was 
in Menoken. Town after town that was threatened had a full Federal 
response, and no agency was more responsive than HUD; no people were 
more helpful than those community builders.
  That is why I thought it important to come to the floor and say 
restore the Community Builders Program, restore it in the conference 
committee. Let's not recruit some of the top people from all across the 
country, asking them to serve for 2 years, and then, after a year in a 
program that has been deemed successful by every independent entity 
that has examined the program, say to them: Forget it; go home.
  The amazing thing is, they won't go home because we have signed 
contracts with them. If we don't fund it, we are still going to have to 
pay for those positions.
  I hope very much the conference committee will restore the funding to 
the Community Builders Program, to say to those 400 people who have 
given so much, we recognize their contribution; we intend to keep them 
as part of a new HUD, a HUD that has been reformed, a HUD that is 
responding in a splendid way to disasters such as the one we faced in 
North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. CONRAD. I am happy to yield to the Senator.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I was pleased to hear the remarks of 
Senator Conrad about the Community Builders Program at HUD. I echo all 
of the comments he made about the difference that HUD made in the lives 
of the people in the Red River Valley who suffered so immensely from 
the massive flooding that occurred a couple of years ago.
  I am on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and we had a discussion 
about the Community Builders Program. I share the feeling Senator 
Conrad has expressed on the floor of the Senate about that program. It 
seems to me we ought to find a way to continue to fund that program. 
These are people all across this country who are making a difference, 
men and women who give new energy and new vitality to the Department of 
Housing and Urban Development. I think it is a step backward for this 
Congress to say that program doesn't work. We know it works. We know 
firsthand its value. We understand its contribution in our communities 
and other communities across this country.
  I placed a statement in the Record a couple of days ago about this 
subject. I was pleased to have my colleague describe this in more 
detail, its functioning in the context of what we experienced.
  I ask the Senator if he doesn't believe, in the end process, in the 
overall scheme of the amount of money that is spent and invested by the 
Congress, if the funding for the Community Builders isn't almost an 
asterisk of an amount, but so significant in terms of what it means to 
the new direction in HUD and to the capability of HUD to provide new 
energy and new vitality to these programs. Is it not the case that 
funding for this program can be done easily, without cost to other 
programs, but in a way that will make it an incredibly important 
investment in HUD in the long term?
  Mr. CONRAD. The Senator is exactly right. I think back to the time 
when we were in the midst of that crisis and what a splendid response 
we got from HUD.
  I think people are often critical of Federal agencies. Certainly HUD, 
especially in the past, has received lots of criticism--well deserved, 
unfortunately. However, this new Secretary, Mr. Cuomo, has done a 
remarkable job of transforming that agency. We saw it firsthand in the 
flood disaster of 1997. Not only did they stay in all weekend down at 
HUD to get the money out to the affected communities, which was a 
splendid performance, but they were with us every step of the way in 
revitalizing and rebuilding that community.
  We have just seen the result. The Senator from North Dakota was with 
me and with James Lee Witt as we toured Grand Forks to see how that 
community is coming back. It would not have happened, the mayor of 
Grand Rapids said to me when we were at the League of Cities meeting 
Saturday night in North Dakota, without the assistance from the Federal 
Government that was received by the community of Grand Forks.
  The key agencies were obviously FEMA and HUD, also SBA. All of those 
were major contributors, as well as the Commerce Department and EDA. 
Those four agencies made a profound difference. The mayor said to me 
flatly, without the contribution made by HUD and Secretary Cuomo, that 
town would not have come back in the way it has in just this short 
period.
  It is truly amazing to drive through the streets of Grand Forks now, 
to see the schools that have been rebuilt, to see the downtown that is 
under construction--a new corporate center, a new county facility--to 
see other buildings that are being rehabilitated, to drive through the 
neighborhoods and see the new homes that have been constructed, 
hundreds of new homes, to see the devastated homes that have been taken 
out, to see the new greenway that is being created, and to go across 
the river and see a brand new superstore that is being built and will 
attract hundreds of thousands of people a year. This is a testimony to 
programs that work.
  We all know there are Federal programs that don't work. We all know 
there are times when Federal money is not well spent. This is an 
example of when the Federal Government proved its worth and proved its 
mettle, performed, and made a difference in the lives of tens of 
thousands of people.
  I want to publicly commend Secretary Cuomo and the people at HUD and 
to say this Community Builders Program ought not to be thrown over the 
side. We have 400 people who were recruited from 9,000 who applied to 
come to work for the Government for 2 years--in and out--to add their 
expertise and energy. We ought to continue the experiment. We know from 
every independent analysis this is a program that has worked.

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