    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [June 5, 1995]
    [Pages 805-808]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on the National Homeownership Strategy
    June 5, 1995

        Look at it this way, Jean, all your other speeches will be easier
    now. [Laughter] You did very well, and I thank you and Jim for coming.
        Ladies and gentlemen, I have looked forward to this day for a long
    time, and I care a lot about this issue. I'm glad to see so many
    distinguished Americans here. I welcome Congressman Bono, who was,
    before he became a Congressman, a mayor and therefore has an intimate
    personal experience with this whole issue. And I'm, of course, delighted
    to see my good friend Millard Fuller here, who has done as much to make
    the dream of homeownership a reality in our country and throughout the
    world as any

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    living person. And we thank you, sir, for your work.
        Before I get into my remarks, I think it's important for me to make
    a brief reference to another subject. Congress is coming back to work
    today after a break, and the anti-terrorism bill that I sent to Congress
    is being considered in the Senate. It will give law enforcement the
    tools it needs to crack down on terrorists that they, people in law
    enforcement, asked me to seek from Congress, first a couple of months
    before the Oklahoma City tragedy, to deal especially with the problems
    of international terrorism coming into the United States, and then some
    more things that were asked for in the wake of Oklahoma City.
        This is very, very serious legislation. The Congress not only has
    the right, it has the responsibility to review the bill and to hear
    those who think that in some ways its law enforcement provisions are too
    tough. There ought to be a full debate. But we cannot afford to let
    scores of unnecessary amendments drag down this process. In that I agree
    with the statements made by the majority leader of the Senate, Senator
    Dole. So I call upon my fellow Democrats and Republicans to limit
    amendments, curb politics, ignore narrow interests, to agree to the
    simple pact that there should be no excuses, no games, no delays. The
    time is now to enact this important legislation.
        You can be sure that terrorists around the world are not delaying
    their plans while we delay the passage of this bill. It is within our
    reach now to dramatically strengthen our law enforcement capabilities
    and to enhance the ability of people in law enforcement to protect all
    kinds of Americans. We have an obligation to do that. And so I would
    urge the Congress to take this bill up and to get on with it, to limit
    the number of amendments as soon as possible so that we can go forward.
        Now, let me get back to the subject at hand. I am delighted to be
    here. You might ask, why do I care about home ownership? After all, I
    live in America's finest public housing. [Laughter] The answer is, I
    once had a life, and I hope to have one again some day. [Laughter] When
    I was 19, I built a home as part of what I did that summer.
        When I was trying to coax my wife into marrying me, we were both
    living in Fayetteville, Arkansas, teaching at the University of
    Arkansas. And I had not gotten a definite answer; I think that's the
    most delicate way I can put this. [Laughter] And Hillary had to go away
    to somewhere--I can't remember where she was going now, but anyway she
    was taking a trip on an airplane, so I was driving her to the airport.
    And we drove by this wonderful old house. It was an old, old, very small
    house, and she said, ``Boy, that's a beautiful house.'' And I noticed
    that there was a little ``For Sale'' sign on it. So I took her to the
    airport, went back, and bought the house. And when she came home after
    the trip, I drove by the house. I said, ``See that house you liked? I
    bought it while you were gone. Now you have to marry me.'' [Laughter]
    And it worked; 20 years ago this fall, it worked. Most people do it the
    other way around, but you know--[laughter]
        I still remember that home cost $20,500. It had about 1,100 square
    feet. And I had about a $17,500 mortgage on it, and my payments were
    about $176 a month, as I remember, something like that. And that was 20
    years ago this fall that I signed that fortuitous contract.
        Those prices aren't very much available anymore, but the objective
    for young people, with their futures before them and their dreams fresh
    in their minds, starting out their families, to be able to own their
    home and to start a family in that way, that's a worthy objective--just
    as worthy today and, I would argue to you, more important today than it
    was 20 years ago, more important today than it was 20 years ago. We just
    had a report come out last week asserting that it may be that up to one-
    third of our children are now born out of wedlock. You want to reinforce
    family values in America, encourage two-parent households, get people to
    stay home? Make it easy for people to own their own homes and enjoy the
    rewards of family life and see their work rewarded. This is a big deal.
    This is about more than money and sticks and boards and windows. This is
    about the way we live as a people and what kind of society we're going
    to have.
        And I cannot say enough in terms of my appreciation to Secretary
    Cisneros, who is a genuine visionary, to the Vice President for all the
    work he and the National Performance Review have done on this, and to
    all of our partners who are here, all the people in public and private
    life whose work is home ownership. Since the day I asked Secretary
    Cisneros to build this strategy, he has done about everything a human
    being could do. And I can say without knowing

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    that I'm overstating it, that if we succeed in doing this, if we succeed
    in making that number happen, it will be one of the most important
    things that this administration has ever done, and we're going to do it
    without spending more tax money.
        Two years ago, I met a couple having their own first home dream come
    true. They're here today. Patty and Matt Murray had just bought a home
    in Frederick, Maryland, where I was visiting, promoting my economic plan
    along with the realtors to bring down the deficit, to bring down
    interest rates, to bring down home mortgage rates so people can afford
    to buy their own home. Now they have a stake in a better life, and I'm
    glad that they're here today. I would like to ask them to stand. I would
    also like to ask now all the other young couples that came here--I just
    want you to see them. That's where I was 20 years ago. I want all of you
    to stand here, all these first-time homebuyers that we invited to come
    here. [Applause]
        We have to remember that there are millions of people just like them
    who believe that home ownership is out of reach. They may be paying
    monthly rents that could cover a mortgage payment. They may scrape to
    save, but a downpayment is still out of reach. They are locked out by
    rigid restrictions or by a home-buying system just, as Jean said, too
    difficult or too frightening. And that is not right.
        One of the great successes of the United States in this century has
    been the partnership forged by the National Government and the private
    sector to steadily expand the dream of home ownership to all Americans.
    In 1934, President Roosevelt created the Federal Housing Administration
    and made home ownership available to millions of Americans who couldn't
    afford it before that.
        Fifty-one years ago just this month, Harry Truman rewarded service
    men and women with the GI bill of rights, which created the VA Home Loan
    Guarantee Program. That extended the dream of home ownership to a whole
    new generation of Americans. For four decades after that, in the
    greatest period of expansion of middle class dreams any country has ever
    seen anywhere in human history, home ownership expanded as incomes rose,
    jobs increased, the educational level of the American people improved.
        But in the 1980's, as the Vice President said, that dream began to
    slip away. I ran for President in large measure because I wanted to
    restore that dream, to grow the middle class, shrink the under class,
    promote the mainstream values of work and responsibility, family and
    community, and reform Government in a way that would enhance opportunity
    and shrink bureaucracy.
        We've made good progress, but we have to do a lot more. I ask all of
    you just one more time to look at that chart. And I wish I had a lot of
    other charts to show you that would reinforce that. Home ownership
    declines, then stabilizes at a lower level. At the same time, more and
    more American families working harder for the same or lower wages every
    year, under new and difficult stresses. It seems to me that we have a
    serious, serious unmet obligation to try to reverse these trends. As
    Secretary Cisneros says, this drop in home ownership means 1.5 million
    families who would now be in their own homes if the 46 years of home
    ownership expansion had not been reversed in the 1980's.
        Now we have begun to expand it again. Since 1993, nearly 2.8 million
    new households have joined the ranks of America's homeowners, nearly
    twice as many as in the previous 2 years. But we have to do a lot
    better. The goal of this strategy, to boost home ownership to 67.5
    percent by the year 2000, would take us to an all-time high, helping as
    many as 8 million American families across that threshold.
        This is the new way home for the American middle class. We have got
    to raise incomes in this country. We have got to increase security for
    people who are doing the right thing, and we have got to make people
    believe that they can have some permanence and stability in their lives
    even as they deal with all the changing forces that are out there in
    this global economy.
        No person, even the President, can look at these young people and
    say, I will guarantee you, no matter what happens in the global economy,
    you will always have the job you have today, and you'll make more money
    next year than you did this year. You know no one can guarantee that in
    the global economy. That's not the way the world works anymore.
        But we can guarantee to people that we're going to empower them to
    help themselves. We'll make home ownership more accessible. We'll make
    lifetime education and training more accessible. We'll make the things
    that make life work for people who are trying to do the best

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    they can for themselves there. We have to begin with the basic things
    that make it worth doing.
        As the Vice President and I said in a book we put out in the
    election campaign in 1992, our economic strategy includes a commitment
    to work to provide decent, safe, affordable homes to all Americans and
    to do it with an alliance of the public and private sector.
        I want to say this one more time, and I want to thank again all the
    people here from the private sector who have worked with Secretary
    Cisneros on this: Our home ownership strategy will not cost the
    taxpayers one extra cent. It will not require legislation. It will not
    add more Federal programs or grow Federal bureaucracy.
        It's 100 specific actions that address the practical needs of people
    who are trying to build their own personal version of the American
    dream, to help moderate income families who pay high rents but haven't
    been able to save enough for a downpayment, to help lower income working
    families who are ready to assume the responsibilities of home ownership
    but held back by mortgage costs that are just out of reach, to help
    families who have historically been excluded from home ownership. Today,
    all across the country, I say to millions of young working couples who
    are just starting out: By the time your children are ready to start the
    first grade, we want you to be able to own your own home.
        All of our country will reap enormous benefits if we achieve this
    goal. Home ownership encourages savings and investment. When a family
    buys a home, the ripple effect is enormous. It means new homeowner
    consumers. They need more durable goods, like washers and dryers,
    refrigerators and water heaters. And if more families could buy new
    homes or older homes, more hammers will be pounding, more saws will be
    buzzing. Homebuilders and home fixers will be put to work. When we boost
    the number of homeowners in our country, we strengthen our economy,
    create jobs, build up the middle class, and build better citizens.
        I thank Millard Fuller especially for the work that Habitat for
    Humanity has done in building better citizens. I remember the day we
    dedicated the very first Habitat house built in my home State, that went
    to a woman who went to church with me and worked for the State
    government and still her income was so low she was eligible to be
    considered there. And I was so proud of her because she and her
    children, for the first time, felt that all these incredible years of
    sacrifice and labor she had endured were about to be rewarded. And it
    made her a better citizen, and it made everybody that put a hammer to a
    nail a better citizen, and it made all of us who saw it unfold better
    citizens.
        H.L. Mencken once wrote that ``A home is not a mere transient
    shelter, its essence lies in its permanence, in its quality of
    representing in all its details the personalities of the people who live
    in it.''
        What we are doing today will allow more homes to be blessed by more
    families. I hope it will start all these young people on a path that
    will take them to great joys in their personal lives, and perhaps to
    other homes, but something they will always know that their country
    wanted them to have because they were entitled to it as a part of the
    American dream.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:50 a.m. in the East Room at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to new homeowners Jean Mikitz, who
    introduced the President, and her husband, Jim; and Millard Fuller,
    founder and president, Habitat for Humanity International.