after extensive hearings and this is legislation that responds to the damage done in the gulf area by hurricanes katrina and rita and mississippi and louisiana we have had as first let me ask pursuant to a conversation i had with the ranking member for unanimous consent that we have three opening statements of five minutes each  on each side so there would be a total of six opening statements of five minutes each divided between the majority minority is there any objection if not that will be the procedure we believe that the response to the disaster that befell mississippi and louisiana in the late summer of two thousand and five that the responses are wholly inadequate what we have today is legislation that responds to those crises first i want to be very clear there is very little new money in this bill people have said well we have already appropriated large amounts for the harriet but as our hearings make clear is we have heard from our colleagues who represent the areas many of those grants of money came with so many restrictions in our judgment do not serve a legitimate legislative purpose that the money has not been spent nearly as rapidly as it could be now there are also problems in the way in which the state and local authorities have dealt with this we obviously do not have primary jurisdiction over them we have listen to them in some cases we are going to be making some directions to them but primarily our responsibility is the federal government and we are here doing a couple of things is what it will for the library we are removing some of the restrictions that were put on the money we have also addressing in a primary way the housing crisis i apply to the gulf coast of mississippi or in conjunction in conversations with the members who represent those areas but in new orleans according to the head figures eighty two thousand units of rental housing before the hurricane have become thirty some odd thousand units now in other ways more than half of the rental units were destroyed that is a great social problem it has caused problems in places like houston where a city administration has been very generous and providing alternative living space for these people it has caused economic problems i remember reading in the new york times about a month ago that the orrick vacuum cleaner company had reopened a plant in the gulf area of mississippi to be responsive to the economic  and then had to close it this is after the hurricane because the lack of housing available for workers made it impossible to get a workforce so when you deny adequate rental housing for low income working people not only cause a social problem you cause an economic problem because the economy of new orleans depends to a very great extent on the service industries that employ people in this category and we have in here something that some may think controversial it is something that the general in california what is and i have long felt and that is the question of what do you do when you are talking about housing for low income people that is now judged to be inadequate and we are very strongly in favor of the placement housing for people in the situation but we feel that one of the grave errors in the past has been that displacement has preceded replacement and the result is great distress for people i do not think you do people a great favor by tearing down the housing in which they now live or in which they could have if they have people outside won't want to come back on the grounds that it's really not nice enough until you have built them a better replacement i think  of beat something with nothing no place to live is really better than a shoddy place to live and i think we can accept consumer satisfaction here we're not talking about places that are unfit for habitation we do believe that with regard to public housing in new orleans which is run by that inadequate use has been made a big just in units we believe there are people outside the city who want to come back and we believe that every effort should be made to find them and get them back into existing housing that is either now habitable or can very easily be made habitable with fairly small work and at the same time talk about the placement housing and when new housing is built public housing mixed income housing whatever people there decide to do with available funds at that point prior existing inadequate housing can be torn down but we do not believe and this is a principle that we intend to california and many others no more than six locals at one time i think there is a limit to the amount of time members should have to be asking which one is this so i hope we won't have that phrase repeated too often today we will have voted  three and as we go later we may very well and we'll talk about this finish up with votes tomorrow morning even if we finish the markup later in the day here tomorrow my tentative notion would be we might have voted  ten o'clock tomorrow morning to finish up i'm hoping we can we can do that so there will be votes at three p m subject of course to our being preempted by votes on the floor and if there are votes on the floor when we would have to be pm we will take the vote as soon as we can gentleman i think all of us when we witnessed the hurricane and the aftermath of the hurricane we were struck by the suffering of the people in new orleans and along the  louisiana mississippi and alabama coast if you recall then probably in your district in my district several churches gathered together and prayed for not only the victims but for the region that it would recover at a service of my church southern baptist church the pastor rid the following friday's from the bible for brother sisters without clothing and in need of daily food and one of you says to them go in peace be warmed and filled and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body what use honestly believe and sincerely believe that this congress has attempted to do what was necessary along the gulf coast i believe th hearing today is necessary and chairman frank for bringing the gulf coast hurricane recovery act before this body as he said  the majority of what we're addressing today does not require new funding however i think as we consider these amendments the amendments that will be offered  e an attempt just like the amendments and just like this bill on behalf of the majority and attempt to do it in the most effective way this hurricane was we keep we say it all the time it was of epic proportions it was a disaster run parallel with probably though i don't know that any american is really focused on the fact that this was five or six times larger than any natural disaster befall if you look at some of those other disasters you find that the federal government did matching funds are they allowed cd b g money to be matched so a lot of what we are have proposed to do and are for opposing to do today is consistent with what we've done in the past one thing that we ought to all  go forward is that problems existed in new orleans prior to this hurricane that is not an excuse nor is that a reason for us to sit back and not do what is necessary now but we have an opportunity not only to restore new orleans but we haven't we have the ability particularly with public housing that the public housing as it existed in new orleans that there were fundamental problems and if we go back and we simply rebuild those units on the spot where they are without taking a new approach that the catholic charities and others have proposed we're we're passing on a wonderful opportunity our obligation particularly to the city of new orleans i think is strengthened by the recent report by the u s army corps of engineers if members on either side of the aisle have not read that report the bottom line is that the diets were not sufficiently designed constructed or conceived and the flooding most of the flooding in new orleans would have been avoided had the levee system that was supposed to been there and had been maintained had been built right and maintained right so a lot of what you saw in the aftermath of katrina  the result of poor planning and poor execution in the building of the levee system which is a failure of a federal agency i am very encouraged that the corps of engineers unlike many federal agencies admitted their mistakes let me close by saying this the most frustrating thing to me and what ought to be frustrating to the people of new orleans and the louisiana coast is not a of this congress to appropriate money because we have appropriated over one hundred billion dollars that money is not utilized it has not been spent one hundred  ten billion dollars committed clued in sixteen point seven and the cd b g the program which this committee has oversight over with respect to the community development block grant money of that sixteen point seven billion dollars only one point two billion dollars has been spent that is not a failure of the administration that is not a failure of the congress that is a failure is being spent and spent well leading the way is the mississippi homeowners assistance program where over ten thousand families have received checks to help compensate them for their lost and assist them as they rebuild  hopefully this bill will encourage local officials and give them some of the tools that they lacked or believe they lacked and  relieving suffering and rebuilding the gulf coast committee has been very active in responding to katrina and rita since the early days they pass much needed legislation they've done it quickly and  not only left physical devastation it was left behind a reservoir of anger strong emotions and painful experiences are challenges to channel those experiences and emotional and emotions into an appropriate response mistakes have been made in the past but that doesn't excuse the president from going and trying to remedy some of those mistakes thousands of american families are depending on  january the end of january has spent an enormous amount of time on this and including hearings and a great deal of consultation and i think this is an excellent first product from from her chairmanship of the subcommittee gentleman from california we not only hold hearings that we move very quickly to get a markup so that we could take care of the implementation of the monies that we had already appropriated i'd like to thank the members of this committee many of whom support this bill and many members of congress who do not serve on this committee who have expressed major concerns about the rebuilding process in the gulf region post katrina  that we can transfer basically from thema and the another program which i will discuss there are ways by which we can remove obstacles so that we can get on with getting people back into housing and that's what this is all about and i have one goal with this bill and that is to see the gulf region rebuild while addressing the pressing affordable housing needs in the region the hurricane to strike nearly three hundred thousand units of housing in the gulf region affordable rental units homes of low and moderate income families and public housing did not discriminate when it came to destroying the affordable housing stock in the gulf region no income group are spared whether a family lived in public housing or portable reading how to in the gulf region it was affected many of the residents of the major affected areas like new orleans and elsewhere have not recovered from the storms and thousands are still displaced and living in other parts of the country months after the storms rather than in their formal c form or community while all of these persons may not choose to return they didn't wish to return we must provide for those who do with an opportunity who do want an opportunity to return a child to our twenty seven is about rebuilding communities to allow people to return everyone agrees that without housing there will be no rebuilding of humanities in the region when people do not have a place to live they cannot work to earn a living where there are no communities there is no hope schools need students to teach hospital needs patients and businesses need employees and customers where do we start everyone with experience in rebuilding communities believe that the rebuilding process will never get started unless it starts with housing this bill would address a number of issues the bill resolved the hard dispute over one point two billion in funds for the pima has it met a gratian grant program am the bill resolve the dispute by requiring that funds be made available to the state of louisiana with the road home program the bill requires monthly reports by the state of louisiana on the number of households assisted through programs funded receive e g funds by eliminating the prohibition against a match require it to be g supplemental funds can be used in conjunction with other federal programs including those administered back payments in addition the girl also provides for reimbursement related to an entitlement communities use of c b d plans to provide rental assistance to displaced person issues the one to one replacement principle by requiring a plan to be approved prior to any wholesale demolition of redevelopment efforts under the build hyde is required to complete a survey of displaced housing residents to determine whether they want to return to public housing in new orleans in addition the bill requires her to report on any proposed conversion of public housing units located in areas affected by the hurricanes as well as comply with the bill's other requirements related to public housing the bill addresses disaster by two years and project base rental assistance extensive disaster boucher the three months until january two thousand and eight project based outages would be protected where project was distraught as in need of substantial rehabilitation the bill clarifies the voucher allocation formula by requiring hard to make appropriate adjustments consistent with funding year two thousand and seven continuing resolution in addition the bill requires a number proactive measures related to batches that will ensure that no one is left without access to housing as a result of the hurricanes for the title for the bill would provide for the reimbursement of land who suffered damages related to commitments made by famous and conjunction with providing real units to displaced residents i'm excited that the members of this committee are in the position to speed up the recovery and rebuilding process in the gulf region by passing this bill i do not think that in of us believe that we would need another bill to address the gulf permanent untold misery for renters and homeowners who have waited too long for help let me just respond a little bit to my colleague on the opposite side of the aisle we're not opposed to redevelopment w opposed to tearing down unit where people are living in a temporary state of existence who were evacuated expecting to return and we say just three have three thousand of those units as we have determined that about sixty percent of those people have already identified that they want to return they return to those units that have been rehabbed and then a planning process can take place that would include the residents and any of those non profits that had wants to work with and the city about what kind of developments and where they're going to go and read redevelop in the units so this is about taking people out of houston and other places who have been very generous have not only used their city b g money to have provide support for rentals but have extended themselves in extraordinary ways and they thought that we would have a rehab program for our public housing units i don't think that's asking too much and i thank the members who travel with me to new orleans who worked very hard to understand all of this we toured all of those housing developments we know that some of them only minimal damage and it does not cost a lot of scheduling this markup on the gulf coast hurricane housing recovery act i associate myself with ranking member baucus is opening statement and i would like to again note that this committee was at the forefront of hurricane relief efforts with three hearings four briefings and approximately eighty witnesses participating in the months that followed this disaster the committee shepherd needed relief legislation to the house floor helping not only families in the immediate hurricane ravaged areas but those who suffered in the aftermath due to flooding i'd also like to thank chairman waters for introducing the legislation will consider here today and for organizing the hearings that are subcommittee held last month in the gulf coast in two days we heard from about three do witnesses and toured a number of public and private housing sites that remained devastated eighteen months after the two thousand and five hurricane and when i say devastated i should add that these are public housing facilities that clearly were in poor shape even before the hurricane and many of them were already condemned before the hurricane many of the public housing facilities in new orleans were built in the  forty s units that we visited had water heaters in the kitchen right next to the stove all of the buttons and pipes and everything right out in plain view furnace is in the living room no showers and water diverters in the bathrooms public housing facilities were concentrated in specific neighborhoods comprised of very poor individuals and their families creating pockets of poverty in new orleans and they were hard hit and neighborhoods of low income housing did not fare much better some collapsed and mold infested houses sit in what appeared to be a house graveyard the remains of other houses are bu slab of concrete in front steps leading to nothing and all of these dave hoods or hurricanes destroyed not only houses but the entire community there is no infrastructure there's no sewer water electricity many schools were destroyed  at least seven hospitals were destroyed so there's no there is no available healthcare grocery stores gas stations services first seniors and the disabled and many other businesses and community services no longer exist insurmountable and handing challenges as its residents continue to recover and rebuild but rebuilding in the gulf coast has been very slow and very uneven there are still too many who are without permanent housing jobs and infrastructure however as we learned during our recent visit to the region barriers to progress on the housing front are not for the most part federal as the gulf coast seeks to reestablish itself it has in the unique opportunity to become a twenty first century model for public and private housing community development and disaster preparedness and response but there is such a lack of leadership i have to say particularly in new orleans at the grassroots level and i think that's why we see a little difference in the mississippi area where there is the been this grassroots groups that have come together to do the rebuilding so  i i'm hopeful that today we can reach to the very difficult and very emotional components of the gulf coast recovery rebuilding process process by crafting legislation that will facilitate progress and i think that has a plan working with the community groups that i think can do just that in new orleans and to break that cycle of no housing so there's no jobs and then the workers come back and then there's no services if they were to come back but i think that we really have to address the twenty first century and look at the the multiple diverse groups in a housing component and to me that that starts with something like the love f area that has been addressed by hud to build not only the public housing in that community but also houses for for others so that they're not left in their own in this would be something like what's been happening so well in chicago where the those large house robert taylor homes were torn down and the multifamily multi type of community was was rebuilt so i would say that this is something and i know it was we met with the residents that live there and it was so difficult when they said i want to come back to the unit that i had to leave i want to live in it that exact one i want rebuilt  really repaired just like it was and this is an area that i think this is an opportunity this is not what we found as we have addressed public housing throughout the nation and we have the opportunity now to start with that and it's taken eighteen months  we still don't even though there have been some of the units that have been rebuilt even the residents have not come back to those so i and i understand that the intent of the legislation we considered today is to limit federal barriers to the to the only a recovering effort so i would urge my colleagues to carefully consider several amendments that members plan to offer today i think by eliminating a few more federal roadblocks to the recovery and rebuilding many of these amendments will improve spirit on this bill i do appreciate they're going to be some amendments some on each side i think can be accepted by consensus show me a good debate over but i appreciate the general thrust of this and i now recognize that the general north carolina who in the last congress was particularly months since hurricane katrina is how massive the failure of response has been at every level and generally when that  occurs we can kind of point the finger at somebody and say that this person on that group or that level of bureaucracy is responsible the thing that's amazing in this situation is that the fair use have been at every single level if you look prior to the storm after what the corps of engineers was doing to engineer design and build levees there was a massive failure if you look after the hurricane that the response of thema there was a massive failure if you look after the storm at the response of hood there was a massive failure and all of a sudden an agency that we've been trying square there and raised the hopes of the people in the gulf area to think that something was going to happen immediately and that we were going to stay this course as long as it took  there was a massive failure there congress failed ms bigger it is absolutely right we had a number of hearings that raised the expectation that we were going to do some things to impact the lives of these people in the gulf and yet all these months later we still have not produced on what we committed to do and in that respect i think i want to just really compliment the efforts of the new chair of the housing subcommittee because not only has she immediately had hearings she is immediately back with a bill that tries to address some of the shortcomings that we set up the failure to provide a match in call nation all of a sudden  for her to be thinking longer term in community development terms rather than in shorter terms of responding to the immediate needs of the people who are in the gulf so we have to take our share of this blame and local government has to take issue out of the blame because they have not responded quickly and and as promptly as they should have to get the money that has been in the pipeline out to the people who have been adversely impacted and finally so so we've already indicted the the folks who believe in the federal government structure we've invited the folks who believe in the in the federalist government devolution to the states because they didn't perform and now we have to indict the people who are in the private sector that we always call talk about pushing things over into the private sector let me tell you that there was a massive failure in the private sector because the private insurers failed to timely pay the claims that were filed and that has impeded the progress in the gulf area for all these months as much as government  bureaucracy at the federal state and local level as much as as our own agencies of the federal government so this bill is one effort that we are trying to undertake the things that might be intuitive lee ways to proceed don't work in a distress immediate situation of the kind that we have  here we can't we're not discouraging heard from thinking longer term but certainly they've got to react quick and meet the media needs of the people in this area before they can turn their attention long term this bill does that and i applaud the chairman of the committee for her tremendous work and encourage my colleagues to be supportive of the bill and less try to try to  trip it was my second trip back there and i was there right after the storm i think because i was coming in i think the cab driver that i rode in with summarizes where we are with housing as it relates to louisiana and it's frustrating he his cab driver was displaced and he's been living in temporary quarters waiting for something to happen and asking what needed to happen he said we just need to get started and  either go sour or you can make lemonade there's a tremendous opportunity and a tremendous responsibility that we have here is the ranking member talked about our stewardship to help the people of the state ravaged area from katrina but one of the things we have to do is make sure that this clean piece of paper many areas that we do it right we owe it to the people of louisiana in new orleans and we owe it to the american people to  right there were problems in the public housing sector in new orleans has been pointed out before there are wonderful plans to bring mixed use communities to that region but one of the things that i think our job here today with this bill is it time and time again the leadership from louisiana and from drones have come up here and said well we need a little bit more here we need a little bit more here we've given more we given more but hopefully today with this bill we do it in a constructive way not to be too prescriptive and telling the people down there this is the way you do it and quite honestly if we tell them to put it back the way it was shame on us but what we do should do is say we hope that these are all of the inhibitions that have kept you from getting started in the third no more excuses because it is time seventeen months later to get started in rebuilding the housing in louisiana it took three hundred years to build the great city of new orleans and it will not be rebuilt in three or four years and it will never be quite the same if we're trying to make it the same we're trying to bite off an apple quite honestly we cannot choose but what we should do is get this process started the natural process of building communities building housing bringing back jobs bringing back opportunity will redevelop and reshape what the new orleans of the future looks like but for all the sake of the american people and for the sake of the people in new orleans we've got mr chairman to get started we don't need to enhance any new programs with this bill we really need to take away whatever few barriers are remaining that have kept those planes from being executed in that region and get started and i hope that our debate in deliberations in the minutes offered today will be good stewards of the american people's players money but also to be good stewards for the people in new orleans and i get back to balance  objection i recognize myself of five minutes this has been worked out with the minority that was one segment of it as originally drafted that was not unanimous so we have to move that that was the one if you've seen a write up of it from  make and as momentous is changing every reference to the bill to august twenty fifth two thousand and five instead to august twenty eighth two thousand and five there was a deadline for a survey of residents of the public housing we said forty five days after the sixty days that is in here there are three others there was a request originally to transfer some money c b d it was originally the request we thought was one point two billion we met with the state of louisiana the other day and they said it was one point one seven five we want to be precise so we we did that we do it in a second so that hurricane wilma would be covered victims of hurricane wilma bill which required the state or local government agree to the transfer project based assistance each of the groups that build the housing and they wanted the flexibility to make those decisions remember transfer project basis it is by definition means no diminution in the recipients they all believe all the groups that are working on this that would increase their flexibility and i think this is again agreed to by both parties and we have included we have included that so with that i offer the amendment and  janice recognized five minutes on his amendment i thank the chairman i have visited with the chairman staff and others in the louisiana delegation in relation to that this particular proposal first and foremost this will not increase any amount now made available to the state of louisiana for housing assistance it only is a modification to the current rule that provides for the distribution of existing funds in testimony before ms waters subcommittee in testimony before this committee representatives of the luciana recovery authority have indicated concern about administrative limits on assistance that could be provided to individuals under the state's road home program for example in quoting from mr luzhin testimony who is the chairman of the l r a one of the most stringent delays of the program has come from federal requirements that homeowner's insurance benefits and femurs assistance for structural damage must be deducted from the homeowner's grant assistance that induction of insurance and fema funds designed to prevent a duplicati benefits are examples of corresponding verifications that we have no choice but to include in the program design it's taking inordinate time and complexity to provide needed assistance in a timely manner to homeowners i could go on with other state comment but suffice it to say that state officials have repeatedly pointed out that verification of all of these other program at a awards are complicating the delivery of assistance that's needed to individuals the effect of this amendment is to not require but only to make permissive that the state does not have to count all their federal benefits in determining eligibility under the road home as the original cost estimates were put  contemplated a maximum award of one hundred fifty thousand dollars notwithstanding the adoption of this amendment no one will get more than the value of the home prior to the storm's landfall meaning there will be no enrichment no one can game the system and get four hundred thousand dollars in settlement funds for a three hundred thousand dollars loss so there still will be a cap of one hundred fifty thousand dollars made payable by the road home and also a cap on the value of the loss the person actually sustained so there's no in red so no additional money no enrichment it is not mandatory it is permissible it allows the state to manage its business the way it sees fit it will in fact result in a potential increase in financial assistance made available according to the ira by about thirty thousand dollars the average award today is slightly under seventy thousand by some calculations this would make the average award something around one hundred thousand dollars that is capped because there is no ability for someone to get more than what they actually sustained last mr chairman i would be happy to answer any questions on the a member but that is brothers have to expedite implementation of the road home program but the hearing we were all taken back that in louisiana of one hundred nine thousand applications only seven hundred seventy five i think had been completed and we heard many stories about some of the obstacles that are in the way the program is very very tightly drawn and we know that people want to not have our program ripped off with fraud but this implementation is made very very difficult because some of these things were not well thought through and designing the  very very concerned not only about the appraisal process that started out wrong that they finally i think they started out with post katrina appraisals when they should have been pretty katrina appraisals  and they also i have been problems clearing title and that's something i think we need continue to take a look at because we think there are some ways by which that can be done that does not hold up the ability for people flexibility to move forward without holding up people for information that really probably is going to be forthcoming and now you're back to the gentleman from i was going to ask generally would you and i appreciate your comments and your courtesy not only in coming to the district and conducting hearings but your constructive assistance and direction on on the recovery i want to point out to the gentle lady that if someone had a small business loan not related to katrina matters prior to the storm and you get a benefit under the current program you have to pay off that existing s b a loan before you get access to any money so that small business people who are legitimately in business prior to the storm with an s b a loan balance of one hundred fifty thousand all of their eligibility goes to paying off the s b a loan this underlying bill today does not solve that problem but we are working with the gentle lady colleague mr last quiz in the small business committee to try to remedy that problem this is a hugely complex matter which is going to take a while to online but i really want to express deep appreciation to her for her help in the construct of this and her agreement in support of this amendment is going to be extremely helpful to us in helping the community recover you boss in this stuff but i appreciated your mentioning the small business committee in our colleague from new york we anticipate that this bill will come to the floor by the way we are hoping that this bill will be part of a package of bills that will come to the floor in the lonely island again we want to stress this is an example of what we meant when we said this is not new money this is unlocking obstacles to spending the money that had already been appropriated i want to take any thank you gentlemen we are all interested in preventing fought and waste and abuse and i think the gentleman is in the spirit here of trying to get the right kind of balance so i very much appreciate his amendment to the further discussion on the members of gentleman from louisiana if not year in the proposal known as a loser and a recovery corporation proposal which the committee did favorably pass out this would enable the use of fifteen million dollars only currently authorized c d g funds for the purpose of funding a new orleans recovery authority it's a previously existing entity within the city of orleans that is currently designated as the recipient of properties which the city finds itself in ownership of for example someone does not pay their taxes the city seizes the property nor as it is called is the administrator of that those properties so we have an entity that has an existing track record with an existing staff with existing authority katrina rules the money will go to the north entity for the purpose of aggregating ownership of today disparate ownership of property into contiguous tracks clean those tracks up and then turn that property for sale to the private market enabling we hope to trigger a private market driven recovery activity the role of government in this overwhelming disaster is simply to aggregate and get controls of blocks of property and to indemnify future developers from environmental liabilities so that the free market forces can work in discussion of this proposal with ms waters and chairman frank  was clear that we have to demonstrate success for this type of methodology to be repeated but it is my opinion as a in my former life before losing my mind in coming to congress i was in the real estate business  this is about the only way you're going to see systemic recovery with community restoration of resources no one is going to move back into their own individual property if they do not have assurance the firemen the policemen the school and their neighbors are coming back or the small businesses that is going to invest if there's no customers for his product so this will enable us to have a demonstration project which i hope in a very short while will demonstrate an alternative to the road home that will kickstart hope  have consulted here as we have tried to do throughout this bill with the two members most directly affected here the gentleman mr jepson the gentleman mr mintz on they both support the amendment but i want to make one point about this amendment the previous one i think might be relevant to the members opposes both of them we have adopting both and i say that because there have been members who have said well you know let's not put all the blame on the federal government what about shortfalls in the performance of the state and i'm not here to judge or say one way or the other the mayor supports so although we are differing a bit with state government we are implementing a plan which the locals have constructed which up to this point has not been able to be implemented without this type of enabling legislation i appreciate that and  time and haven't gone there i understand even more what he's been trying to tell us as a matter of fact i'm very concerned even with the road home program and the fact that we have many of the homeowners who would like to rebuild we have many who will never reveal we have many who are elderly who are not going to enter into any contracts with developers and contractors any of that but then i'm concerned about how the acquisition for these properties are going to take place and how they're going to be package an order to really develop those communities the only way it's going to be done is with the kind of planning and thought going into accessing these properties that will be available and then getting some real development done and giving people an opportunity to return to some housing that is approachable that has been built because the city had a plan are not so i like to mr baker for all the work that he has done in this area i just have one question and one of the things that i think that mrs waters mentioned in her opening statement and that is that the  the ability to acquire the property in so many instances there's been problems with the title property has has passed down generation generation without really changing the title or anything does that affect this  would you i think generally for yelling we do nothing in this to affect the curative capacity of local officials in a defective title however there are so many parcels that have been lost to commerce at this point the general view of the people at nora who by the way have a significant backlog of property that they've already cleared title to and elected not to sell at this point this is sort of urging them to get on with it because in all fairness some within the agency see a higher end to the property down the road when recovery has started to take on a little speed and so i'm trying to get them out of the speculative real estate investment business and into the real business of aggregating properties where they can with fifteen million dollars we're not going to buy thousands of tracks we're literally going to be under one hundred and the hope is that by having a small pilot project proceed quickly we can demonstrate how through modular housing or other prefab type construction we can get people decent housing quickly and kick start this process but as to the underlying issue the lady has raised there will be defective title in some tracks it will  i was directly confronted by the white house on the prior plan which this committee did adopt but this is a much more limited in scope type of approach if the gentleman would recall in the earlier version we gave any displaced person if we bought the property from let's say mr watt and mr watt wanted to have a shot at coming back after the redevelopment was completed we give mr watt an option to do that under this proposal so that people who might want to have their property cleaned up but can't do it on their own initiative or don't know that the whole neighborhoods are going to be cleaned up will now in fact see the whole neighborhood cleaned up under this proposal and yet if mr white does not want to come back to the community his property then can be sold by this developer into the marketplace for construction of housing so there won't be just cleaning up and idle property sitting there it will actually be a growing developmental concern reclaiming my time  does this scaled down version contemplate that all or has the local nora kind of come up with mechanisms to make sure that there's then i just a distressed sale as opposed to giving them fair value if the gentleman would you know further after the i would point out in the earlier configuration we were creating an entity that did not previously exist not only receive the money but to be the managing entity of the development in this case we have a previously created local government entity the new orleans recovery farty which is been on the books for a number of years has been charged with this responsibility of acquiring and disposing of distressed properties and the executive directly director of that entity mr blakeley has been involved through the mayor's office with an extensive redevelopment proposal which has been thoroughly vetted by the public so forth we have handed off in essence to the new orleans recovery authority the area of concern the gentleman raises we've not imposed our prior formula for value determinations we're leaving that to norah to make those judgments and to best move redevelopment forward finally reclaiming my time limit directed germans attention a page for the proposed amendment  seven following the theory of all the else fails read the amendment i'm just trying to understand what it says without taking too much of the committee time let me get back to the gentleman perhaps and in a few moments i don't think that it has any unintended consequence which you would have objection to but i'm i want to make sure before i give the gentleman the answer technically i'm certainly not accusing the gentleman of any any ulterior motives i'm just trying to  understand i was trying to read through it quickly and get a better understanding of exactly how this play out and that was the one part of it that didn't readily counted jumped out at me about  what it was designed to accomplish i think what in able to do is if someone is in the deal but you have a track to decide not to sell the developer is authorized to enter into a contract with that owner who has not sold to the developer but is in the midst of the development parcel to develop for that individual for a fee so that if if you're in the middle of a twenty lot development and you're a lot number eighteen you won't obstruct the development but by voluntary negotiation with the builder he can come in and clean your lot off and build your house back as a separate contract apart from the general governmental recovery that's ongoing so it is really technical in the sense that we will not let an out parcel be forced but we will let an out parcel negotiate so they become part of the larger redevelopment thank you gentlemen for answering the questions and i support the amendment as i did before make question i think this is a new way to do development but it protects the rights of property owners it's very important setting that precedent that respecting the rights of property owners does not have to mean that you hinder development but you do in a way to reconcile them is a good waters the lady from california for just the surprise brilliant leadership that she has taken on this issue she has provided sterling leadership with great dedication commitment and passion the kind of commitment and passion that this emergency has long deserved and was long overdue and on the parts  commend you mr chairman on your brilliant performance over the weekend on the bill maher your show those of you who may have missed that you missed a treat you really had missed the scarboro mumbling and confusing think let me let me just briefly miss jim and just go over this amendment is very very important i think there was a little side over overstated i wanted to set the stage for it now the federal housing administration provides credit insurance against the risk of foreclosure losses associated with loans originated according to f h a standards and as such f h a generally pays an insurance claim when it takes tile or conveyance to a property as  foreclosures and in order to convey a property and receive insurance benefits f h a requires the property be and conveyance condition as in a my style you book condition now  i believe that should except conveyance of the damage property and not just the claim for the cost of repair when there was no failure on the part of the service or to obtain hazard or flood insurance as pursuant by law so the pro's amendment i'm offering to day would help remedy this situation where lenders who are servicing f h a loans in the gulf region are particularly hard hit by this f h a so called convenience condition sable condition requirement connection with hurricane katrina or rita as you know hudson rules on conveyance conditions which will not pay claims until a property is restored to its original condition currently punishes lenders that complied with federal laws and good banking practices by requiring flood insurance under the national flood insurance program and has an insurance for properties in the gulf coast unfortunately for these b out of date flood insurance maps and limits on private hazardous coverage have resulted in widespread uninsured losses for consumers and lenders and i understand that c d g grants have gone a long way in helping b rebuild their homes and have also help services by reducing the number of abandoned properties and filling the gap left from and sufficient hazards in flood insurance however the problem is that some homeowners have abandoned their homes and despite servicers efforts will not apply for the c d g funds or the owners simply cannot be found my amendment would ensure a lender who maintain property insurance receives the full foreclosure claim without reductions or the amount of property damage sustained the amendment i am offering would restore fairness and confidence and average a program and encourage lenders to well let me just say that when you're looking at a situation with the pressing needs on the go and you're looking the cost not to do this is more substantial than the cost not to do insurance their hazard insurance policy did not pay and they walked away and they had a ninety thousand dollars f h a insured mortgage what were going to this bill does is as to go ahead and make their mortgage insurance a commitment whole even though this litter will not be able to meet the criteria of delivering the property to in the prescribed manner is that correct but i think it's appropriate that we all understand exactly how much money we're spending and we say again i we will be coming here for maybe a couple weeks we will make sure that we have a c b l estimate before we we get there and you and i think you're absolutely correct it's not in the bill as it passes out it will be more difficult for us to get the information but i'm committed to following up on mr knockabout concerns about the cost of the bill and he's absolutely correct not only our insurance companies not paying but some people were told that they were not in a flood plain and that they didn't need insurance and so we must do everything that we can to try and make sure that we provide an opportunity for you know lenders who are responsible for the conveyance to to be treated fairly so i would support the legislation and we'll follow it and also work with the chairman to make sure that we know what the cost i get that information to the members for the debate on the amendment if not the question comes on the stack here but it basically just strikes section three o six which is related to the transfer of the disaster back for program to a permanent voucher program i think one of the things we started this meeting off with was the spirit that we have a which i think we will probably extend today with this piece of legislation with anything into that making those permanent and quite honestly i think that's a discussion for another time if we're talking about adding additional vouchers to the bout section eight voucher program and fact i think you've actually scheduled a hearing on friday to talk about section eight vouchers so i don't really think that we need to at this particular point time one of the things we're going to do is make sure that we do the th t fix that was in the c r that actually took away vouchers from some of the hurricane related areas are going to restore their voters back to them we're talking about a substantial amount of housing being built back in the region and now to add additional cost of making these vouchers permanent actually adds cost to this bill and i think quite honestly it's not necessary at this time to for the redevelopment activities that should get started down in the area so i ask members court not increasing the permanent voucher program we've got plenty of temporary boucher's and we have adequately i think  the appropriate things to take care of the housing needs for many of the programs that we have proposed this legislation the gentleman from california are because these vouchers don't go back to new orleans east out vouchers on just in the way this is written actually stay in the community were the words of the people currently located in don't come back to to the city of new orleans and so if they study in those v program to become permanent under the local housing authority the bill ensures that return easer did displaced people are not put out on the street and that there's no break in the housing entitlement as i read your amendment vouchers go back to new orleans under the local public housing authority that's my understanding and i the one feature that i like the best about the gentle lady from california's bill is her effort to try to return people to their housing the to let them go back to where they live and she's only talking about three thousand and i tell you i feel very strongly about it and in new york at one point they started redlining neighborhoods and  they would burn down buildings and then once we stopped and said no we're going to rebuild these buildings and people can return to him that's when the redlining stopped and i think that her idea of trying to  people back to stable housing many of these people really need a stable housing if you give them temporary housing then then where the world was going to move when the temporary voucher expires then they're back out on the street a n so i think that this is a very important underlying feature of her bill and that your amendment basically got what i think is one of the most important features of her bill to provide a stable housing solution for the many many people that have been displaced by katrina crime in my time i think paternal lady's absolutely correct and i appreciate the attention and time that  has given to this issue he was there in new orleans and mississippi and he has done and said everything that possibly could be done in to to get support and i think he's well intentioned but  balancers i think is a very different question than the one that we're considering today but already administer somewhere in the neighborhood of eighty to ninety different housing programs a number of which are obviously applicable to residents of new orleans orleans parish and those impacted by katrina and rita so it's not like the underlying hud programs have gone away there was a terrible terrible tragedy that has occurred and it is right and proper for the federal government to come in on a to perera the bases over and above the housing programs that are already in place to try to give extra assistance but i think again the question is temporary i think most of us would agree that maybe three weeks is not enough time but maybe thirty years is too long a time it's some point when do we go back to the base housing programs that are already in place and we also have to remember to do if this spending is indeed critical and let's face it there's already been one hundred ten billion dollars spent it's not always how much money we spend it counts it's how we spend the money but i don't think taking what was intended to be a temporary solution to an extraordinary tragedy should now be turned into something of a debt we're still running a deficit might be nice if somebody would offer some programs that would be of a lower priority that could be used to pay for this because otherwise all that's going to happen is that a greater amount of debt oppose the amendment what we have is a question about what will happen or will to take you know it's now the problem is that the hurricane and the disaster and i want to remind people the statistics  gave you more than half of the rental housing units in new orleans were destroyed and rental housing units were destroyed elsewhere and we janet and mississippi that in our view most of us on this side justifies an increase in the second eight these are the this is the demand for section eight people lived invent a housing that was destroyed not every low income individual was living in a second a unit when you destroy rental housing the price of the remaining housing goes up the cost goes up and there is more need for the second a program including elsewhere now at some point we may be able to get rebuilt the right to housing stock of new orleans housing in a way that is guaranteed not to affect the supply if your top an annual voucher no one can build housing knowing it a bank loan based on an annual appropriation so the argument against going back to all means is that you would be sending section eight back to a city which already has a shortfall of rental housing and where people really wouldn't be able to use them or would use them by driving up the range on that diminished stock rental housing what we are saying is that this hurricane created an increased demand for section eight now in many cases these are people who are using the second eight in houston and atlanta and other communities we recognize this increase in demand and we are hoping to increase the number of second rate i would note that we believe this is subject to appropriation and as i understand it if this amendment is defeated as i hope it will be  or potential off an amendment reiterating that it is subject to appropriation which i will support i believe it already is but it's useful sometimes to make things explicit so we are urging the appropriations committee in this amendment first of all we are trying to take care of the people temporarily and striking this altogether would not do that but as for them staying there and again this is not an amendment to modify this that i understand but strike it altogether so the palm of what employees people  to section eight isn't the immediate problem with this amendment the problem is what happens when they do need in this amendment would strike that but what we didn't do is say to the appropriations committee we believe that this argue increase in the number of section eight and not necessarily you know always i hope we pass to get the bill with hundreds of millions of dollars to build new affordable housing in louisiana and mississippi much of big will be going to happening at that point we may have a different situation but as for turning them into one of these i said i think you are returning second eight to a city where they are not the appropriate remedy given the to be a diminution in the available housing for section eight and it is important take care of these people as they are it will be subject to appropriation i will be arguing at the time for the appropriation that yeah we should take into account the additional need for section eight given that say there's been a loss of just like the last word respectfully instrument and i thank you for noting that i do have an amendment that would explicitly make this subject to appropriation but but respectfully i would suggest that coming from florida where we've experienced our share of hurricanes i can tell you that floridians do have an expectation that when the ultimate disaster strikes and it's too big for the state and local resources to deal with that and they get some help from the federal government but they also expect that help is going to be temporary in the notion that because you're the victim of a disaster and your property is badly damaged or destroyed then we're going to give you lifetime entitlement to some sort of housing assistance is not what the floridians i represent expect they hope and the federal government will continue to be generous on a temporary basis with the temporary assistance that's necessary now there's a study being done that with respect to a survey  in terms of the housing situation right now at a minimum before we make this program permit permanent we ought to wait until those survey results have been completely compiled and get a report and we ought to have some discussions and a hearing in the housing subcommittee if not which i do not serve on if not the full committee before we would make this permanent i would additionally suggest that you know the democratic majority made a big deal i think appropriately so that any new programs would be subject to  paygo we're going to put this apparently in a supplemental spending perforations bill which would be explicitly violating their promise by the way i've been fairly consistent on this when republicans were in a majority i tried to insist on  pay go requirements for any new spending and that included hurricane disaster relief for florida at one point so i actually applaud the new majority's promise to pay for programs as they are created and i don't think we have any notion of what this would cost we have a promise to pay for it whatsoever and i think that at best we ought to wait until we get results of the survey in the notion of what we're creating here before we create it and so i would we said that and we had earlier said that so the gentleman was correct in that but what will now be in the appropriations bill partly because of the concerns that gentleman has only those species that have to be done right away and can only be done in appropriate he's been there are very few minutes can wait so program under section three zero six yes i will assure the gentleman that as much as i would like to because i'm not a big fan of the paygo i do not have the power to get it wait for this one we will be pushing for an increased section eight appropriation of which this would be  but it will be with a waiver peco but everything then it will be in the supplemental ok we will be only opportunity to do that reclaiming my time all that being true i only have ninety nine objections to section three of six as opposed to one hundred and with that would yield back t require extraordinary remedies and i harken back to nine eleven which was extraordinary and i believe we did the right thing when we accord it no use of dollars to families who were suffering it was the right thing to do in new orleans we have a hurricane that was unlike anything we've experienced before in this country there needs to be an extraordinary remedy for this extraordinary tragedy and we cannot continue to have people go from birdlime to deadline my belief is that what the  subcommittee chair offers committee chairwoman warders waters is a lifeline to those persons who continue to suffer the suffering continues for there we have an opportunity  but we do have on friday we're going to start understand section eight hearings on the housing subcommittee and i think that this is the place where that belongs i don't think that we want to create a whole new voucher system with permanent d v d when we have the comprehensive section eight debate which will begin to take place on friday and i expect that it will take its time and i think the chairman mentioned that this is something that can be delayed we have already extended the time limit for the d v d s and i think that that will give us enough time to complete any section eight debates that we have back here for the discussion approaches that could be considered a prominent extension may not be necessary and should be delayed to allow time for survey results to be complete title to r twelve twenty seven calls for her to conduct a survey in order to determine how many former new orleans public housing residents would like to return to their former development until the surveys completed it's difficult to identify the need for a permanent extension is d v provides assistance to many of the former new orleans housing authority tenets but more important than all that designed to be temporary and remedial in nature it was never intended to be a long term solution to a complex problem the deed he was from the exception created as an interim fix the v p provision in this bill would create a new pool of vouchers without any legislative hearings that's a very significant move and it r wants to do isn't going to affect section three zero one of this bill which is we said temporary temporarily extends this program but the key to all this is the american people want  do what's necessary to respond to this disaster they do not want us to set up a permanent huge disaster a disaster to to create a permanent funding mechanism for  these residences to permanently have housing it's just it's not something that congress the american people want us to do because it's wrong with how you feel it is my understanding but these vouchers will be available based upon eligibility only meaning persons who are eligible only those persons no new class of people will gain entitlement you have people who are suffering this will relieve suffering but bring section eight programs and you know to create our make what is has always been a temporary program a permanent program is creating an entitlement that number one if it's needed we have other programs to take care of that we ought to have hearings on it before with a fundamental policy decision that every time we have a hurricane or a natural disaster we're going to create a situation where people are given permanent housing vouchers recognize beyond their economic eligibility secondly i will say as members of discuss this and be very clear i think we don't have enough section eight for the reasons i said before i think any increase in the need because of the destruction of these values disappearing vouchers that splits the difference between that is they would still be valid who's for the victims of the hurricane who had lost that housing for as long as those people needed the housing and were occupying that housing however when those people i decided to move to other housing we're no longer economically eligible under the amendment we're going to come back with those values would disappear so it's sort splitting the difference if they would be indefinite as long as the individuals who now have them are economically eligible and need them but when the individuals left and no longer were either eligible in need of or alive for the second eight housing instead of becoming part of the permanent pool they would disappear that's why they call disappearing about you so i continue to hope that this is members defeated but i do want to know notify members that the german californian i welcome back and as i said they will be continuing and i defend continuing need for the victims of the hurricane people say was supposed to be temporary well when the housing that they lost is rebuilt i'll be prepared to consider getting rid of them but new orleans lost more than half of its vestal units and they are not on the horizon to be rebuilt and in the near time frame i wish they were so yes these are very long term values that's because we're talking about a very long term destruction of housing and we should not simply focus on the benefits to some poor people who are second eligible we ought to focus also on the destruction of the housing in which they used to live so that i don't think it is reasonable to provide indefinitely housing we've  it it's taken us much longer than we thought to resolve this problem well that's why it takes us longer to keep helping these people let's not stop helping the people before we resolve the problem and i think it is inconsistent to say well we're sorry this is taking so long but by the way we're cutting you off under the terms of the amendment and we will come back and i try to move this along the people will be getting the housing help as long as they the individual victims needed but when they are no longer using it then it will disappear and if that members think we are erring on the side of being too generous to people who are low income who housing was destroyed that's a category here well we've got people who have housing was destroyed and has not been replaced and it's not on schedule or be replaced and if the charges you understand why my colleagues and friends on the other side of the aisle are opposed to it the purpose of the housing is to help people recover and how in the world can they recover if they're in temporary housing if they move from the motel to the trailer park to another move they're not going to recover unless they have housing we had a terrible catastrophe and we're talking about trying to help these people recover and the gentleman said if that time expires they can go to another program i venture if you talk to these people there is no other program for them to go to go out on the street and sleep on the grail i mean it is very very hard to access any form of help we went through this in new york we had the red cross helping and all kinds of people helping but when people are displaced they need to have some type of stability in their lives or they can't recover now i think the gentleman raised the point about the cost and i think the chairman frank explained that this is subject to the appropriations committee so this is not going to continue unless there's a need there but not to solve the problem and just say well we're going to have temporary housing and when it expires in january well that's coming up pretty soon then with a supposed to do move someplace else there's no place for them to go i have a thousands of people on the waiting list for section eight section eight is all used up there's no million dollars from the cantor housing authority we took twelve million from the chaff and parish housing authority we took one point two million from the slide county slide out housing authority we took from the st bernard parish one point three two million and twelve million from the mississippi regional six housing authority these are places in the distressed area and yet under the continuing resolution was passed on the floor of the house we took money from there and i've heard that some of those people ended up or were in houston there's not going to be any money there and you know we took on the continuing resolution seven point two five million dollars from that housing authority and so i'm really confused while we were voting on the floor of the house some weeks passed to take money out of programs and now are saying we need to put the money back but the question is using a disaster to increase section eight vouchers i think the american people are tired of congress using disasters to add new programs so that makes everybody feel better about that one of the things we're going to do is bring a terminations to this disaster the american taxpayers want to step up and do this but they want to know what the bill is and they want to end it some point in time if after all the analysis if there is a need for additional section eight vouchers we're going to have that discussion but the problem with this proposal is that we don't know what the needs are and we've got people in limbo because we have kept extending these temporary boucher's we keep extending them and they're just sitting there waiting for something happening some point in time we have to say you know this program is ending they may in fact stay in those communities in those communities may have other housing offered opportunities for them but what we do is we keep the tab open is one would say by making this permanent and this is just not good policy the time to have an honest discussion about whether we need additional permanent vouchers in the hearings that we have coming up it's certainly not today you know in orange the folks in this chamber today to vote to be fiscally responsible we're going to address those needs we're going to do studies but let's let's not make new val true entitlement a part of this legislation is just not good leaving them in housing limbo is where they might be if they didn't have it i mean i i disagree that we're doing them a disservice by continuing housing he says well they're one certain or what to do they are free to make other choices and what we're saying is that that what he complained about is not to happen now in the formula that he talks about we told her not to penalize these communities because of housing value was just because of the hurricane to our disappointment had appeared not to get the point so section three o two of this bill beginning on page fifteen specifically says that help is to make sure that under the belt your formula change they may quote check your judgments as are appropriate to provide adequate funding that would just produce rate increase housing costs are rising from such hurricanes section three o two entirely solved the problem which we think had created but entirely solved the problem with no ambiguity for those areas so leave aside the fact  specifically for dade county and for the other areas that he mentioned is there further discussion on the boat times on the north carolina i wanted i didn't want the gentleman think we were ignoring him since i had the time i'm happy to yield to the g it is very important to understand that if you are not economically eligible for the section eight it will continue and if in fact you no longer make use of that for whatever reason then it will come out of the system it will disappear with that i want to make sure that that is very much understood this is not a bar and that our steps talked about it and i certainly intend to even place that in the legislation and we legitimate policy question here and just have after listening to the debate i mean the real question is how long is temporary and i think within the legislation regarding katrina there's been an eighteen month stipend that people have had to help them during the course of reconstruction etc but there's no end in sight to them returning to new orleans for many of them so i have some point as a representative green said people need to set down their r and you know you can't expect them to to wait forever and we're beyond the eighteen months and i think to allow this to become permanent so somebody who's been displaced to denver can finally say ok denver's now my home or to houston or wherever it might be i'd say you know at the beginning of this this congress said eighteen months is what we think it's going to take and we're past the eighteen months and i so that's why i'm going to oppose your motion because if my man was adopted as the chairman suggested he would be inclined to do tonight about remember would come afterward wipe out all three of six i believe and so what i think he said but the way you work when the congress went to vote we did i think promise that we would not allow anything to happen it might prejudice vote theoretically how someone might want to vote on your member it could be affected by by that amendment i think it's unlikely but i really do want to see if you gentlemen as a former speaker would understand i think you want to stick not said president i don't think that you have whatever be in a position of deciding whether you could or couldn't do that whether people would or wouldn't be affected so will we have amendments to the same section  thank you mr chairman and one final word on this subject and i will use my time for this of course mr chairman the people who are in houston some twenty thousand of them in my district many did not have jobs before they arrived many of them well they didn't have jobs in louisiana they had infrastructure and a support system so they find themselves stranded in a sense in houston without any support system any lifeline other than what we extend and i continue to believe that the waters language should prevail mr chairman i thank you so much for the judicious way that you have approached these hearings and want to thank ranking member pardon me now subcommittee chairperson waters for her many visits to louisiana and to new orleans and to to to acquire the intelligence necessary to make many of the decisions that housing remains highly segregated according to the national fair housing alliance every year more than three point seven million their housing violations are committed solely against african americans and latinos millions more baalei sions are committed against people in all of the seven protected classes family status disability religious color race sex and national origin site the estimated millions of fair housing violations that are committed annually in two thousand and five less than twenty six thousand complaints were processed by all parties combined the need for more funding for fair housing programs is clear the need for more funding for fair housing programs in the gulf coast in the aftermath of hurricane katrina is even clearer with months of katrina within months of katrina striking the gulf coast the national fair housing alliance conducted testing in five nearby states where many of the evacuees were trying to relocate this would be alabama georgia florida tennessee and texas n f h a measured the apartment seekers and the opportunity and availability of units for them they looked at security deposit rental rates and discounts for evacuees in sixty six percent of the tests white collars were favored over african american callers and test n f h a conducted on site testing at five apartment complexes where the telephone test alone would not conclusive african american and white testers were flown to the cities and conducted in person tests in three of these five tests or sixty percent the african americans experience discrimination there are tens of thousands of people in the gulf coast who have yet to return home all are in need of housing and a large number of them are african american latino and asian descent of these populations these populations seeking permanent housing the solution for them may be one that is impeded by discrimination this is why my amendment would authorize five million dollars the amount recommended by the national fair housing alliance at a hearing before this committee in february of two thousand and six the funding would be used for testing by private fair housing organizations capacity building to increase in meant capacity namely to provide training to fair housing agency personnel and to implement programs to improve and enhance agency performance they would also be used for outreach and education i'm urging my colleagues to please heed the words of james parry the director of the greater new orleans fair housing center who stated in his testimony before this committee just a few weeks ago their glory six that should fund a national informant testing project to uncover the nature and extent of housing discrimination against people displaced by recent hurricanes that congress should approve funding for a fair housing education campaign specific to victims of katrina that local fair housing organizations in the gulf coast region should receive additional funding from hud and other into teeth for their enforcement programs that my colleagues would support this commonsense amendment and i yield back the balance of my time is there further discussion on the amendment texas but i have a question for the children through texas also know it currently hurdy is responsible for enforcing fair housing program is that correct in what you're saying is they they don't have sufficient money in their budget to do all of the enforcement that they need to be doing well if i may secretary jackson came to houston and held a press conference wherein he talked about the need for more assistance and this was not this year of course i think it was early last year for more in force met in this area and what this will do is provide the additional dollars that are clearly needed and in my opinion this is not nearly enough but it is better than what we will have if we don't do it it's my belief that testing is probably the only way and if not the only the best way for us to ascertain where this type of invidious discrimination occurs and testing for edification purposes allows us to send persons equally qualified but they have some differences about them perhaps their ethnic this differences or gender differences and we find out whether one person who is qualified is the not what another person who is qualified receives in every case where testing has been employed we have found that persons of african ancestry latinos and asian americans are being discriminated against much time you know i think the question of whether her has current  funding levels to do the enforcement that is along states you to say required to do's probably not something that should be attached to a a disaster bill and again i  what the gentleman stalking about and certainly if there is discriminatory housing practices going on anywhere in america we want to be sincere so that we don't want them to exist i think that's a better subject though to be addressed you know it is the is the majority used drafting up their new budget proposal to present to this congress that if her in fact needs more money to do that that's a more appropriate place for us to be doing that gannett trying to attach some of these additional spending atoms to a disaster bill i think we have to get back to what the focus of what the spill is in certainly years since to do to the gentleman's issues there and don't want there to be is a city any discriminatory practices going on but again i no question in my mind that you want to do the right thing my belief is that you are a person of goodwill i do want to indicate however that these many of these persons and what we are going to focus on is katrina and disaster relief this is a part of that disaster relief effort as it relates to the katrina evacuees who have been removed from their homes and their other places and they're trying to get back home even some of those trying to get back home are experiencing difficulties and we've had testimony here before i have as to some things that are happening under the color of law that keeps people from coming back home so my appeal is that we make this a question fair housing enforcement has historically been very much underfunded and heard it has not been a top priority and even i would have to say even less a priority in the period since the one nine hundred ninety five when the majority shifted in the house the second point i wouldn't want to make to the gentleman is that in the aftermath of katrina you actually s same rules as a ads in the newspaper because if you go to the internet and look at some of the ads that were on welcoming white only renters in the aftermath of katrina you would be you it really would be surprising to the gentleman so this is a problem that in some ways is disconnected from katrina but in many ways some of the biases that exist came out in ways  debate is not on that i just think that it's a more appropriate in the majority has switched and that if additional if assist now needs to be placed on and i think a better discussion for that is in the budget process conversations that we had with individuals relative to post katrina were very very educational and informative as one of the things that mr watt alluded to that appeared to happen was all of the laws relative to discrimination that had been honored increasingly over the years and i seem to have just been thrown out of the window  following this disaster we were absolutely on even before the hearing that i held hearings that we had with mr now a when he was here we were absolutely appalled to get examples of the ads that were running on the internet that made it very clear that they wanted to grant a wide only and to exacerbate that we learned that for example in st bernard's parish relatives to keep from being able to have to extend rentals to others who may be people who were the victims of katrina so it may be a little bit unusual that while we are focused on the disaster that we will be raising the questions of discrimination but because this bill is designed to implement the policies and the dollars that we appropriated and to move this business forward of getting people level and to permanent housing and to get them out of the trailers and out of these rental situations the temporary situation we have to focus on this because this is one of the impediments and i and that's the report from the home mortgage disclosure act sure very good shows that if you have black or hispanic your chances of getting a mortgage or paying a reasonable price for a mortgage are much about us than if your wife's now race is hardly the only reason for that there are economic factors we've made a great deal of progress in this society to me with race but we are far from abolishing it altogether as the proliferation of racist edge on the internet you know and i congratulate the demo i think this is very important it is a fairly small piece of of money to pay for trying to vindicate one of our basic constitutional principles on which we have made progress but i come far enough is the present discussion on the amendment  chairman if i could i would want i'd like to ask some questions of the gentleman from texas and you'll some time to him first i want to thank him for the spirit in which he has offered this minute and although we occasionally different did as i have never doubted the purity of his heart and what he brings to the floor and what he brings to this committee i'd like to yield first to the gentleman to ask the question in your name that you refer to qualif are community to community based organizations that apply for grants and with the grants they perform the function of testing as i explained it earlier and reclaiming my time how would one qualified to be in geo that meets this particular definition he would have guidelines that are established for the n g o s we would not set the guidelines reclaiming my time and i'd like to yield to the gentleman again how do we know that the money that would go to these n g o s would actually be used for this purpose since these n g o s have many other missions and facets to their existence the only utilized other grant money will be utilized for these grant money the federal government is not known to willy nilly arbitrarily and capriciously handout dollars in spite of what appears to be the case in some circumstance reclaiming my time and then i'd like to yield to the gentleman again and we've touched upon this but i want to make sure i put a very fine point on it and that is if extra songs were appropriated to hud and i sing justice as well to do in your opinion a better job of enforcing our anti discrimination laws will that room of the the situation in your mind or is there something unique that cause or additional funding to private in force in actions yielding to my friend thank you and i greatly appreciate the question because in truth this would not be the absolute remedy but the truth also is that you have to take these remedies sometimes sometimes incrementally and we take what we can do today and we build on that so that we can have a better tomorrow reclaiming my time in this will be the last question i have to mean clearly i agree with chairman it's tragic and very seeing that in twenty first century america unfortunately racial discrimination is still alive and well you brought out i believe in your comments and studies i believe that you had seen or been privy to and the chairman alluded to there sometimes different patterns of housing or explained by other factors besides racial factors the studies you alluded to did they hold constant economic factors education factors single headed households versus couples and ideal to my friend yes or the national fair housing alliance is a credible organization and when testing is performed the persons who are made a part of the actual test are similar and every way possible for meeting the area that the test is to give the crucial information and consistently when we send persons out who are equally qualified with one exception perhaps being maybe the ethnicity of the persons we do see the discrimination still existing but now it is broader than this and i don't mean to broaden it to other areas but in terms of bank loans we find similar circumstances manifesting themselves so testing has proven to be a very valuable instrument and it also helps to thwart the efforts of the persons of ill will when they read in the newspapers that or in some form of media that there was testing that took place and persons were exposed and to my time is expired but i think my friends in texas and i think this can i thank  i think the gentleman that we have before us allows areas affected by hurricane katrina rita or will move to use monies received undersea the p g a tour their matching requirement for other federal programs pieces from that disaster hurricane dennis came along and added another two point two three billion in losses to the total governor blanco called the relief in the bill that we have before us the adrenaline shot that  needed to get back on its feet and i couldn't agree more i think it's only fair however that we provided drill and shots to all those who need it including those victims of hurricane dennis in the panhandle of florida the courag way that i think it hasn't been before and many of the proposals that are here about increased flexibility do have a good deal of applicability not just in this area and the general partner has been very diligent in trying to defend the president's part of from the effects of these disasters and she makes a very good point that this is a case where the the flexibility that it's in this bill really does have general application so i support the member to defer the discussion on the amendment if not the question comes on the chairman these ministration gave one point two billion dollars from the femur of hazardous mitigate grant program to louisiana officials this program provides grants to implement long term hazard mitigation measures after a major they be used to fund projects that will reduce or eliminate losses from future disasters projects have to provide a long term solution to a problem for example elevating to reduce the risk of flood damage as opposed to just buying sandbags and pumps to fight the flood of funds could be used to either protect either public or private property or to purchase property that's been subjected to or is in danger of repetitive damage unfortunately because of the provisions under louisiana's state run road home program and i put that in quotes has not released these firms for fear of legal action section  hasn't really been implemented well i support the section i'm concerned that without the proper guidance from congress funds will be misappropriated and the mission hazard mitigation grant program will be forgotten if there's one thing we learned in florida is that nature can be somewhat predictable as an area floods flood again and again congress should not be giving money to homeowners to continue rebuilding in safe areas additionally this committee needs to ensure that the one point two billion is going to those who need it not just to administrative costs or other programs within the consequently the program which i introduced with congressman hensarling and piers states that hud must spend this one point two billion grant programs that meet the requirements of the hazard grant program voting in favor of this amendment will ensure that these dollars will help the state of louisiana to implement a must much needed long term plan to prevent future does disasters i encourage members on both sides of the aisle to support my and then i yield back the balance of my time pledged to billion dollars going nowhere simply because they cannot make up their minds what to do with it or what not to do with it the fact of the matter is we have a disaster we have a crisis and we can make use of that money and yes we have the road home program and we are working out the problems that's what this legislation is all about moving the impediments to things successfully getting people settled out of these trailers bringing people back home who want to come back home and it doesn't make good sense for famous to demonstrate one more time that it can't manage that it doesn't know how to spend the money that it's holding on to m y because it doesn't know what to do as a matter of fact this bill would transfer a one point two billion over to the road home program so that not only will be able to expand the assistance that we give to homeowners who fully expect their got to help them get back into their home back we will be able to remove other impediments that all allow us to move from trying to hold people down to fifty thousand or twenty thousand when in fact we say we have a program that will give up to one hundred fifty thousand even though if you calculate the numbers and we have to everybody the amount of money that we have in the program would not do that but this will have to get us to that point it is absolutely ridiculous to follow the leadership of people one more time that will simply embarrass will simply have people pointing fingers to monies that we have appropriated that they don't know what to do with this is the best way to mitigate and this will mitigate people being forced out of their places because that this is  say that that we in the congress have an important responsibility to see that the firearms which are appropriated are used in the fashion in which they're intended and the purpose of this amendment is not to keep them in fema recognize that that the change is going to be made that we're going to move those dollars over to h or d but we do insist that they be used for the purposes for which the original intent was designed there's over one point two billion dollars in the fema hazard mitigation grant program has made a violent label to the louisiana recovery authority but inaccessible because of the rules of thema we don't disagree with that at all but we're saying that that  money moves over that we should be accountable on the agency should be accountable to use the dollars in which they're designed and nationally so we have this amendment which will basically do that and just would  thanks to mr brown wait for bringing it up and support the amendment a hundred percent support the use of these dollars for people who are affected let's make sure that we're using them in the fashion which they were designed initially and i  year for the debate on the question the care recognize myself for five minutes the gentleman rexdale said this should be following the intent well let me adopt the speaking vote of the president we are the intended i agree this should be the intent it is the intent of congress that's us and what we are saying in this bill is this is what we intend when the bill bradley passed i do not think any of us contemplated this situation what's happened is this is a prime example of how some of the money has been spent not all of it some of the fault is local and state but some of the money has been spent because of conflicting federal requirements in this case we believe we can it has been the victim of a kind of a cross fire between  fema had said use the money in this way it seems to shed but you can't do it the objection to it and people said they were afraid of legal action well one of things we can do we can do everything we can pretty well if you know you from a federal  it was discriminating in favor of older people that was the specific argument that had a proposal here where it treated people differently and this program according to whether they plan to stay in louisiana or move but they made an exception to that restriction for older people i do not think that this committee believes that favoring older people want to take a program based on their age is discrimination of a wrongful sort i think it is reasonable to say that all the people might have  choice about where they're going to live maybe they move in with family or whatever but that's a congressional decision so the notion that this violates the intent in the first place no one foresaw this but we are careful any intent here and this is  flexibility what the gentlewoman's amendment would do would be to restrict louisiana stretches and we are under strict always try to weasel out of it said they want to use it for their own home if they want to use it for hazard mitigation there's nothing in this government program and believe me when the hurricane originally hit the people of florida had a great deal of sympathy for those affected let's face it florida florida gets at least one hurricane here we we've dealt with this before but making sure that that money actually goes for the people intended as opposed to it going for hud administrative costs is i think just a good government it would be inconsistent for us to beat them up and not getting more of these grants out and then complain about it even sort of course it meant sort of close to what you what you need to get the grants out but what the a member does is to restrict the use to h reason for my concern when the program was initially established and the hazard mitigation money made available the state chose to set up a program where if a person left anna they would be penalize forty percent of their eligibility award by that departure from the state trying to incent to stay in louisiana there was a judgment however made by the state that if a person was sixty five years of age or older that they would not be subject to that forty percent haircut for whatever reason the agency looks upon that age bracket exemption as discriminatory in practice and that if they permitted the money to be utilized in that fashion they would be subject to litigation over the question of age discrimination as i understand the chairman's view coming out of the hearing ok if you're not going to spend the money for fear of litigation let's move this money over cd and allow it to be utilized in that fashion on the one hand i understand members frustrating that you've spent a lot of money or appropriated a lot of money and there does not concurrently seem to be a whole lot of activity on the other end of the pot i'm not going to defend the state's inaction to this point but i will make clear that if you move this money out of hazard and over to cd b g i believe it will facilitate a little more timely response now what is it that we would preserve with the rules of hazzard that we lose if it becomes c b g the principle operative piece is that if the l r a are nor acquires this piece of property with hazard money it is for ever out of commerce the government can't use it you can't put a football stadium on it you can't have a boy scout camp out on it now if you imagine this piece of property being picked up piecemeal track by track across communities whose responsibility is it now to maintain or dispose of that property you can't even give it away to a organization that provides shelter for the homeless it's out of commerce that has always been problematic to me just as an operative observation we shouldn't as a government be taking property away from people and taking it out of any economic value would all i can tell you just as a duck running blind it would be worth something in my part of the world so we're giving away economic assets by using the money in this fashion therefore shifting it over to g remedies that restrictive perspective and let me make clear c t b g is subject to all of the regulatory accounting and supervisory oversight that the secretary currently has to ensure that the  money is utilized for its intended purpose consistent with good public policy so i regret that i didn't take time ms brown wait to come to you earlier on and express my concerns about this i had  several strips of bacon in the fire at the time and i didn't get to this till this morning and i regret that i find myself in this foster but i do believe the consequence of the amendment intended to ensure the money goes to the right purpose with lower administrative costs will be met by b g compliance rules and you will not accountability by losing any and may be viewed by some as not necessarily always exercising the highest and best judges but i can assure you in this case that will be done and this really does help the state move forward with its recovery so i respect the gentleman and gentle lady who have proposed this amendment but there is an operative concern of some significance to give me an announcement which is recorded those joining with her will signify sufficient numbers the go call is noted and pursuant to the announcement more quickly than i'd anticipated i guess i could announce lunch more often  person about myself if i can will to go it is now clear to me that we will be able i will be to finish is still today but we will probably finish it after the house has stopped for the day given that i am going to have votes on the four in which case we will vote immediately when they are concluded and we will then convene i believe at ten o'clock tomorrow morning probably solely for the purpose of finishing the vocals to make good progress on the on the remaining amendments and with that the  amendment actually the overall look upon as an anti justification amendment it adds a new subsection to title two of the bill and or that sale is made available for affordable housing or for displaced residents and then the second component provides for a one for one replacement of public housing units or comparable units for residents in the affected area and these residents would also be provided with relocation benefits and then finally the amendment  prohibits the displacement of tenants from habitable units as we saw there are some units that are habitable now unless the public housing authority provides suitable units in the local community including during any period of rehabilitation and i think one of the worst outcomes of this could be that the poor people end up being displaced and then we have more affluent residents moving it buying into buying the property or the housing authority selling the property and then we find that the poorest people and in fact it looted from returning to the community and i urge my colleagues to support this minute so we can stop to proceedings this is been one of the big problems they haven't gotten started you know they have we have some of the the housing units and yet there's nobody there we saw other ones where there's you know the tenants want to get back in and they say that you know that these are habitable they even had somebody come in and testify that the mold would not come back i don't you know i i question that i know how desperate some of the people are to get into those but it seems like we're we're really tying the hands of both the public housing you know public housing authority and anyone to really get this going without these restrictions if i can respon relevant information is necessary that would include proposals for projects in that area for new owners of new units and so in terms of what's going on on the ground in new orleans this does nothing this would require require hood to make sure that we know exactly what's going on in the land has been transfer now if the question is whether or not heard would be held up in selling land to a potential buyer the answer is yes because that's exactly what we're trying to to to discourage we're trying to discourage the displacement of the poorest residents in new orleans this to me claiming one time do you think that then that there would be able to have misused housing holds six is to make certain that herd is on top of the sale of land particularly public housing and if there is a proposal that would somehow allow for mixed  housing i think that would probably be considered the point is we cannot we cannot just remove this land from the housing authority and sell to developers who would then come in and construct  expensive housing that the poor people couldn't move into the memmott as you as you can see also says unless it is for affordable housing and affordable housing can be mixed  doesn't it seem to make a difference it seems like this would be jumping ahead if you want one on one me turn and we don't know by that time how many people will be coming back but  the mass section of this amendment excludes new orleans this is a mississippi issue that arose from the hearing up there are other specific sections in the bill that deal with the world bank and this amendment and in fact it back this amendment deals frankly with public housing which sort of intact because it talks about transferring units this is dealing with the many public housing units that are in reasonably good shape that might be sold that's why if you notice on page three  mississippi would be sold out of the inventory never again to be occupied by public housing but this says that if they are sold they should be some restriction on the use in the future  that's been well documented by the low income housing coalition studies and other studies what we fear is that what we talk about one for one replacement that if you sell off good units of public housing to individuals with no restriction on the use of that and no commitment to build a placement unit then you further diminish the stock of good housing and i'm afraid that what happens to public housing is the bad stuff is allowed further to erode lack of good maintenance a survey of public housing says herman how many actually want to return to new orleans and then this makes sense because we really need to understand that they must have a certain number of public housing industry built by a certain time we need to know how many people actually intend to return to new orleans public housing units but we need to make sure that surveys done in a way that ensures that we can rely on its results not just assume they're correct this minute clicks what i see is an oversight in the draft drafting of the bill the bill is careful to ensure that the survey questions are written in a way that are clear and not misleading but the bill directs the independent organizations connected to consult with the resident council about how to design a survey despite all that all this care the bill misses one important safeguards were to ensure the survey using appropriate scientific research methods that this man does not adopted we run the risk of not truly having an accurate picture of the number of residents who want to return to new orleans in the ideal world we would have response rate of a survey of one hundred percent that is we would have every public housing resident has been displaced by hurricane katrina answered the survey however with the victims scattered all around the country with many other challenges to address the recognize that this might not be able to reach everyone as individuals we must ensure that we have a valid reliable service even if we don't hear from everyone social science research provides for such situations we must make sure that whatever is asked to connect the survey contemplate such that using designed to serve a administration's way that ensures results can be relied upon this basis of the of mind in your back general in california social science research it provides a way of providing accurate numbers of people who want to come back with it and knowing we can't reach everybody just gives us the time on time yes i don't know if i that everyone is who's made application for systems they have that database these people are receiving a temporary assistance so they know where they are they can't reach him by sitting in the office on the telephone calling they have to go out to where they are most of the concentrations are in texas and houston and in dallas some in florida and i land the numbers are not so huge  that you have to resort to a scientific approach such as getting a percentage as you would do in some polling except they need to they need to be in touch with everybody they're sending a check to that's all thousands that we don't know about who want to move back that aren't recognised and the goal of this is not in any way to come with a lesser number is to make sure we come up with scientifically the most accurate number so we can actually provide housing for everybody who wants to come back but if  and before we get to the floor you believe that this is inaccurate and will not result in your in the benefit of the people in the region i'd be happy to withdraw and i just want to make sure we service everybody who we need to serve out there and this is giving them a best information we one is there any way the gentleman yield mr chair i just a quick question i don't really have any objection to this amendment but i was just trying to think we're missing a word on the page six line thirteen we're going to submit the full research design i think needs another word in there of i think excoriated the federal government and the state governments for incompetence or my moment does is ask the comptroller general to study what went wrong and to come up with suggestions for modifications that might be made in order to assure that this does not happen in the future it is specifically limited to two to hurricane relief but hopefully mr chairman we could as a result of the study develop some models that would be used as the matching portion from the local government ten percent that the local government should have an option whether they want to go through the environmental process and the environmental process of in my opinion that slows premier did it and then even then he said the local government could say we want to have to but wants to go have to they can but this only applies to the ten percent match that the government could u affordable rental housing stock for the elderly disabled and homeless of the units destroyed by or damaged by katrina and rita seventy one percent were affordable to low income families thirty percent were affordable to very low income families an adequate supply of affordable rental housing is essential for the return of families displaced by the hurricanes as well as the recovery of the region that has been devastated project based section eight housing vouchers one of the most effective ways to ensure that units built are affordable to low income families just provide an operating subsidy that pays the difference between the rent for a modest apartment and approximate thirty percent of the household income thus providing subsidies that enable the poorest households to afford a unit financed through tax credits this to men met with authorized approximately thirty six million dollars for new project based section eight housing vouchers to support four thousand five hundred permanent supportive housing units that would be available for persons with disabilities the elderly and those who are who were homeless before katrina this amendment is important because it puts in place a piece of a broader reconstruction plan that will ensure sufficient housing in the gulf coast for our poorest and most vulnerable while some resources have been dedicated to the recovery of rental housing in the gulf coast fewer resources have yet to be provided for the reconstruction of housing that is affordable to very low and extremely low income households  elderly or have disabilities mr chairman i would add that this is the part of what we hope to introduce in a future bill and i would also withdraw the number seventeen which we have pending amendment eighteen and amendment twenty which is the green cleaver amendment that would have provided that he be g g for n g o s thank you gentlemen the gentleman who threw on the amendment  move to strike the last word i appreciated the subjects in these amendments are very important and i want to assure the gentleman is as i have on behalf of the gentleman california this is a bill which we are as everybody understands now trying to restrict to the immediate will be that project based section eight for example solve a problem i've often talked about a second a city they add to the demand for housing in ways that don't effect the supply if you make them project based they can be supply enhancing as well as demanded hansie because people builders property nonprofit who get an insurance of a twenty year second a can literally take that to the bank and build housing with it including big housing with some of the units of section eight and so many other we have this situation where there are people spending as members can see from this bill a good deal of time since we organized about a month ago it seems longer on this bill but as soon as we are through with this he will be turning her attention i believe in our yield earn a minute to rental units over in texas where many of the people are from new orleans the fact that he was to some of the areas where the public housing units are and he also lives in the lower ninth where many homeowners lost their homes i don't want to put a lot of time and thought into this he's absolutely correct in his approach about what we must do to begin to end the housing crunch in crisis young katrina what do we do we're proud of the people who want to improve algiers can't stay on temporary about is forever and that we must begin to think about that in the fact that not only has he introduced legislation that may be just a definitely be taking up this issue as our next step and happening to deal with the housing crisis and i appreciate the work that he's done and i will yield back the balance of my time one of the  know because we've appreciated the government work one amendment i know the general is going to offer he's not offering because it's already in the bill because he was sure pretty persuasive and that is the situation that came out of the hearings which seem acknowledge that they had signed some contracts with language in houston for section eight vouchers and then subsequently discovered that they didn't have the legal authority to do what they had done and canceled those leases leaving some landlords in trouble what they still specially thank your staff and the subcommittee chairs staff subcommittee chairperson water staff because of the staff's help make this possible and i greatly appreciate all of this distance that we will take them and we will be addressing both of those and i'm pleased to join my friend and colleague from new mexico mr pearce in offering this amendment as a way to help over half of the approximately two thousand four hundred public housing authorities in this country including the gulf coast  achieve funding stability for the remainder of two thousand and seven in the blink of an eye and with no heads up to over twelve hundred throughout the country the fiscal year two thousand and seven continuing resolution h j read twenty establish a new section eight funding formula so here with a ph all set with their budgets for the fiscal year two thousand and seven and with apparent support of the  chairman congress goes ahead and changes the section eight funding formula for a number of reasons i am particularly disappointed in this action first the funding change was made and an appropriation bill the last time i checked  authorizing on an appropriations bill as against the house rules before it went to the floor for consideration the formula change was not reviewed during this congress by our committee or our housing subcommittee my colleagues held ramin waters and i are working on a section eight reform bill we have a hearing on section eight this friday it's appropriate that our committee the authorizing committee hold hearings and markup legislation to consider and make necessary changes to the section eight funding formula third any formula change that effects over half of the nation's p h a should not happen without warning not fair to small rural and suburban ph a's with often limited research resources and staff to change their section eight funding stream mid year i can't imagine that most of the members of this committee would support these mid year cuts in funding to their own public housing authorities mrs waters public housing authority as well as my will suffer this year if we don't reset the formula under the c r s funding formula each housing authority and all three counties of my district will receive the funding cut this year the housing authority in cook county will lose eight million dollars surely it will will lose one point one million dollars or a new page county well will lose over a million dollars states like california florida texas new york michigan ohio tennessee missouri virginia and alabama will suffer significant losses more specifically los angeles county los angeles city p lose forty seven point three million dollars this year new york alone will lose fifty five million dollars this year forty five p h s in florida will lose a net of twenty eight point six million dollars the collar counties of chicago will lose eight million my constituents  now not well served by this abrupt and drastic change in the formula and i would recommend that the my colleagues in the committee take a close look at the new numbers for their districts these cuts are unfortunate for many of our p across the country however the most unfortunate the gulf coast ph aides are among those slated for funding cuts at a time when they are working overtime to bring home residents that were literally scattered by the winds during the two thousand and five hurricanes that continuing resolution took  budgets of fifty six gulf coast ph it is estimated that new new new orleans housing authority alone will lose seventy million dollars in funding this year and i mentioned this turner here in new orleans last month louise louisiana senator mary landrieu reported reportedly press concern as well i understand that section three zero two of this bill aims to make whole for fiscal year two thousand and seven the ph a's in the hurricane devastated regions of the gulf coast this is evidence that the funding formula changes the c r was a bad idea for the gulf coast p h a however as i mentioned before that the formula change was a bad idea for more than twelve hundred pages across the country my amendment simply strike section three o two and insert a new section at the end of the bill that resets the section eight funding formula for fiscal year two thousand and seven this amendment would make whole section eight funding for ph the gulf coast into many of our communities across the country in the meantime th minutes in opposition first let me repeat the point that i made earlier with regard to the gulf the there was a specific provision in this bill that hold harmless the gulf communities being made available then we'll be after this amendment of the appropriations committee what we had was some you know some administrators of public housing being told that they were going over their limit and could not spend they could not have enough money to meet their needs in other cases there were unused allocations what the appropriation did was to reallocate the is clear that it will result under this and more section eight it will result we believe in a more efficient use now there were complaints that well this will be unfair first of all it is true that there was a particular problem in the gulf and that is people said well we won't able to use our section eight because of hurricane and we should not be penalized going forward that is true we thought in the appropriations bill we had take care of that hud said well you didn't really do that so as i said before there is a specific section in this bill section three zero two i believe it is which makes it clear that this amendment is to have no negative effect on those housing authorities that lost housing because of the hurricane so that argument is completely invalid this bill fixes that piece of it then there was a question about other housing authority housing authority had used up all their funds moving money to housing authorities that we should find what we also didn't appropriation was to authorize those housing authorities that say they're going to be getting money under this to tap into their reserves which could not otherwise be used many of them have reserves this appropriation authorized them to use the reserves and as a result of that no housing authority under appropriation section will be unable to meet its second a demand they can use the reserves if they have to so what we did was to allocate under used to places that had gone up against their limit but with the protection for those that were going to have funds transfer to a way that they could access reserves that would otherwise not be accessible wasn't taken away with or that they could use for other purposes and as i said the bill itself specifically fixes the problem for the gulf and says and this is true for dade county and others that going be no impact zero impact under this bill we don't tend to that wasn't clear enough this bill makes it clear so really speaking for the overwhelming consensus of housing authorities and i don't deny there are a couple of the authorities i would rather not have had you know the way they overwhelmingly wanted this way loses almost twenty seven million dollars florida loses twenty eight thousand six hundred dollars those two states pretty much pay for it although you know alabama indiana there are some other states that take a significant but far beyond that the winners and losers it appears as if those with public housing authorities who don't spend all their money which we are we ought to at least encourage some officials they are personalized in that that money instead of being available is transferred to the housing authorities in fact massachusetts your home state ga thirty million dollars out of this so it is probably the biggest winner but just because all the public housing authorities in massachusetts are you know they overspent about thirty million dollars a year taken california and florida and getting the housing authorities there to kick in their money which and we've done this sort of without a hearing or much  consideration so i'm going i'm going to support the lady's amendment primarily because we're making a change in the katrina bill which applies to the entire united states on an issue that is not a trainer related and it changes the distribution in every state you have a dozen states or more they're going to lose money and they're housing authorities and ones that lose money are those that didn't spend all their money and i think if anything we ought encourage people to things in this bill we don't change it it's a gentleman from illinois who seeks to change it the government is confused the appropriations bill made this change the gentleman here was trying to use this bill to under what was in the appropriations bill that's right i didn't object to that but not spending second what do you think a cheaper rent it was looking some cases there aren't available units i mean section eight is not always the best way to go there are people who home home who don't want to do second aid if there's a housing shortage in the area they might be able to get better rents elsewhere or they might because the fam argument already there you know this is not an entitlement to the cities and he says well they didn't spend all the second they should be rewarded the purpose of section eight is not to reward municipalities it is to find housing  people who own many houses get second national the public housing authorities directors association that's the nationwide group of public housing says this change that was made not here but in the appropriations bill let me do a better utilization of the section eight because it says that in communities where you weren't able to use all your money we will take that and allocated to communities where they were able to use the money with the proviso that we insisted on that reserves that would otherwise not be available now understand what you're saying i just think that in some cases what we did do is you say ok we were going to change new orleans and the gulf area because they have the reserves and they can't build yet but so many of these other thing authorities are kept first of all that they can only provide so many bouncers and there is the way that it's determined how much they get is biased snapshot saying is where they can use them all but reallocate them to places which can use them that's why the public housing authorities directors association the national group says in a letter to mr robey the association has long supported a more rational  formula based on actual briefing about your costs your bill establishes the inception of such a policy and the problem is that the way we have done with section eight when some places can spend up to one hundred percent and others spend less that is in use in the next year as an argument for reducing the because if it can't be used in every place the overall amount is reduced now we do this appropriate we do this every year in things some communities it turns out that the reason they couldn't spend all the second eight t change and they can spend more we can adjust to that but we have said that when we allocate the overall amount of places where it goes back to me the notion of recapturing and moving money which can't be spent the place where it can be spent is one that my friends on the other side there is this guarantee that the reserves will be available and we do not know of any housing authority that will somehow have an inability to lease to people and they say well they're getting us money people only get less money if they can't use  people who can use it and have been able to use it will be fully fund i think the chairman in the chairman's letter january thirty first he makes note that talking about the change in the c r this allows congress to fund vouchers where the let low income people are now that we just found out that the average wage in the mexico is twenty two thousand four hundred sixty nine there are a lot of people there that fall in the capacity in the realm of section eight vouchers and with all due respect to the national letter that says it's a more rational approach let me read to you up one one of the managers of a section eight housing and it says she says it's going to be the equivalent of cutting one month's worth of boucher's to the poor needy families that she serves another one of them the mexico housing authority representative stated that one hundred families per month could lose access to vouchers and that region because of the that we're seeing in the mexico almost every single jurisdiction in the second district of the mexico got a cut under this and i will tell you that pro people still live in the mexico and they're going to be under served now because of the changes in the formula with respect to what the what previously was it was stated that some more rational approach would just these are the sorts of things that should have come out in the pay these are the things that should have been done we should've taken before we've made that change and  chairman adequately points out that the changes already been made and and we're requesting that it go back so that we can have these hearings so that we can really have a full discussion about the effects in every district with all due respect of the people who are writing these letters are not elected officials representing every single constituency and it is the voices of those people that have been silent and it's the voices of those people who have not been allowed to bring accountability end of the system and that's all of us suggesting that that she would like to send it back to the way it was so that we could consider the areas like new mexico that are being drastically affected the poor people low income people in the mexico being drastically affected without a public and full hearing and so it just seems adequate that we would gentlemen personally see no one is losing any money under this that they had previously been spending this does not cut off anybody does not remove anybody know if it's an authority was using the second age by definition  could not have cut off anybody's vouchers because it is only going after reprogramming money that went and spent and i am surprised to see what i thought was a general principle reprogramming on spending vigorously objected to i think the gentleman has a good point all we get out of the council was public airing it thought i can understand people being suspicious of them but the public housing authority direct association is nationwide it doesn't mean that everybody was in favor of it it is the overwhelming consensus of people in the second and business from housing side the owners and the managers that this improve the situation overall it was our understanding and this is why would be great to have a hearing is already standing that people would have access to the reserves so that if in fact they are then able to do a better job never able to do before a better job because it wasn't a matter of fault on the side if conditions would change and they were able to utilize more we were sure that there were the reserves them to do that i would commit to making changes if it was necessary do that i've seen no cases where people were told that they wouldn't have the reserves except those areas hit by the hurricane because they had there the argument was unusual we were unable to lease up because of the hurricane and that's why we take care of this in the bill but in other cases people are sometimes unable to use the second a for a variety of reasons mainly the rent trying up the fair market rents aren't what they should be in every case but i will certainly agree one way or the other have a hearing on this issue the germans correct that should have been done in the hearing i could at hearing last year but we didn't do a lot of housing previously in this committee but i do believe that the at this point to make another taken it would be a grave error and i think that the decision that was made in the appropriations process not particularly great but substantively based on the overwhelming consensus from housing authority directors makes sense i still await any want to show me how this is going to hurt and it took the housing authority fears of it because i think they weren't fully understood and i can  see why the hurricane affected communities had a legitimate concern i met with the people dade county and that's one of reasons why there was a specific fix in the building the general in california had anticipated that so i hope that the member is not adopted but one way or the other k actually the reason i had asked for additional time was simply to say what you think it now acknowledged and that's that we made this formula change  i guess the appropriate committee did it as opposed to the art arising committee and it wasn't as if i mean it wasn't done in the darkness of night it wasn't a clandestine thing and then you intended to help low income families but instead has been gathering dust so that money you know would be transferred housing authority but if you if you look at the breakdown  we did all this without any hearing or i don't even know there was a debate on the floor but you're looking at the amounts of money that moved around and you're right it was not this bill that changes it was a c r big losers but you get houston dallas el paso arlington and a port arthur public housing authorities under the new form of that we passed in january and with really without any notice just to spend money the rest of this year instead of starting next year they all lost money the public housing authority of new york city looks looks according to this last fifty five million dollars new york city public housing authority so i mean although there were people gaining here and there there was tremendous amounts of money going on between miami dade tampa st petersburg public housing authorities all lost money los angeles county and los angeles city lost forty seven million dollars under the new formula not not something we're doing in this bill but that is what the lady from illinois i think is trying to address in the authorizing committee which i think is the appropriate place this discussion and this committee is the first time authorizing committee has discussed this and i do thank you for your commitment to in fact last year this particular provision that was in the appropriations bill was approved by this committee there was a second a belt your amendment there was a process that the former chairman of the housing s gentleman says that they lost money no one lost money that was being used for the purposes of second eight people's allocation may have been reduced but it was an unused allocation not a penny was taken away that was being used if people were able then to use more than they were they had their reserves and everyone had adequate reserves but this suggestion that we somehow cut people of the middle is not what happened people who were in check in every community subcommittee but it was overwhelmingly supported he said by all the groups and it had passed this committee so i was responding to the notion that this had never been voted on this committee apparently people been given full attention and i agree we should look at this i don't want to see it in this bill i think it is a mistake to do that and again to make these changes we can make changes and should be as of october first and we could have hearings and work on doing this but i know this is a fact and general mention again dade county dade county  any place affected by the hurricane has been protected by this very bill that's not please keep saying that take yes for an answer we have fix that i talk to the people of a county provision because we did say yes we don't want to keep giving you money if you can spend it but in those job you know i agree with a lot of what you what you say but the problem is is that this was done in midstream this year so that there are public housing authorities who have budgeted for this year that now do not have the money i talked about the it's usually the small rural or the suburban areas where they have given out to vouchers people have not found the housing yet and so there's hundreds  opposed no no the nos have it the question now it's three o'clock and we will now take our vote on the two pending amendments  water gentleman from california will give members notice but my expectation is that we will have only the votes to do it ten o'clock tomorrow morning that will stop probably ten members want to be here anyway that seem to me after consultation with the ranking member the the best way to accommodate the members so  members having come just to vote can wait a discreet amount of time to leave phenomenal think that that's the only can they came and the rest of us the rest of us will proceed with the markup general recognizes the gentleman from texas that this amendment authorizes approximately thirty six million dollars for a new project based section eight housing vouchers to support approximately four thousand five hundred permanent supportive units these are housing units that would be fifteen only say here's where we are the general in texas was offering an amendment to do project based section eight for about two hundred million dollars i think it was and we did ask him to hold that off because that's one of the issues that we do want to address this is a moment remember it would create forty five hundred projects a section eight through the affected area the broader remember would be bought a housing policy and the problem we have a one i've alluded to before the second age don't do any good if there's no buildings to rent project based section eight as opposed to annual belters rather project based can lead to property being built because you can literally as i said take it to the bank it does not require and in fact we would hope it would be all second a good amount for a component in a mixed use operation it is subject to appropriation it should be pretty clear we have no guarantee if we want to i said that we will get it but i am struck again by such figures there are fewer than half of the rental housing units in new orleans now than they were before the storm and if everything goes back many fewer and if everything goes mississippi and louisiana if no one wants to take advantage of it and build this housing then it won't happen and of course if the appropriators don't appropriate the money won't happen but it is our view that it is not enough simply to g assistance but that we ought to do something towards increasing the number of units is far smaller than the need smaller than i would like it to be i think it recognizes budgetary responsibilities and concerns it is as i said thanks to the chairman so this is before the five hundred vouchers and obviously to go through the appropriation process this would be the appropriations for two thousand and eight two thousand and nine what would be that the we designated long number i would ask unanimous consent that we ignore the kids mistake and this is only it has no presidential value without objection the chair is temporarily vindicated and the gentleman in illinois make you so this would apply for housing only for elderly persons with disabilities or homeless persons is that correct that is correct thank you question is on the amendment talking about forty five hundred plus three thousand are we talking about forty five of the three thousand would be vouchers for louisiana and we're still talking about forty five hundred it's just that we are specifically awarding three thousand to go the others w legislation and the reason why i believe the drafting errors that in section three zero four which is what we're this amendment would strike section through for is very different from the rest of the legislation the wrest and deals with families that have been a part of public housing and the money is traditionally followed families and individuals in public housing and in section three of four the wording  change where it's returns the money follows the public housing unit and i believe this is an error i don't think it's intentional i believe it's an error in drafting and i think it would be important that replacement vouchers for all public housing units and assisted housing units that are not back brought back on line a couple of things that this legislation does that i think is appropriate is trying to find out the number of individuals that will come back to louisiana and new orleans in particular after the katrina disaster a recent washington post kaiser and harvard survey of evacuees and and houston's emergency shelters underscores the fact that a large portion of these displaced individuals will not return to their communities according to that survey forty four percent of x wesen shelters in the houston area said they would not return to the louisiana roughly roughly half of those that evacuated  the city went to houston so this is a large number whilst not completely representative and and while i also agree with the chairman that finding the number that were returned to new orleans is very important i think we should make sure that the money follows the individual and that we don't simply send it to a public housing agency for instance if if this section were not omitted from the bill if my memory is not adopted if is closed down because the landlord was delinquents and the building was unlivable only a few tents let's say were occupying it before that that occurred hud would be required to provide vouchers for each of those units in the total totality of the building whether or not they're occupied or not even the units that that had never been occupied and so i think this is a positive thing and and a corrective measure that i  absolutely had a policy to replace the damaged a lost unit and that policy somehow got changed in her we are now in a situation where we have lost a lot of units eight eleven disabled two zero two elderly project based section eight and we place the language in this bill precisely as we believe it should be that we should be replacing the hewitt if we do not replace these units then both families will have no place to live they just will have no place to use the section eight they will have no places and as we have taken a look at what was attempted  before by mr green trying to deal with the disabled and the elderly the reason for that amendment was the fact that we have lost so many units and it's desperately need it because many of the elderly who will not be able to replace homes that perhaps they all and they will need to have some units available to them and this would ensure that the actual unit in reference to the two thousand units that were vacant and subject to being torn down and what you're saying is those those valves should be taken off the table because those units weren't  subject for replacement at that particular point time and so you're just talking about keeping vouchers for what was the net housing at the time of the trina disaster yes in part that's part of what we're considering for years you know five six seven years had a waiting list and that was just been ignored period we believe that in addition to all of those people who are waiting to come back who lived in public housing units that there are many people on temporary vouchers who were displaced who were on that waiting list that would like to be returned to some kind of a unit so we cannot use the numbers that are available to us of simply those units that were in use that were occupied we have to take into consideration that there were waiting lists that were just ignored there was boarded up housing that have been boarded up for years that supposedly was going to be part of of a redevelopment that did not get done and people are so desperate for places to come back so that they can have some of the jobs that will be available is this think are going to happen in the future and in fact when i was down there they had units available and nobody was having to make ready those units over and over and over again because they weren't having anybody into those units in so i think what's appropriate is to come up with it and i think that's where the germans headed not get his comments is coming upon a reasonable amount of replacement values until we see you know we're all this is is  to answer the gentleman's question will yield money should follow the individual not the housing unit and as you pointed out housing units public housing units were available pre  and as a result so they were well thank thank you generally for interrupting but it's not my time to control if the public housing in new orleans were entirely full at one hundred percent capacity then that would be a different issue but i would certainly say that even in that situation if you had people on waiting lists the money should follow those individuals not simply public housing units and if there were one vacancy in new orleans and all you're doing is trying to supplement your budget with additional funds based on units not individuals and i think the better public policy which we've tried to put in place are a last two generations is allow the money to were not giving the people of new orleans enough we are now going to giving them too much about where is mama bear when i need her it's either too hot or too cold too short or too tall apparently we can never be just right but i'll try not be too sensitive the fact is that yes the general is exactly what you were trying to restore us about but now we're being told that we're giving them too many values let me point out one of things about the values which was what was at the base of the c r s bankers do not get spent the money is not spent if they are not needed if we have in fact exaggerated the need for value that money will go back and not be spent that's that's exactly right that is one thing about bankers is they do not come with subpoena power no one has ever been drafted into taking about you if the speculation is right that we are offering here more about you than are needed they will go on you people who don't want to have been that housing won't live in the housing have is this a change in policy for us to to allocate based on units in the marketplace or is it the same policy about it but let me say first i would think the question is a balance for this reason we make policy so is it should change in policy it is that we want to be i would secondly say it's definitional whether it is written policy but the question seems to be misplaced for this reason if you are an administrator trying to interpret the law if you're in court arguing the law then the question about whether or not a change of policy is relevant but we make the policy so it would only do prefer a question is this a change in precedents as as an attorney you know much more about precedence and i do as a real i do and i was a gentleman the first thing i know about precedent is their absolute and complete irrelevance to the legislative process precedent spined judges they do not bind legislative i'm curious for a further question i know not what the general will sit still for the answer to his first two questions and the answer is i think that makes the point we make policy we decide what's right and what's wrong that's we are the ultimate decider sometimes frankly that's harder it's easier to say well what is president what is this i do say it's deem a question irrelevant when he loses on said question well never having been a trial lawyer i don't know if the gentleman is implying that i was the argument because it wasn't precedent that's just irrelevant as i said again i have been doing that we are not here dealing with present and i have to say i'm particularly surprised that someone who was i understood had come here as a conservative determined to change some things that were wrong would be so scandalised at the thought of precedent where i thought you were a change agent i thought you wanted to make things different and now i'm told that the gentleman is intimidated if it's unprecedented i would argue gentlemen  once the shackles of ages past i would argue gentlemen to be more radical in his approach do not feel in cumbered by those who have gone before you or we only about those who are going to come after you is there any further discussion on the subject if not the question is about i would urge the gentleman not take any of that advice not be replaced in short this this will permit one for one replacement of the units that were occupied by public housing residents at the time of the two thousand and five storms and their replacement units include public housing units as well as project based assistance as is proposed in the bill i think this amendment is estimated to reduce the cost of the bill by four hundred million dollars which is the cost of replacing public housing units that were vacant when the two thousand storm hit should i would oppose this amendment first of all i think there's been several times that i've alluded to the fact that there were boarded up units and but there were waiting  list it's not that these units were not needed hard are the local housing authority somebody made a decision that they supposedly were going to redevelop adventure units stayed boarded up for years the stories are rampant in louisiana about the way housing units and the question of new developments have taken place for example the story that we heard over and over a crack in just divert from the cement it  same thomas housing development that was torn down and people were promised that when they turned that down they would be able to get units in the new development that they would do the new development i think units that would be a bailable despite the fact there's a great demand we should not look at this in terms of the units that were closed up that were  supposedly in waiting for the new development that we have discovered is that kind of mismanagement brown many of these housing authorities these housing developments because in addition to our lack of maintenance and then boarding them up they're waiting for so called repairs that never get done then you also have the case of this promise redevelopment which means that you taken them off the market for poor people to use and they never ever get back so i would oppose this amendment because i am not supportive of reducing housing that the five thousand one hundred sixty five units that were occupied in the two thousand that were slated for demolition and redevelopment so it really is in total seven thousand units it's not all over the the gulf happening in louisiana before i mean i don't know if you say if there were people on the waiting list yes that's a valid argument my question to you and i'm just not maybe so much of this amendment but has are been a orleans what we know is that hud did have to step in and take over the management but we also know that there are those who are saying that it should be judicial management our review  and i don't know if a lawsuit has been filed to that question but i do know that i have had all this is not in charge of them now that hurt supposedly is everything is in a state of flux w we would like to do is stabilize this public housing in new orleans by first getting people back into rehab units and we're talking about a small number relatively three thousand units then we're talking about coming up with a plan this plan would have a hard to at the helm with the housing resident included and the city of new all it should be involved in that we're not saying and we don't attempt to direct in this bill in any way whether there should be redevelopment or not whether there should be shrinkage are not we do say that you should always have one to one replacement but we're not trying to dictate how all of this gets done we're saying let's not sit here in washington d c and decide that that given the catastrophe given the disaster given the crises let's stop that some people are back in get your plan together and do the replacement and not decide here in washington how would you go back to your position i recognize myself for five minutes to oppose the amendment as i understand it what it says is and i apologize if i'm to be called of housing in the country as a whole i believe i think it's been well documented that means there are people paying far too much for right given what they should have available for other purposes that shortage was greatly exacerbated in new orleans by this unprecedented storm which destroyed so many rental units and while there were programs to restore homes that were destroyed etc that were owned i want to also do something units for low income people before you have replaced them is one that seems to me central if we are serious about dealing with the housing crisis i believe this amendment would impinge negatively on that and therefore i am opposed to it as a further discussion on the but one thing that i think has troubled us is this idea of repairing these units as opposed to replacing them because you know there has been bill were apparently going to require that those be repaired and some of them are probably very open and i'm just wondering if there is not more as we move from the floor and i anticipate that this amendment may be defeated but if we move towards the floor i would hope that we'll revisit this if there were official way to construct these units as opposed to repairing very old living in a state of temporary existence to write that a six years and when the people of new orleans have already had this experience with her with i have no where they have waited ten years even a some have died before the units were rebuilt to ask them to do this it is not unreasonable to ask that a small number of units be rehabbed and people are allowed to come back to those units and not only that let me interject here that the mayor came to us and told us that if he could work out something where it hard to release one thousand of those un that they need to rebuild new orleans he would even do that so when you think about that need that the mare's are down about the eighty thousand people who are on waiting lists the thousands who are out there and other cities who want to come back we're talking about an emergency situation where repairs make absolutely good sense again let me remind you we're not deciding that maybe there won't be redevelopment in the future what we're saying is don't ask people to wait five to ten years in order to get a new unit they deserve the right to be able to return and return now  on or take back my time and today i do think it is unreasonable to ask people to wait five or six years obviously that's not a very practical thing to do as the chairman has said there is a lack of affordable housing for low income residents so it's not aren't with these amendments to exasperate that situation as of late he says has been well documented reported and we've heard testimony before this committee there have been promises made to the poor people of new orleans in the past that have not been and so there is a there is a high degree of mistrust and a skepticism as would be in and maybe there's confusion here i don't think that we were many meaning to set a floor and i would like to ask the council paul callan if he could clarify what what this says  in saying that the total number of public housing units that is sufficient to meet the needs for occupancy demonstrated by the report on the survey council will be recognized them and requires a number of housing units sufficient to think that there are people that have won't be able to be reached there you know there's all kinds of problems but i think and we won't know because there are people that you know by the time we get to you know we've been eighteen months now that have  think the problem we have is if we're only going by the survey and i mean i think we were thinking this thing through and it's emergency bill then there are people that are there too to construct their new residence or people not just wishing to return there are other people in need of of housing in new orleans and the lack of that housing is retarding the recovery  h i'll tell you i think what we're doing here i don't disagree that you have to have a certain amount of housing stock to begin degree grow that community but what we know is that there are three or four hundred units for rotten nail that are available in that community ready to rent key ready as they see it that are not occupied the second worst disaster to hit new orleans is if you we make this bill force those housing authorities to go back and refurbish those units on a one to one basis because it will be throwing good taxpayer money after bad there were several people there that are vising the city and advising the state and they've said it would be a criminal to rebuild are to refurbish some of these units and i was in those units and i've been in the housing business i was a home builder i remodeled i know what it takes to take a unit like those some of those units and bring them now you tell me how that's good public policy to go take american taxpayer dollars and put those in back in that kind of housing we ought to come up with a number that's reasonable have a set of housing available at any given time in the demand in the marketplace is going to determine the level of recovery in the level of housing that we need to whether we're going to use these vouchers as the chairman of satan and whether these these units are going to be occupied but if we in this bill force the housing authority to go back and repair and spend a substantial amount of money let me tell you it feels like a substantial amount of money to bring those up to where they're habitable we will have created the second worst disaster for new orleans  representatives whether or not they had a relocation policy they evacuated people at that there's no real policy about helping people to get back we ask about people who were asked to leave their units they left everything if you walk into some of those units the pants the closing the shoes everything was left there and really hard to has not come up with a way by which to assist people to get back to units they want to come back to know i had done the kind of management to determine whether or not those units should be rehabbed in relationship to the circumstances of people now find themselves in with some kids in road who will say i need thirty days or sixty days to get back so it's all a matter of management it is not the fault of the people who were evacuated who were asked to leave everything who want to return to simply be told that there may not you may not return now or you can return to a nother unit outside of public housing units that have already been rehabbed that we want you to return within ten days of five days or fifteen days without understanding how the people are to do this so they need to have a management plan by which to have people come back to these units that they would like to return to as far units that's a totally are there that are not in the public housing projects themselves but supposedly off site somewhere which i developed a way by which to connect the people with those units so i would ask first speaker that number one we don't reduce the number of units using the number of units that were  occupied pre katrina but rather we keep in mind that the remembrances units must be rebalanced and we have an agreement from the head that that's about the right number based on what they know that three thousand and if the survey comes back with more then we should revisit that for more units if it comes back for less then they can lease up to the city who wants to have a thousand units for workers fill up some of those units with people who are in the waiting list waiting to get in is it further discussion give them a reason i thank the chair and i want to express appreciation to the gentle lady from california for her good work and and intentions on this matter to ensure that people who need access to housing habit i can speak to this free could trina i don't think it's any secret that the new orleans housing authority was clearly by a wide margin the worst in the entire nation failed to receive passing grades from management on a number of issues over a multiplicity of years and had actually been taken over by a good i know from some members perspectives that created a problem with hurt as an outsider trying to run a public housing operation its basic form suggests the conduct of a survey to determine the willingness of people to return pre code training it was always my hope that we would have a mixed use public housing project  meaning not only moderate income folks but people who were employed in the community working with any number of locations training to provide education for those without skills and other words public housing that gave people real opportunity as opposed to what was presented in new orleans prior to katrina's landfall which was worse than deplorable i've been in the unit where everything in the building it was  stolen and i'm talking down to the steel beams that supported the structure and the only element that was left was the tile because it was as best a floor tile and apparently there was sufficient skill level to know that it was asbestos and so it was not taken and so i can't in good conscience say to my colleagues that's the kind of circumstance we should put grandmothers in i walked in a unit elated had no idea who i was and this is ten years ago she brought me  facilities and asking what can be done to help you here she says you see that crack above the tub there i would like to have somebody fill that up because when the evenings when i take a bath bugs crawl through that opening into my  never forgotten that light and i don't know how we fix this problem but i've got to tell you it is deplorable it is inexcusable and it will take the rash and work of this committee to come to a proper conclusion really was going to try to stay out of this i had no intention of getting caught up in this fight i wanted the committee to do its work but i would strongly recommend mr chairman that we your suggestion of the study to go forward let's determine how many people are demonstrating a willingness to come back we have a limited pot of resources let's give them the best possible environment in which to raise their kids and if it means we have a few less units but we have really quality units that provide somebody a life opportunity that's what we want and i can't say whether the figure six thousand five thousand i don't know all i can tell you is as a sincere representative of this community i don't know that we have the capacity today to make a politically decision that will serve those residents well going forward i'm for what works and i just don't know what that is right now doing your i'll be happy and i've been pretty much in the most profound sense to work with a gentleman since this terrible crisis and we have been together more often than not but i do think there may be some difference here and i appreciate what he's saying i would say two things first of all the desirability of these units in the new orleans housing authority has probably increased as a result of if there was a strictly limited amount of money we would have to choose but that's what i disagree with this is too rich country spending too much money also i lost an amendment last summer trying to not spend money to go to mars have got a war that many of us disagree with that spends enormous amounts of money we have expenditures in a lot of ways i would say to the development we ought not to put the people in the test where either you get the that our friend from texas offered that we adopted that will make that possible but we are saying in the interim let's keep some of these units now we may be erring like we have been correctly said we have to err for once can this you i don't dispute that there will be error made and that it's difficult to know exactly what the right conclusion should be reached all i'm really suggesting is let's let's engage in this survey process it can be a short period let's try to get some analytical is that help guide us and then take the resources we have in deployed and i do not oppose the reconstruction of some of these units i do think we should be very careful in rebuilding on some of the site merely building in their location prejudices the people who live there as for example tracts of property under its control that are much more desirable than what we currently have we can move to those sites in fact that's why it was created was to manage those disparate properties there might be a way to get where we all want to go and i  don't wish to be argumentative i truly want to be helpful but i'm not sure that forging ahead as we intend today is the right way to go and i'd be happy to yield to the lady from california yes that is raw number spill we talked about taking care of the crisis now with a limited number of units rehabbed and then had the residents the city you guys get involved in applauding process because all agree with you does are is out in the middle of nowhere with no commerce no grocery stores no cleaners nothing just building springing up probably ground slabs and it doesn't make good sense we hope that you will have a planning process hopes that that this will be kept in mind that we will look at the survey and make the determination very carefully and remember that we have dollars that need to be physically spent well release time and again cases arise of individuals or companies from other states who flew open to dissatisfied zones with the expectation of hiring cheap labor they enter into contracts with federal disaster relief recipients that require a significant down payment and then leave without finishing the job because they can obtain the labor supplies or other necessary resources and they leave with the down payments in their pocket on a large scale the speculative contracting behavior  inflates the federal costs associated with recovery during a time of emergency our resources are stretched including state law enforcement and attorneys oftentimes these instance occurs without official to these incidents occurred without official due process because the affected emergency zone does not have the capacity or the ability to properly pursue the case injective injection of federal law enforcement resources in times of disaster would make the threat of detection and prosecution more credible even to small scale fly by night contractors my amendment requires a contractor to verify that he has present access to existing resources sufficient to complete the work contemplated or for accepting any monies from a resident of a federal disaster zone and connection there will prove that a contractor accepted payment from a resident of a disaster zone without processing out equipped without possessing adequate access to existing resources would constitute legally sufficient evidence of intent to defraud unless disproved this provision would force contractors to take responsibility for ensuring their current ability to perform before they do business in a disaster zone rather than speculating about the condition hundreds or maybe even thousands of miles away contractor should not be able to take victims money skip town when it becomes apparent that they can't do the job and subsequently escape prosecution for fraud by claiming good faith or even simple negligence my man man helps consumers going through the vast and times have access to federal judicial resources and ensure a strong  insurers another strong mechanism for protecting taxpayer dollars and i would yell back to balance my time dealing with your one hour just on the point of water the amendment has a criminal penalty and this committee has no jurisdiction over criminal penalties that fall under the house rules under the goodish so without any regard to the merits we cannot enact criminal penalties i would be willing to join in a letter from the bills go through more than one committee yes they do but not when we have something that is the thrust of this is the other committee the main purpose of this board in contracting if creating a set of permanent belcher's as replacements and listening to the debate it occurred to begin with california myself that that was further than was appropriate for this limited purpose so what this amendment  when those individuals a robot eligible for the program or die or move into some other program developed and that is it makes them disappearing about kids rather than an additional permanent lead to the about the stock so as i said if i have been facing rightfully so with the many problems that continue to exist in the gulf coast area but i thought we should also take a moment and include in this legislation a recognition of the work that has gone before to address many of the problems that we have already discussed here today and to recognize the thousands of volunteers throughout this country who have basically selflessly lent their time to try and help to rebuild on their own without government systems or otherwise these devastated areas of the gulf coast these included community groups faith based groups organizations charities you know my local organizations where i've come from have been down there in churches and what have you to date over half a million americans a volunteer their time in helping to rebuild the gulf coast region and the aftermath of katrina green have billion dollars in cash and in kind donations have been donated to hurricane victims forty million pounds of food it's tributed by catholic charities and elsewhere  seven million hot meals by itself they should army and the list goes on twenty thousand displaced families have been supportive i travel a volunteer hours and as i mentioned faith based organizations that such as jewish family services lutheran disaster response united methodist committee and press gentleman is recognized for up to five minutes and i will just limited to twenty seconds simply to say that this amendment deals with the issues that we've discussed on both sides the aisle to try to pry for accountability for the funds that are currently and will be used in the future and in essence what we're doing here is to for provide for quarterly g a o require quarterly g a o reports as those monies are distributed and i will yield i think you don't have my correct a gentleman had spoken to gayo and the quarterly was something they thought they exactly five minutes it's my understanding majority intends to accept this amendment then this is a very important amendment what the theme and that would do is simply make the permanent disaster voucher program subject to appropriation